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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Children of Alsace, by René Bazin
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Children of Alsace
+       Les Oberlés
+
+Author: René Bazin
+
+Release Date: January 14, 2011 [EBook #34957]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CHILDREN OF ALSACE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Hélčne de Mink and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+   Transcriber's note:
+   Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document
+   have been preserved. Obvious typographical errors have been
+   corrected, see the small list of corrections at the end of this
+   e_book.
+
+
+
+
+   THE CHILDREN OF ALSACE
+
+
+
+
+   THE
+   CHILDREN OF ALSACE
+   (_LES OBERLÉS_)
+
+   BY
+
+   RENÉ BAZIN
+
+   AUTHOR OF "THE NUN," "REDEMPTION," ETC.
+
+   _WITH A PREFACE_
+   BY
+   DR. ANGELO S. RAPPOPORT
+
+   NEW YORK
+   JOHN LANE COMPANY
+   MCMXII
+
+
+
+
+PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+René Bazin is already known to the English public as a writer of
+exquisite charm and wonderful sensibility. "The Nun," "Redemption,"
+and "This My Son" have revealed his powers to appreciative readers.
+Bazin is not only an original writer, a charming story-teller, but
+also a deep thinker, a clear delineator of human character and life,
+a wonderful landscape-painter, and a bold realist. For it is real
+life, humble, poignant, palpitating, which we meet in his stories.
+Life, full of misery and suffering, but also of pity and charity, of
+self-sacrifice and heroic traits. Bazin is a passionate admirer of
+Nature, and this admiration and love manifest themselves in his
+preference for pastoral and rural scenes, and his description of
+nature and peasant life.
+
+Nature and climate, M. Bazin thinks, exercise a paramount influence
+upon the soul, and produce deep and permanent impressions.
+
+But in none of his books has he laid so much stress upon this
+mysterious influence of a country upon the soul of its inhabitants
+as in "Les Oberlés," which is now placed before English readers
+under the title of "The Children of Alsace." For it is the country
+of Alsace, with her woes and sorrows and sufferings, her
+aspirations and hopes and dreams, which speaks to us through the
+mouth of Jean Oberlé, the hero, who mysteriously feels the influence
+of soil upon his soul, and is drawn to France, since Alsace is
+sighing under the German yoke, and her weeping soul has fled to
+France, there to wait the day of delivery and freedom!
+
+"Les Oberlés," or "The Children of Alsace," possesses all the
+elements necessary for a real drama, for a great tragedy, namely,
+the clash of conflicting passions, emotions, and duties. And these
+conflicting passions arise where one has a right to expect peace and
+goodwill. The author introduces us to a divided family, and we see
+the husband rise against his wife, the son against his father, and
+the brother against the sister. Their different modes of thinking
+and of feeling, their ambitions and dreams, turn these beings,
+united by the ties of blood, into enemies. But "Les Oberlés" is not
+only a family drama, tragic, irreparable, but also depicts the love
+of the native soil, a love almost physical, in conflict with the
+love for the Greater Fatherland. It also shows the clash of two
+civilisations, the Latin and the Teuton, which for forty years have
+now been waging war on the soil of conquered Alsace.
+
+All these elements make "Les Oberlés" a really tragic novel--a novel
+full of dramatic incidents, of poignant scenes, but also full of
+life and love.
+
+   A. S. RAPPOPORT.
+
+   LONDON,
+   _November 1911_.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+   CHAPTER I
+                                         PAGE
+
+   A FEBRUARY NIGHT IN ALSACE               9
+
+   CHAPTER II
+
+   THE EXAMINATION                         36
+
+   CHAPTER III
+
+   THE FIRST FAMILY MEETING                55
+
+   CHAPTER IV
+
+   THE GUARDIANS OF THE HEARTH             75
+
+   CHAPTER V
+
+   COMPANIONS OF THE ROAD                  88
+
+   CHAPTER VI
+
+   THE FRONTIER                           102
+
+   CHAPTER VII
+
+   THE EASTER VIGIL                       112
+
+   CHAPTER VIII
+
+   AT CAROLIS                             137
+
+   CHAPTER IX
+
+   THE MEETING                            150
+
+   CHAPTER X
+
+   THE DINNER AT THE BRAUSIGS'            163
+
+   CHAPTER XI
+
+   IN SUSPENSE                            180
+
+   CHAPTER XII
+
+   THE HOP-PICKING                        184
+
+   CHAPTER XIII
+
+   THE RAMPARTS OF OBERNAI                216
+
+   CHAPTER XIV
+
+   THE LAST EVENING                       232
+
+   CHAPTER XV
+
+   JOINING THE REGIMENT                   238
+
+   CHAPTER XVI
+
+   IN THE FOREST OF THE MINIČRES          255
+
+
+
+
+   THE
+   CHILDREN OF ALSACE
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+A FEBRUARY NIGHT IN ALSACE
+
+
+The moon was rising above the mists of the Rhine. A man who was
+coming down from the Vosges by a path--a good sportsman and great
+walker whom nothing escaped--had just caught sight of her through
+the slope of forest trees. Then he at once stepped into the shadow
+of the plantations. But this single glance through the opening, at
+the night growing more and more luminous, was sufficient to make him
+realise afresh the natural beauty amidst which he lived. The man
+trembled with delight. The weather was cold and calm--a slight mist
+rose from the hollows. It did not bring with it yet the scent of
+jonquils and wild strawberries, but only that other perfume which
+has no name and no season--the perfume of rosin, of dead leaves, of
+grass once again grown green, of bark raised on the fresh skin of
+the trees, and the breath of that everlasting flower which is the
+forest moss. The traveller breathed in this smell which he loved; he
+drank it in great draughts, with open mouth, for more than ten
+strides, and although accustomed to this nocturnal festival of the
+forest, to these lights of heaven, to these perfumes of earth, to
+these rustlings of silent life, he said aloud: "Bravo, Winter!
+Bravo, the Vosges! They have not been able to spoil you." And he put
+his stick under his arm in order to make still less noise on the
+sand and pine-needles of the winding path. Then turning his head:
+
+"Carefully, Fidčle, good friend. It is too beautiful."
+
+Three steps behind him trotted a spaniel, long-limbed and lean, with
+a nose like a greyhound, who seemed quite grey, but who by daylight
+was a mixture of fire-and-coffee-and-milk colour, with fringes of
+soft hair marking the outline of his paws, belly, and tail. The
+beast seemed to understand his master, for he followed him without
+making any more noise than the moon made in passing over the tops of
+the pine-trees.
+
+Soon the moonlight pierced through the branches; breaking up the
+shade or sweeping it away from the open spaces, it spread out across
+the slopes, enveloped the trunks of trees, or studded them with
+stars, and quite cold, formless, and blue, created out of these same
+trees a new forest, which daylight never knew. It was an immense
+creation--quick and enchanting. It took but ten minutes. Not a
+tremor foretold it. M. Ulrich Biehler continued his downward path, a
+prey to growing emotion, stooping sometimes to get a better view of
+the undergrowth, sometimes bending over the ravines with beating
+heart, but watching with head erect, like the roebucks when about to
+leave the valleys for the upland pastures.
+
+This enthusiastic traveller, still young in mind, was, however, not
+a young man. M. Ulrich Biehler, called M. Ulrich throughout the
+countryside, was sixty years old, and his hair and beard, almost
+white, proclaimed his age; but there had been more of the sap of
+youth in him than in most, just as some possess more bravery or more
+beauty, and something of this youthfulness he had retained. He lived
+in the middle of the mountain of Sainte Odile, exactly twelve
+hundred feet in the air, in a forest-house without any pretension
+to architecture, and without lands of any sort except the sloping
+meadow on which it stood, and at the back was a very small orchard,
+ravaged periodically by hard winters. He had remained faithful to
+this house, inherited from his father, who had bought it for a
+holiday residence only, and here he spent the whole year alone,
+although his friends, like his lands, were plentiful in the plains.
+He was not shy of men, but he did not like to give up his own way of
+living, consequently there were some fanciful stories told about
+him. They said that in 1870 he had gone through the whole campaign
+wearing a silver helmet, from the crest of which hung, instead of
+horsehair, the hair of a woman. No one could say if this legend were
+history. But twenty good people from the plains of Alsace could
+affirm that there was not among the French Dragoons a more
+indefatigable horseman, a bolder scout, a more tender companion in
+misery, or one more forgetful of his own suffering, than M. Ulrich,
+proprietor of Heidenbruch, in the mountain of Sainte Odile.
+
+He had remained French under German rule. That was at once his joy
+and the cause of the many difficulties which he tried to surmount or
+to endure as a set-off for the favour they showed him in allowing
+him to breathe the air of Alsace. He knew how to make himself
+respected in the rôle of a man vanquished, tolerated, and watched.
+There must be no concession which would show forgetfulness of the
+dear French country, but there must be no provocation; he had no
+taste for useless demonstration. M. Ulrich travelled much in the
+Vosges, where he possessed forests here and there, which he looked
+after himself. His woods had the reputation of being among the best
+managed in Lower Alsace. His house, shut up for thirty years because
+of mourning, had, however, a reputation for comfort and refinement.
+The few persons, French or Alsatians, who had crossed the threshold
+spoke of the graciousness of the host and the art with which he made
+his guests welcome. Above all, the peasants loved him, those who had
+gone through the war with him, and even their sons, who took off
+their hats when M. Ulrich appeared at the corner of their vineyard
+or of their lucerne-field.
+
+They recognised him a long way off because of his slim, tall figure
+and his habit of wearing only light clothes, which he bought in
+Paris, and invariably chose in shades of brown, varying from the
+dark brown of the walnut to the light brown of the oak. His pointed
+beard, very well kept, added length to a face which had but little
+colour and few wrinkles; his mouth smiled readily under his
+moustaches, and his prominent nose, with its fine outline, showed
+purity of race; his kind, intelligent grey eyes would quickly become
+haughty and defiant if one spoke of Alsace; and the wide brow, which
+imparted a touch of dreaminess to this face of a fighting man,
+seemed larger still because of two bare patches extending into the
+thick growth of stiff short hairs.
+
+Now, on this particular evening M. Ulrich had returned from visiting
+the wood-cutting going on in the mountains of the Valley of the
+Bruche, and his servants were not expecting him to go out again,
+when after dinner he said to his servant, the old Lisa, who was
+waiting at table:
+
+"My nephew, Jean, arrives to-night at Alsheim, and no doubt if I
+waited till to-morrow I should see him here, but I prefer to see him
+down there, and to-night. So I am starting. Leave the key under the
+door, and go to bed."
+
+He had immediately whistled for Fidčle, taken his stick and gone
+down the path, which entered the wood at some fifty paces below
+Heidenbruch. M. Ulrich was clad, according to his custom, in a loose
+coat and trousers of dead-leaf colour and a velvet shooting-cap. He
+walked quickly, and in less than half an hour he found himself at a
+place where the path joined a wider alley, made for pedestrians and
+for the pilgrims of Sainte Odile. The place was mentioned in the
+guide-books, because for a hundred yards one could look down on the
+course of a swift stream which lower down the plain flowed through
+the village of Alsheim; and especially because in an opening of the
+ravine in the angle formed by two slopes of the mountains, one could
+see, in daylight, a corner of Alsace--villages, fields, meadows--and
+very far away a vague streak of silver, which was the Rhine, and
+beyond that the mountains of the Black Forest--blue as flax and
+rounded as the loops of a garland. In spite of the night, which
+limited his vision, M. Ulrich, on arriving in the alley, looked in
+front of him, through force of habit, but saw only a triangle of
+steel-coloured darkness in the upper part of which real stars shone,
+and lower down gleamed luminous points the same size as the stars,
+lightly veiled and surrounded with a halo--the lamps and candles of
+the village of Alsheim. The traveller thought of his nephew, whom he
+was presently to embrace, and asked himself: "Whom am I going to
+find? What has he become after three years' absence, and three years
+in Germany?"
+
+It was only a momentary pause. M. Ulrich crossed the alley, and
+wishing to go the shortest way, passed under the branches of a
+forest of great beech-trees, which sloped steeply down towards a fir
+plantation, where he could regain the road. Some dead leaves still
+trembled at the ends of the lower branches, but the greater number
+had fallen on those of the preceding year. They had not left an inch
+of the soil uncovered, and as thin as silk themselves, and quite
+pale, they looked like a pavement of extremely smooth light-coloured
+flagstones: the trunks, marbled with moss, regular as columns, rose
+to a great height at the top, very high up, the tips leant towards
+each other, and their tenuous branches touched each other, outlined
+the arch, and let the light pass through. A few bushes broke the
+harmony of the lines. About a hundred yards lower down, the barrier
+of green trees seemed to form the solid wall of this ruined
+cathedral.
+
+Suddenly M. Ulrich heard a slight noise, which another man would
+probably not have noticed: it was in front of him, among the green
+firs towards which he was advancing. It was the sound of a stone
+rolling down the slopes, faster and faster, striking against
+obstacles and rebounding. The noise grew fainter and fainter and
+ended with a detonation, sharply distinct, which proved that the
+stone had reached the pebbly bottom of the hollow and split. The
+forest had again become silent, when a second stone, much smaller
+still, to judge by the sound it called forth, also began to roll
+along in the shadow. At the same time the dog's hair stood up, and
+he came back growling to his master.
+
+"Be quiet, Fidčle," he said. "They must not see me!"
+
+M. Ulrich thrust himself behind the trunk of a tree, understanding
+that a living being was coming up across the wood, and guessing who
+was going to appear. Indeed, making a hole in the black curtain of
+pine-trees, he now saw the head, the two forelegs, and soon the
+whole body of a horse. A white, hurried breath escaped from its
+nostrils and smoked in the darkness. The animal was making immense
+efforts to climb the steep slope. With straining muscles its
+forefeet doubled up like hooks, its belly all but on the ground, it
+advanced by jerks, but almost noiselessly, sinking into the moss and
+the thick mass of vegetation heaped on the soil, and hardly
+displacing anything but the leaves, which slipped one over the other
+with a murmur as of dropping water. It carried a pale-blue horseman
+bending over the animal's neck and shoulders, and holding his lance
+almost horizontally, as if an enemy were near. The breath of the man
+mingled with the breath of the horse in the cold night air. They
+advanced, showing by their bearing the difficulty of the upward
+struggle. Soon the traveller distinguished the yellow cord on the
+rider's tunic, the black boots beneath the dark breeches, the
+straight sword hanging at the saddle-bow, and he recognised a
+horseman of the regiment of Rhenish Hussars garrisoned at Strasburg;
+then nearer still he was able to distinguish on the black-and-white
+flag of the lance a yellow eagle, indicating a non-commissioned
+officer; he saw under the flat cap a beardless face, ruddy and
+perspiring, with red-brown, fierce and restless eyes, a face
+buffeted by the horse's mane in motion, and frequently turning to
+the right, and he named under his breath Gottfried Hamm,
+quartermaster in the Rhenish Hussars, and son of Hamm the
+police-constable of Obernai. The man passed by, brushing against the
+tree behind which M. Ulrich was hiding; the shadow of his body and
+of his horse stretched across the feet of the Alsatian and on to the
+neighbouring moss: they left in their wake an odour of harness and
+of perspiration.
+
+At the moment when he passed the tree he turned his head again
+towards the right. M. Ulrich looked in the same direction, which was
+where the greatest length of the beech-wood could be seen. Thirty
+yards farther on he discovered a second horseman coming up the same
+track, then a third, who had become no more than a grey silhouette
+between the columns of beech-trees and then, judging by the shadowy
+movements, farther on still, he divined that there were other
+soldiers and other horses climbing the mountain. Suddenly there was
+a flash in the depths of the wood, as if a glowworm were flying by.
+It was an order. All the men took one step to the right, and,
+forming in single file, silently, without uttering a word,
+continued their mysterious manoeuvre. The shadows moved for an
+instant in the depths of the forest; the murmur of crushed and
+falling leaves became more and more indistinct, then ceased, and the
+night seemed once more to be empty of life.
+
+"A formidable enemy," said M. Ulrich half aloud, "who is kept in
+training day and night! There was certainly an officer down there on
+the path. It was in his direction they were all looking. He raised
+his sword, bright in the moonlight, and those nearest saw it. They
+all turned. How little noise they made! All the same, I could have
+finished off two of them--if we had been at war."
+
+Then, noticing that his dog was now quietly looking at him with nose
+in air and tail wagging, he added:
+
+"Yes, yes, they are gone. You don't like them any more than I do."
+
+Before continuing his way, he waited to make sure that the Hussars
+would not return in his direction. He did not like meeting German
+soldiers. These encountered hurt the sore and suspicious pride of
+the conquered man; they hurt him through his fidelity to
+France--through his love, which always dreaded a new war--a war, the
+date of which he saw with astonishment recede and recede. He would
+sometimes go a long way round in order to avoid a troop on the march
+on the high roads. Why had those Hussars come to disturb his descent
+to Alsheim? Always these manoeuvres, always this thought of the West
+away down there, to which they clung with such tenacity; always this
+beast of prey who prowls supple and agile on the summit of the
+Vosges, and who watches the moment for descending.
+
+M. Ulrich went down the beech-wood slopes, his head bent, his mind
+full of sad memories, which a word had been sufficient to call
+up--less than a word even--for alas! mingled with them, and ready to
+rise again out of the past, was all the youth of the man. He was
+careful to make no noise, keeping his dog behind him, and not
+caressing him when the poor beast rubbed his nose against his
+master's hand as if to say, "What is the matter then? Are they not
+gone?"
+
+In a quarter of an hour, by the wider road which he re-entered at
+the end of the beech-wood, M. Ulrich gained the edge of the forest.
+A cooler, stronger breeze blew through the oak and hazel copses
+which bordered the plain. He stopped and listened towards the right,
+saying, with a displeased shrug of the shoulders:
+
+"That is how they will come back! Not a soul will have heard them!
+For the moment let us forget them and go and say 'How do you do?' to
+Jean Oberlé."
+
+M. Ulrich went down a last bit of short, steep path. A few more
+steps and the screens of undergrowth and brushwood which hid the
+view were passed. He saw the entire sky unveiled, and below him, in
+front, to the left and to the right, something of a softer, more
+misty blue, the land of Alsace. The smell of the fields and of
+plants wet with the dew, rose from the soil like a harvest of the
+night. The wind wafted it, the cold wind, the familiar passer-by on
+this plain, the vagabond companion of the Rhine. One could
+distinguish no detail in the shadow where Alsace slept, except at a
+distance of a few hundred yards, where lines of roofs clustered
+about a round grey belfry ending in a steeple. That was the village
+of Alsheim. M. Ulrich hastened on and soon found the course of the
+stream again, now more rapid than ever, the bank of which he had
+skirted in the mountain; walked along by it, and saw stand out, high
+and massive, in its park of trees despoiled by winter, the first
+house of Alsheim--the house of the Oberlés.
+
+It was built on the right of the road, from which it was separated,
+first by a white wall, then by a brook which ran through the domain
+more than two hundred yards farther, providing the water necessary
+for the engines, and then flowing, enlarged and cunningly directed,
+among the trees, to its outlet. M. Ulrich went through the large
+gate of wrought iron which opened on to the road, and passing by the
+lodge-keeper's cottage, leaving to the right the timber-yard full of
+piled-up wood, of cris-crossed planks, of poles, and of sheds, he
+took the left avenue, which wound between clumps of trees and the
+lawn, and reached the flight of steps before a two-storied house,
+with dormer windows, built of the red stone of Saverne and dating
+from the middle of the century. It was half-past eight. He went
+eagerly up to the first floor and knocked at the door of a room.
+
+A young voice answered:
+
+"Come in!"
+
+M. Ulrich had not time to take off his shooting-cap. He was seized
+round the neck, drawn forward, and embraced by his nephew, Jean
+Oberlé, who said:
+
+"Good evening, Uncle Ulrich! Ah! How glad I am! What a good idea!"
+
+"Come, let go of me! Good evening, my Jean! You have just arrived?"
+
+"I got here at three o'clock this afternoon. I should have come to
+see you to-morrow, you know!"
+
+"I was certain of it! But I could not wait so long. I simply had to
+come down and see you. It is three years since I saw you, Jean! Let
+me look at you!"
+
+"At your leisure," said the young man, laughing. "Have I changed?"
+
+He had just pushed a leathern arm-chair up to his uncle, and sat
+down facing him, on a sofa covered with a rug and placed against the
+wall.
+
+Between them there was a table, on which burned a little oil lamp of
+chased metal. Near by through the window, whose curtains were drawn
+aside, the park could be seen all motionless and solitary in the
+moonlight. M. Ulrich scrutinised Jean with a curiosity at once
+affectionate and proud. He had grown--he was a little taller than
+his uncle. His solid Alsatian face had taken on a quiet firmness and
+more pleasing lines. His brown moustache was thicker, his easy
+gestures were now those of a man who has seen the world. He might
+have been mistaken for a Southerner because of the Italian paleness
+of his shaven cheeks, of his eyes encircled with shadow, because of
+his dark hair which he wore parted at the side, and because of his
+pale lips opening over fine healthy teeth, which he showed when he
+spoke or smiled. But several signs marked him a Child of Alsace. The
+width of his face across the cheek-bones, his eyes green as the
+forests of the Vosges, and the square chin of the peasants of the
+valley.
+
+He had inherited some of their characteristics, for his great
+grandfather had guided the plough. He had their sturdy horseman's
+body. The uncle also guessed, by the youthfulness of the glance
+which met his, that Jean Oberlé, the man of twenty-four, whom he was
+now looking at once more, was not very different morally from him
+whom he had known formerly.
+
+"No," he said, after a long pause, "you are the same!--only you are
+a man--I was afraid of greater changes."
+
+"And why?"
+
+"Because, my boy, at your age especially there are certain journeys
+which are crucial tests. But first, where do you come from,
+exactly?"
+
+"From Berlin, where I passed my _Referendar_ examination."
+
+The uncle laughed a jerky laugh, which he repressed quickly, and
+which was lost in his grey beard.
+
+"Let us call that the _Licence en droit_ examination--if you kindly
+will."
+
+"Most willingly, uncle."
+
+"Then give me a fuller explanation and one more up-to-date, for you
+must have had your diploma in your pocket more than a year. What
+have you done with your time?"
+
+"It's very simple. The year before last I passed my examination, as
+you know, in Berlin, so finishing my law studies. Last year I worked
+with a lawyer till August. Then I travelled through Bohemia,
+Hungary, Croatia, and the Caucasus--with father's permission. I took
+six months over it. I returned to Berlin to get my student's luggage
+and to pay some farewell visits--and here I am."
+
+"Well, and your father? In my haste to see you again I have not
+asked after him. Is he well?"
+
+"He is not here."
+
+"What! Was he obliged to be absent on the very evening of your
+return?"
+
+Jean answered with a little bitterness:
+
+"He was obliged to be present at a great dinner at the Councillor
+von Boscher's. He has taken my sister. It is a very grand reception,
+it seems."
+
+There was a short silence. The two men smiled no longer. They felt
+between them--quite near--the supreme question, imposing itself upon
+them after a three minutes' conversation, that exasperating and
+fatal question which cannot be avoided, which unites and divides,
+which lurks beneath all social intercourse, honours, mortifications,
+and institutions, the question which has kept Europe under arms for
+thirty years.
+
+"I dined alone," said Jean, "that is to say, with my grandfather."
+
+"Not much of a companion, poor man. Is he not always so depressed,
+and so very infirm?"
+
+"But his mind is very much alive, I assure you!"
+
+There was a second silence, after which M. Ulrich asked,
+hesitatingly:
+
+"And my sister? Your mother? Is she with them?"
+
+The young man nodded an affirmative.
+
+The elder man's grief was so intense that he turned away his eyes so
+that Jean might not see all the suffering they expressed. He raised
+them by chance to a water-colour by that master of decorative art,
+Spindler, hanging on the wall, and which represented three beautiful
+Alsatian girls amusing themselves swinging. Quickly he looked his
+nephew straight in the face, and, his voice broken with emotion,
+said:
+
+"And you? You, too, could have dined with the Councillor von
+Boscher, considering how intimate you are with these Germans. Did
+you not wish to follow your parents?"
+
+"No."
+
+The word was said decidedly, simply. But M. Ulrich had not got the
+information he sought. Yes, Jean Oberlé had certainly become a man.
+He refused to blame his family, to voice any opinion which would be
+an accusation of the others. His uncle continued with the same
+ironical accent:
+
+"Nevertheless, my nephew, all the winter through your Berlin
+successes were dinned into my ears. They did not spare me. I knew
+you were dancing with our fair enemies. I knew their names."
+
+"Oh, I beg you," said Jean seriously, "do not let us joke about
+these questions--like people who dare not face them and give their
+opinion. I have had a different education from yours, it is true,
+uncle--a German education. But that does not diminish my love for
+this country; on the contrary...."
+
+M. Ulrich stretched his hand across the table and pressed that of
+Jean.
+
+"So much the better," he said.
+
+"Did you doubt it?"
+
+"I did not doubt it, my child--I did not know. I see so many things
+that pain me--and so many convictions surrendered."
+
+"The proof that I love our Alsace is shown by my intention to live
+in Alsheim."
+
+"What!" said M. Ulrich, stupefied. "You give up the idea of entering
+the German Administration--as your father desires you should do? It
+is grave--a serious thing, my friend, to rob him of his ambition.
+You were the subject of the future. Does he know?"
+
+"He suspects; but we have not yet had any explanations on the
+matter. I have not had time since my return."
+
+"And what will you do?"
+
+The youthful smile reappeared on the lips of Jean Oberlé.
+
+"I shall cut wood, as he does, as my grandfather Phillipe does; I
+shall settle among you here. When I travelled in Germany and in
+Austria, after my examination, it was chiefly that I might study the
+forests, the saw-mills, and the factories like our own. You are
+weeping?"
+
+"Not quite."
+
+M. Ulrich was not weeping, but he was obliged to dry his wet eyelids
+with the tip of his finger.
+
+"It would be for joy, in any case, my dear boy. Oh, for a true and
+great joy. To see you faithful to what I love best in the world. To
+keep you with us--to see you determined not to accept appointments
+and honours from those who have violated your country.... Yes, it
+was the dream I dared no longer dream.... Only, quite frankly, I
+cannot understand it. I am surprised. Why are you not like your
+father, or like Lucienne, who have so openly rallied to the enemy?
+You studied law in Munich, in Bonn, in Heidelberg, in Berlin; you
+have just passed four years in Germany, without speaking of your
+college years. How did you avoid becoming German?"
+
+"I am less so than you."
+
+"That is hardly possible."
+
+"Less than you, because I know them better. I have judged them by
+comparison. Well, they are our inferiors."
+
+"Well, I _am_ pleased. We hear nothing but the opposite of this. In
+France, above all, the praise of the conquerors of 1870 continues
+without intermission."
+
+The young man, touched by M. Ulrich's emotion, leaned no longer on
+the sofa, but bending forwards, his face lit up by the lamp, which
+made his green eyes appear more brilliant, said:
+
+"Do not mistake me, Uncle Ulrich. I do not hate the Germans, and in
+that I differ from you. I even admire them, for in some things they
+are admirable. Among them I have friends I esteem greatly. I shall
+have others. I belong to a generation which has not seen what you
+have seen, and which has lived differently--I have not been
+conquered!"
+
+"Happily, not!"
+
+"Only the more I know them, the more I feel myself different from
+them; I feel I am of another race, with another category of ideals
+into which they do not enter, which I find superior, and which,
+without knowing why, I call 'France.'"
+
+"Bravo, Jean, bravo!"
+
+The old dragoon officer bent forward--he also was quite pale--and
+the two men were only separated by the width of the table.
+
+"What I call France, uncle, what I have in my heart, like a dream,
+is a country where there is a greater facility for thought."
+
+"Yes----"
+
+"For speech----"
+
+"That's it!"
+
+"For laughter."
+
+"How right you are!"
+
+"Where souls have infinite shades of colour! A country that has the
+charm of a woman one loves, as it were a still more beautiful
+Alsace."
+
+Both had risen, and M. Ulrich drew his nephew towards him, and
+pressed that fervent head against his breast.
+
+"Frenchman!" said he, "Frenchman to the marrow of your bones, and in
+every drop of blood in your veins! My poor boy!"
+
+The young man continued, his head still resting on the older man's
+shoulder:
+
+"That is why I cannot live over yonder--across the Rhine--and why I
+shall live here!"
+
+"Well might I say 'poor boy'!" answered M. Ulrich. "All is
+changed--alas! Even here in your home. You will suffer, Jean, with a
+nature like yours. I understand everything now--everything."
+
+Then letting his nephew go:
+
+"How glad I am I came to-night. Sit down there quite close to me. We
+have so much to say to each other--Jean, my Jean!"
+
+They sat down side by side, happy, on the sofa. M. Ulrich stroked
+his pointed beard into its habitual well-groomed neatness. He
+recovered from his emotion, and said:
+
+"Do you know that by speaking of France as we have spoken this
+evening, we have committed misdemeanours such as I delight in? It is
+not allowed. If we had been out of doors and Hamm had heard us, we
+should have been speedily dealt with--there would have been an
+official report!"
+
+"I met him this afternoon."
+
+"And I saw the son pass by in the depths of the wood just now. He is
+a non-commissioned officer in the Rhenish Hussars--the regiment
+which will soon be yours. Is that the carriage I hear?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Listen, then!"
+
+They listened, gazing out of the window at the park, which was lit
+up by the full high moon; at the lawn in the shape of a lyre with
+its two white avenues, at the clumps of trees, and farther on the
+tile roofs of the saw-mill. Not a sound could be heard save the fall
+of the brook at the factory sluice, a monotonous sound which seemed
+now near, now far, according to the direction and strength of the
+freshening wind which was now blowing from the north-east, "from the
+Cathedral platform," as Uncle Ulrich said, thinking of Strasburg.
+
+"No; what you hear," said Jean Oberlé, after listening for a while,
+"is the noise of the sluice. Father told the coachman to go to
+Molsheim to wait for the eleven-thirty train. We have time to chat."
+
+They had time, and they made good use of it. They began to speak
+softly, without haste or difficulty, like those who have recognised
+that they agree on essentials and who can now safely open up all
+other questions, even the smallest. They spoke of the year's
+voluntary service Jean had been allowed to postpone until he was
+twenty-four, and of that new life he was going to begin at
+Strasburg--of the ease with which he could come nearly every Sunday
+to Alsheim. Then, this dear name having been repeated, uncle and
+nephew took pleasure in their recollections of the country, first of
+Alsheim, then of Sainte Odile, of the forest-dwelling of
+Heidenbruch, of Obernai, of Saverne, where the uncle had forests, of
+Guebwiller, where he had relations. It was Alsace they evoked. They
+thoroughly understood one another. They smoked, their legs crossed,
+seated one in each corner of the sofa, letting their words flow
+freely, and laughing often. Their conversation was so prolonged that
+the Black Forest cuckoo clock hanging over the door struck midnight.
+
+
+"Do you suppose we have disturbed your grandfather?" asked M.
+Ulrich, getting up, and pointing with his hand to the wall which
+separated the young man's room from that of the sick man.
+
+"No," said Jean; "he hardly sleeps at all now--I am sure it has
+pleased him to hear me laugh. As my family left me at five o'clock I
+spent a good deal of my time with him, and I watched him closely. He
+hears and understands everything. He recognised your voice, I am
+sure, and perhaps he has caught a word here and there."
+
+"That will have pleased him, my boy. He belongs to the very old
+Alsace, that country which seems almost fabulous to you, and to
+which I also belong, although I am much younger than M. Oberlé. It
+was wholly French, that Alsace, and not a man of that time has
+changed. Look at your grandfather--look at old Bastian. We are the
+generation who suffered. We represent grief--we others. Your father
+embodies resignation."
+
+"And I?"
+
+Uncle Ulrich looked at the young man, with his far-seeing eyes, and
+said:
+
+"You--oh, you are Romance."
+
+They would have smiled, both of them, but they could not, as if that
+word had been too perfectly accurate, which is not always the case
+with human judgments--as if they felt that Fate was there in this
+room, invisible, who repeated to them at the bottom of their hearts
+at the same time: "Yes, it is true--this one is Romance." The grief
+which was oppressing them was only to be explained by the imminence
+of life's mystery. It faded away. M. Ulrich reached out his hand to
+his nephew, more gravely than he would have done if that word had
+not escaped him, which he did not regret, but which remained present
+with him.
+
+"Good-bye, dear Jean. I would rather not wait for my
+brother-in-law. I do not know what attitude I should take up towards
+him. All you have told me would embarrass me. You will wish him good
+night for me. I will go home through the woods by moonlight. What a
+pity I have not my gun with me and the good luck to come across a
+brace of grouse in the fir wood."
+
+To reach the staircase he took some careful steps on the carpet in
+the passage.
+
+"Uncle," said Jean, in a low tone, "if you would go to my
+grandfather I am sure he would be pleased--I am sure he is not
+sleeping."
+
+Uncle Ulrich, who was walking in front, stopped and retraced his
+steps. Jean turned the handle of the door near which he was, and
+going first into the room, said, in a lowered voice:
+
+"Grandfather, I bring you a visitor--Uncle Ulrich--who wishes to see
+you."
+
+They were in the semi-darkness of a large room, the curtains of
+which had been drawn, and a nightlight, in transparent china, placed
+at the end of the room on the left between the closed window and a
+bed which occupied the corner, was the sole light. On the table
+beside the bed, in the little luminous halo which surrounded the
+nightlight, was a small crucifix of copper, and a gold watch, the
+only shining objects in the room. In the bed an old man was sitting
+rather than lying, his shoulders covered with a grey wool crossover,
+his back and head supported by pillows, his hands hidden under the
+sheets, which still kept the folds of the linen press. A tapestry
+riband, serving as bell-cord and finishing in a fringe, reached to
+the middle of the bed. The man who was sleeping or waking there was
+impotent. Life with him was withdrawing more and more within. He
+walked and moved with difficulty. He no longer spoke. Under his
+thick, pale cheeks his mouth moved only to eat and to say three
+words--three cries--always the same: "Hunger, Thirst. Go away!" A
+sort of senile laziness allowed his jaw to hang, the jaw that had
+commanded many men. M. Ulrich and Jean went to the middle of the
+room without his giving the least sign that he was conscious of
+their presence. This poor human ruin was, however, the same man who
+had founded the factory at Alsheim, who had raised himself from the
+condition of a little country proprietor, who had been elected
+_protesting_ deputy, who had been seen and heard in the Reichstag,
+claiming the unrecognised rights of Alsace and demanding justice of
+Prince Bismarck. Intelligence was watching, imprisoned, like the
+flame which lit up the room that night; but it expressed itself no
+longer. In this uninterrupted dream what men and things must pass
+before the mental vision of him who knew the whole of Alsace, who
+had gone through it in every direction, who had drunk of its white
+wines at all the tables of the rich and the poor; traveller,
+merchant, forester, and patriot! And it was he--this wrinkled bald
+head, this lowering face, these heavy eyelids, between which a slow,
+sad eye slipped to and fro like a billiard ball in the immovable
+slit of a bell. However, the two visitors had the impression that
+his gaze rested on them with an unusual pleasure.
+
+They kept silence so as to let the old man savour the sweetness of a
+thought they would never, never know. Then Uncle Ulrich went near
+the bed, and, placing his hand upon the arm of Philippe Oberlé,
+bending down slightly to be nearer his ear and to more easily meet
+his eyes, which were raised with difficulty:
+
+"We have talked a good deal, M. Oberlé, your grandson and myself. He
+is a good fellow--your Jean!"
+
+A movement of the whole upper part of the body slowly changed the
+position of the head of the old man, who was trying to see his
+grandson.
+
+"A good fellow," continued the forester, "whose stay in Berlin has
+not spoiled him. He has remained worthy of you--an Alsatian, a
+patriot. He does you honour."
+
+Though there was only the tiny floating light in the room, Uncle
+Ulrich and Jean thought they perceived a smile on the face of the
+old man, the answer from a soul still young.
+
+They quietly withdrew, saying:
+
+"Good night, M. Oberlé. Good night, grandfather."
+
+The flame of the nightlight flickered, displacing lights and
+shadows; the door was shut, and the interrupted dream continued in
+the room, where hardly anything had entered since sunset save the
+hours struck in the belfry of the church of Alsheim. M. Ulrich and
+his nephew parted at the foot of the staircase. The night was cold,
+the grass all white with frost.
+
+"Good time for walking!" said M. Ulrich; "I shall expect you at
+Heidenbruch."
+
+He whistled for his dog, and stroking its red-brown head, said:
+
+"Take me home, for I am going to dream all the time of what that boy
+told me!"
+
+Scarcely had he gone some few hundreds of yards--the sound of his
+footstep could still be heard on the road going up towards the Wood
+of Urlosen--when in the calm of the night Jean caught the sound of
+the trotting horses coming from the Obernai district. The noise of
+their shoes striking the metalled road sounded like flails on a
+threshing-floor; it was a rural sound, and not disturbing; it broke
+no rest. Fidčle, who was barking furiously towards the edge of the
+forest, must have had other reasons to show her teeth and give
+tongue. Jean listened to the carriage coming nearer. Soon the noise
+grew less and less, then became deadened, and he knew that the
+carriage had passed between the walls of the village, or at least
+had entered the circle of orchards which made Alsheim in the summer
+a nest of apple-trees, cherries, and walnuts. Then it swelled and
+sounded clear like a train coming out of a tunnel. The gravel
+scrunched at the end of the avenue. Two lamps turned and passed
+rapidly across the park; the grass, the shrubs, the lower trunks of
+trees, arose abruptly out of the darkness and as abruptly sank back
+into it again, and the brougham stopped before the house. Jean, who
+had remained at the top of the staircase, went down and opened the
+door. A young girl got out at once; her face was rosy, and she was
+wrapped all in white--white mantilla, coat of white wool, and white
+shoes. In passing, almost in the air, she bent to the right, just
+touched Jean's forehead with a kiss, and half opened two lips heavy
+with sleep.
+
+"Good night, little brother."
+
+And picking up her skirt with a loose grasp, with wavering
+movements, her head already on the pillow as it were, she went up
+the stairs and disappeared into the vestibule.
+
+"Good evening, my son," said the authoritative voice of a man. "You
+have waited for us; you were wrong. Come quickly, Monica, the horses
+are very hot. Auguste, you will give them twelve litres to-morrow.
+You would have done better to have gone with us, Jean. It was all
+very nice. M. von Boscher asked twice about you."
+
+The person who spoke thus, now to one and now to the other, had had
+time to get out of the carriage, to shake hands with Jean, to turn
+towards Madame Oberlé, still seated in the back of the carriage, to
+go half-way up the flight of steps, to inspect with the eye of a
+connoisseur the two black horses, whose wet backs looked as if they
+had been rubbed with soap. His grey whiskers framed a full and solid
+face; his overcoat was unbuttoned, showing the open waistcoat and
+the shirt, where three Rhine stones shone; his oratorical hand only
+appeared a moment. After having given his opinion and his orders,
+Joseph Oberlé--vigilant master who forgot nothing--quickly raised
+his double chin and fixed his eyes on the end of the enclosure,
+where the pyramids of felled trees were resting, to see if there
+were any signs of fire visible, or if any shadow prowled round the
+saw-mill; then, nimbly mounting the second flight of steps two at a
+time, he entered the house. His son had answered nothing. He was
+helping Madame Oberlé out of the carriage, taking from her her
+gloves and fan, and asking:
+
+"You are not so very tired, are you, mother darling?"
+
+Her dear eyes smiled, her long mouth said:
+
+"Not too tired; but it is not for me, now, my dear. You have an old
+mother!"
+
+She leaned on the arm of her son--from a mother's pride more than
+from necessity. There was infinite sadness in her smile, and she
+seemed to ask Jean, at whom she looked while going up the steps,
+"You forgive me for having gone there? I have suffered."
+
+She was wearing a black satin dress. She had diamonds in her hair,
+still black, and a collar of blue fox on her shoulders. Jean thought
+she looked like an unhappy queen, and he admired the elegance of her
+head, of her walk, and her fine carriage. She was of an old Alsatian
+family, and he felt himself the son of this woman with a pride he
+showed only to her.
+
+He accompanied her, giving her his arm all the time so as to have
+the joy of being nearer to her, and to stop her on nearly every step
+of the staircase.
+
+"Mamma, I have spent an excellent evening. It would have been
+delicious if only you had been there! Imagine, Uncle Ulrich came at
+half-past eight, and he only set out for home at midnight, just
+now."
+
+Madame Oberlé smiled a melancholy smile and said:
+
+"He never stops as long as that for us. He keeps away."
+
+"You mean to say that he keeps away! I will bring him back to you."
+
+She stopped in her turn, looked at this son, whom she had not seen
+since the afternoon, and smiled more gaily.
+
+"You love my brother?"
+
+"Better than I used to. I seem to have just discovered him."
+
+"You were too young before."
+
+"And how we have talked! We agree on all points."
+
+The gentle maternal eyes sought those of her child in the twilight
+of the staircase.
+
+"Oh, all?" she asked.
+
+"Yes, mamma, on all!"
+
+They had arrived at the top of the stairs. She placed her gloved
+finger on her mouth. She withdrew her arm which she had placed in
+that of her son. She was at the door of her room, facing M. Philippe
+Oberlé's room. Jean kissed her, withdrew a little, returned to her,
+and pressed her once again to his heart silently.
+
+Then he took a few steps down the passage, looked again at this
+woman dressed in black, and whom mourning suited so well--so simple
+with her drooping white hands and her erect head, so firm of
+feature, so gentle in expression.
+
+He murmured gaily:
+
+"Saint Monica Oberlé, pray for us!"
+
+She did not seem to hear him, but she remained, her hand on the
+door-handle without entering, as long as Jean could see her, Jean,
+who was going backwards step by step, farther away, into the shadows
+of the passage.
+
+He entered his room, his heart joyful, his mind full of thoughts,
+all those thoughts of the past evening coming back now with swift
+flight in the solitude of the present. Feeling that he would not
+sleep at once, he opened the window. The cold air blew steadily from
+the north-east. The mist had fled. From his room Jean could see,
+beyond the wide strip of cultivated hilly ground, the forests where
+Shadow all night long wound and unwound her folds, away to the
+heights crowned here and there by a spiked cluster of ancient woods,
+which broke the line of hills and wreathed itself about in stars. He
+tried to find the house of M. Ulrich. And in thought he saw again
+him who ought to be arriving home, when voices began to sing on the
+edge of the forest. A shiver of pleasure seized the nerves of the
+young man, who was a passionate musician. The voices were beautiful,
+young, and in tune. There were more than twenty of them certainly,
+perhaps thirty or fifty. He missed the words because of the
+distance. It was like the sound of an organ in the night. They flung
+out to the wind of Alsace a song of a spirited rhythm. Then three
+distinct words reached Jean's ears. He shrugged his shoulders,
+irritated with himself for not having understood at once. It was a
+chorus of German soldiers coming back from the manoeuvre of those
+Rhenish Hussars M. Ulrich had met coming down the mountain.
+According to custom, they sang to keep themselves awake, and because
+there was in their songs the power of the word Fatherland. The
+horses' hoofs accompanied the melody like muffled cymbals. The words
+escaped and vibrated:
+
+   "Stimmt an mit hellem hohen Klang,
+     Stimmt an das Lied der Lieder.
+   Des Faterlandes Hochgesang,
+     Das Waldthal hall es wieder."
+
+Jean would have been glad to stop the song. How many times,
+however, and in all the German Provinces, had he not heard the
+soldiers sing? Why should he feel sad at the song of these men? Why
+did the words enter into his soul so painfully, although he knew
+them and could repeat them from memory? When some two hundred yards
+from the village they became silent. Only the clatter of hoofs
+continued drawing nearer to Alsheim and echoing above it. Jean
+leaned forward to see the horsemen pass in the little market town.
+He could see them through a large opening in the wall surrounding
+the park, secured by an iron gate just in front of the house--a
+moving mass in a brown dust that the wind blew back, leaning like
+barley beards in the ear. The men were not to be distinguished from
+each other, nor the horses. Jean thought, with a secret and
+increasing pain, "How many there are!"
+
+At Berlin, at Munich, at Heidelberg, they only aroused an idea of
+strength without any immediate aim or object. The enemy had not been
+specially singled out; it was everything opposed to the greatness of
+the German Empire. Jean Oberlé had more than once admired the march
+of regiments and the wonderful power of the man who commanded so
+many men. But here on the frontier, on the ground still bloody with
+the last war, there were memories which showed only too well who was
+aimed at and threatened. The sight--the noise--of the soldiers made
+him dream of butcheries, of death, and of the fearful mourning which
+remains. They were passing between the houses. The noise of the
+squadrons, of men and beasts shook the windows. The little town
+seemed asleep. Neither the soldiers nor their leaders noticed
+anything; but in many of the houses a mother woke and sat up in her
+bed, shivering; a man stretched out his fist and cursed these
+conquerors of past days. God alone knew the drama. They passed by.
+When the last squadron had finished throwing shadows across the
+road, between the two pillars of the gate, Jean thought he saw, in
+the dust that was settling, a horseman facing the house. Was the
+horse refusing to advance? No; he was at rest. The horseman must be
+an officer--something golden placed in several rows across his
+breast sparkled. He did not move, firm in his saddle, young
+certainly, he gazed in front of him. This lasted scarcely a minute.
+Then he lowered the sabre he held in his hand, and having saluted,
+put spurs to his horse, which rushed away. The scene had been so
+quick that Jean might have thought it an illusion, if the gallop of
+the beast had not sounded in the village street.
+
+"Some Teutonic joke," he thought--"a way this officer has found of
+saying that the house pleases him! Thanks!"
+
+The regiment had already left the village and ridden away to the
+wide plain. The houses had gone to sleep once more. The wind blew
+towards the green Vosges. In the opposite quarter, far away now,
+like a religious hymn, rose again the song of the German soldiers,
+who were celebrating the German Fatherland whilst marching towards
+Strasburg.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE EXAMINATION
+
+
+On the following day the morning was far advanced when Jean left his
+room and appeared on the flight of steps built of the red stone of
+Saverne like the house, which opened on to the park in two flights
+of long steps. He was dressed in shooting clothes--of which he was
+fond--gaiters of black leather, breeches and coat of blue wool, with
+a hat of soft felt, in the ribbon of which he stuck a grouse
+feather. From the steps he asked:
+
+"Where is my father?"
+
+The man whom he addressed, the gardener, busy raking the avenue,
+answered:
+
+"Monsieur is in the office at the saw-mill."
+
+The first thing that Jean Oberlé saw on raising his eyes was the
+Vosges mountains, clothed with forests of pines, with trails of snow
+in the hollows, and with low, rapid clouds hiding the peaks. He
+trembled with joy. Then having gazed at the lowest mountain slopes,
+at the vineyards, and then the meadows, as if to impress on his
+memory all the details of these places found again after a long
+absence, and above all with the added satisfaction of remaining
+among them, his eyes fastened on the red roofs of the saw-mill,
+which made a barrier at the end of the Oberlé property, on the
+chimneys, on the high building where the turbines were, to the right
+on the course of the mountain stream of Alsheim, and nearer on the
+timber-yard whence the factory got its supplies, on the heaps of
+wood from trees of all sorts--beams, planks, which rose in pyramids
+and enormous cubes, beyond the winding alleys and the clumps of
+trees, some two hundred yards from the house. Jets of white steam in
+many places escaped from the roof of the saw-mill, and rested on the
+north wind like the clouds up above.
+
+The young man went to the left, crossed the park, formerly planted
+and designed by M. Philippe Oberlé, and which was now beginning to
+be a freer and more harmonious corner of nature, and turning towards
+the piles of oak trunks, elms, and pines, went to knock at the door
+of the long building.
+
+He entered the glass pavilion which served the master for a
+workroom. He was engaged in reading the day's letters. Seeing his
+son appear, he put the papers on the table, made a sign with his
+hand which meant "I expected your visit--sit down"--and moving his
+arm-chair, he said:
+
+"Well, my boy! What have you to say to me?"
+
+M. Joseph Oberlé was a ruddy man, quick and authoritative. Because
+of his shaven lips, his short whiskers, the correctness of his
+clothes, the easiness of his words and manners, he had sometimes
+been taken for an old French magistrate. The mistake did not arise
+with those who thought thus. It had been made by circumstances which
+had taken M. Joseph Oberlé in spite of himself from the way wherein
+he had intended to go, and which should have led him to some public
+office in the magistrature or the administration. The father, the
+founder of the dynasty, Philippe Oberlé, son of a race of peasant
+proprietors, had founded at Alsheim in 1850 this mechanical
+saw-mill, which had rapidly prospered. He had become in a few years
+rich and powerful, very much beloved, because he neglected no means
+to that end; increasingly influential, but without at all
+foreseeing the events which would one day induce him to put his
+influence at the service of Alsace.
+
+The son of this industrial workman could hardly escape the ambition
+of being a public functionary. That is what happened--his education
+had prepared him for it. Taken early from Alsace, pupil for eight
+years at the Lycée Louis le Grand, then law student, he was at
+twenty-two years old attached to the office of the Prefect of
+Charente, when the war broke out. Retained for some months by his
+chief, who thought it would please his friend the great manufacturer
+of Alsace if he sheltered the young man behind the walls of the
+prefecture of Angoulęme; then on his demand incorporated tardily in
+the Army of the Loire, Joseph Oberlé marched much, retired much,
+suffered much from cold, and fought well on rare occasions. When the
+war was finished he had to make his choice.
+
+If he had consulted his personal preferences only, he would have
+remained French, and he would have continued to follow an
+administrative career, having a taste for authority and few personal
+opinions on the quality of an order to be transmitted. But his
+father recalled him to Alsace. He implored him not to leave the work
+begun and prospering. He said: "My industry is become German by
+conquest; I cannot leave the instrument of my fortune and your
+future to perish. I detest the Prussians, but I take the only means
+which I have of continuing my life usefully. I was a Frenchman, I
+become an Alsatian. Do the same. I hope it will not be for long."
+
+Joseph Oberlé had obeyed with real repugnance--repugnance at
+submitting to the law of the conqueror, repugnance at living in the
+village of Alsheim, lost at the foot of the Vosges. He had even
+committed at this time imprudences of speech and attitude which he
+regretted now. For the conquest had lasted; the fortunes of Germany
+were strengthened, and the young man, associated with his father
+and become the master of a factory, had felt the meshes of an
+administration similar to the French administration, but more
+harassing, stricter, and better obeyed, knotting itself and drawing
+closer round him. He saw that on every occasion, without any
+exception, the German authorities would put him in the wrong; the
+police, the magistrates, the functionaries established for public
+services which he used daily, the commission of public roads, the
+railways, the water supply, the forests, the customs. The
+malevolence which he met with on all sides and in all departments of
+German administration, although he had become a German subject, was
+aggravated and had become quite a danger to the prosperity of the
+house of Alsheim, when, in 1874, M. Philippe Oberlé, giving to his
+son the direction of the saw-mill, had yielded to the insistences of
+that poor forsaken country, which wanted to make of him, and did
+make him, the representative of her interests at the Reichstag, and
+one of the protesting deputies of Alsace.
+
+This experience, the weariness of waiting, the removal of M.
+Philippe Oberlé, who spent a part of the year at Berlin, modified
+sensibly the attitude of the young head of the industrial
+enterprise. His first fervour, and that of others, grew less. He saw
+the anti-German manifestations of Alsatian peasants becoming rarer
+and more prudent. He hardly did any business with France; he no
+longer received visits from French people, even those made from
+interested and commercial motives. France, so near by distance,
+became like a walled-in country, shut up, and whence nothing more
+came to Alsace, neither travellers nor merchandise. The newspapers
+he received left him in no doubt as to the slow abandonment which
+certain French politicians counselled under the name of wisdom and
+concentration.
+
+In ten years M. Joseph Oberlé had used up, till he could no longer
+find a trace in himself, all that his temperament allowed him of
+resistance to oppose to an established power. He was rallied. His
+marriage with Monica Biehler, desired and arranged by the old and
+ardent patriot who voted in the Reichstag against Prince Bismarck,
+had had no influence on his new ideas and attitude, at first secret,
+soon suspected, then known, then affirmed, then scandalously
+published by M. Joseph Oberlé. He gave pledges to the Germans, then
+hostages. He overstepped the boundary. He went farther than
+obedience. The foremen of the factory, old soldiers of France,
+admirers of M. Philippe Oberlé, companions of his struggle against
+the Germanisation of Alsace, bore with difficulty the attitude of
+the new master and blamed him. One of them in a moment of impatience
+had said to him one day, "Do you think we are so particularly proud
+to work for a renegade like you?" He had been discharged. His
+comrades immediately had taken his part, interceded, talked, and
+threatened a strike. "Well, do it," the master had said; "I shall be
+delighted. You are all quarrelsome fellows; I shall replace you by
+Germans!" They did not believe in the threat, but when a fresh
+crisis arose M. Joseph Oberlé carried it into execution a little
+later, that he might not be accused of weakness, which he feared
+more than injustice, and because he thought he could gain some
+advantage by replacing the Alsatians, continual grumblers, by
+workmen from Baden and Wurtemburg who were better disciplined and
+more easily managed. A third of the employés at the saw-mill had
+thus been replaced. A little German colony had been established to
+the north of the village, in the houses built by the master, and the
+Alsatians who remained had to bend before the argument of daily
+bread. That happened in 1882. Some years later, they learned that M.
+Oberlé had sent his son Jean to be educated in Bavaria at the Munich
+gymnasium. In the same way he sent off his daughter Lucienne,
+placing her in the charge of the mistress of the most German school
+in Baden-Baden, the Mündner boarding-school. This last measure
+roused public opinion most of all. They were furious at this
+repudiation of Alsatian education and influence. They pitied Madame
+Oberlé thus separated from her son and deprived, as if she had been
+unworthy, of the right of bringing up her own daughter. To all those
+who blamed him the father replied, "It is for their good. I have
+spoiled my life; I do not wish them to spoil theirs. They will
+choose their road later when they have been able to make
+comparisons. But I will not have them from their very youth
+catalogued, pointed at, and inscribed on the official list as
+Alsatian pariahs."
+
+Sometimes he added: "You do not understand, then, all the sacrifice
+that I am making! I am sparing my children these sacrifices; I am
+devoting myself to them. But that does not mean that I am not
+suffering."
+
+He did suffer in fact, and so much the more that the confidence of
+the German administration was hard to gain. The reward of so much
+effort did not seem enviable. True, those in office began to
+flatter, to draw nearer, to seek out M. Joseph Oberlé, a precious
+conquest, of which many district directors had boasted in high
+places. But they watched him, whilst loading him with invitations
+and kind attentions. He felt the hesitation, the mistrust, scarcely
+disguised, sometimes even emphasised by the new masters he wished to
+please. Was he safe? Had he taken the side of the Annexation without
+any mental reservation? Did he sufficiently admire the German
+genius, German civilisation, German commerce, the German future? One
+had to admire so much and so many things!
+
+The answer, however, became more and more affirmative. There was the
+acknowledged desire to make his son, Jean, enter the German
+magistracy, and there was the systematic continuation of this kind
+of exile imposed on the young man. When his classical studies were
+finished and his final examination passed with success at the end of
+the scholastic year, 1895, Jean spent his first year of law studies
+at the University of Munich; he divided the next year between Bonn
+and Heidelberg; then took his licentiate's degree at Berlin, where
+he went through the Referendar Examination. At last, after a fourth
+year, when as a licentiate in law he entered the office of a lawyer
+at Berlin, after long travel in foreign countries, the young man
+came back to his home to rest before joining a regiment.
+
+Truly the plan had been thoroughly carried out. In the first years
+of his student life, in his holidays even, excepting some days given
+to his family, his time had been given to travelling. During the
+last years he had not even appeared in Alsheim.
+
+The end of it was that the administration no longer suspected him.
+Besides, one of the great obstacles to a public reconciliation
+between the functionaries of Alsace and M. Joseph Oberlé had
+disappeared. The old protesting deputy, seized by the illness which
+became chronic, retired from political life in 1890. From that
+moment dated, for the son, the smiles, the promises, the favours so
+long solicited. M. Joseph Oberlé recognised in the development his
+affairs had taken--in the Rhenish country and even beyond it--in the
+diminution of the official reports directed against his employés, or
+against himself in cases of contravention, in the signs of deference
+which the small officials showed him--formerly the most arrogant of
+all, in the ease with which he had ruled disputable points, obtained
+authorisations, altered the rules in divers points--in all these
+signs, as well as in others, he recognised that the governmental
+mind, present everywhere, incarnate everywhere in a multitude of
+men of gold lace--was no longer against him.
+
+More definite advances were made to him. The preceding winter, while
+Lucienne, who had returned from the Mündner school, pretty, witty,
+charming, was dancing in the German salons of Strasburg, the father
+was talking with the representatives of the Empire. One of them, the
+prefect of Strasburg, Count Kassewitz, acting probably in accordance
+with superior orders, had let drop that the Government would see,
+without displeasure, M. Joseph Oberlé present himself as candidate
+for the deputyship in one of the districts of Alsace, and that the
+official support of the administration would be given to the son of
+the old protesting deputy.
+
+This prospect filled M. Oberlé with joy. It had revived the ambition
+of this man who found himself up to then repaid but badly for the
+sacrifices of self-respect, friendships, and memories, which he had
+had to make. It gave new energies and a definite object to this
+official temperament, depressed by circumstances. M. Oberlé saw his
+justification in it, without being able to reveal it. He said to
+himself that, thanks to his energy, to his contempt for Utopia, to
+his clear sight of what was possible and what was not, he could hope
+for a future for himself--a participation in public life--a part he
+had believed to be reserved for his son. And henceforward it would
+be the answer that he would make to himself; if ever a doubt entered
+his mind, it would be his revenge against the mute insults offered
+him by some backward peasants, who forgot to recognise him in the
+streets, and by certain citizens of Strasburg or Alsheim, who
+scarcely, or no longer, saluted him.
+
+He was therefore now going to receive his son in a frame of mind
+very different from that of the past. To-day, when he knew himself
+in full personal favour with the Government of Alsace-Lorraine, he
+was less set on his son carrying out to the letter the plan that he
+had traced at first. Jean had already assisted his father, as
+Lucienne was assisting him. He had been an argument, and one of the
+causes of this long-expected change of the governmental attitude.
+His collaboration was still going to be useful, but not necessary;
+and the father, warned by certain allusions and a certain reticence
+in the last letters written from Berlin by his son, did not feel so
+irritated when he thought that perhaps he would not follow the
+career in the German magistracy so carefully prepared for him, and
+would give up his last three years of terms and his State
+examinations. Such were the reflections of this man, whose life had
+been guided by the most unadulterated egotism, at the moment when he
+was preparing to receive his son's visit. For he had seen Jean and
+had watched him coming across the park. M. Oberlé had built at the
+extreme end of the saw-mill a sort of cage or footbridge, from which
+he could survey everything at once. One window opened on to the
+timber yard, and allowed him to follow the movements of the men
+occupied in stowing away and transporting the wood. Another,
+composed of a double glazed framework, placed the book-keepers under
+the eye of their master, ranged along a wall in a room like the
+master's room; and by a third, that is to say by a glass partition,
+which separated him from the workshop, he took in at a glance the
+immense hall where machines of all kinds, great saws in leather
+bands, cogged wheels, drills, and planes, were cutting, boring, and
+polishing trunks of trees brought to them on sliding grooves. Round
+him the low woodwork painted water-green; electric lamps in the
+shape of violets, the call-buttons placed on a copper plaque which
+served as a pediment to his work bureau, a telephone, a typewriter,
+light chairs painted white, spoke of his taste for bright colours,
+for convenient innovations, and for fragile-looking objects.
+
+Seeing his son enter, he had turned towards the window overlooking
+the park; he had crossed his legs, and placed his right elbow on the
+desk. He examined curiously this tall, thin, handsome man, his son,
+who sat down facing him, and he smiled. To see him thus, leaning
+back in his arm-chair, and smiling his own mechanical and irrelevant
+smile, by only judging from the full face framed by two grey
+whiskers, and the gesture of his raised right hand, touching his
+head and playing with the cord of his eyeglass, it would be easy to
+understand the mistake of those who took M. Oberlé for a magistrate.
+But the eyes, a little closed on account of the bright light, were
+too quick and too hard to belong to any but a man of action. They
+gave the lie to the mechanical smile of his lips. They had no
+scientific curiosity, worldly or paternal; they sought simply a way,
+like those of a ship's captain--in order to pass on. Scarcely had M.
+Oberlé asked, "What have you to tell me?" than he added, "Have you
+spoken with your mother this morning?"
+
+"No!"
+
+"With Lucienne?"
+
+"Neither; I have just come from my room."
+
+"It is better so. It is better for us to make our plans together, we
+two, without any one interfering. I have allowed you to return and
+to stay here precisely that we may arrange your future. Firstly,
+your military service in the month of October, with the fixed
+determination--am I right?"--and he dwelt on the following
+words--"to become an officer of the reserve?"
+
+Jean, motionless, with head erect and straight look, and with the
+charming gravity of a young man who speaks of his future and who
+keeps a sort of quiet hold on himself which is not quite natural to
+him:
+
+"Yes, father, that is my intention."
+
+"The first point is then settled--and afterwards? You have seen the
+world. You know the people among whom you are called to live. You
+know that with regard to the German magistracy the chances of
+succeeding increased some time ago, because my own position has been
+considerably bettered in Alsace?"
+
+"I know it."
+
+"You know equally well that I have never wavered in my desire to see
+you follow the career which would have been mine if circumstances
+had not been stronger than my will."
+
+As if this word had suddenly excited in him the strength to will,
+the eyes of M. Oberlé were fixed, imperious and masterful, on those
+of his son, like the claws of a bird of prey. He left off playing
+with his eyeglass, and said quickly:
+
+"Your last letters indicated, however, a certain hesitation. Answer
+me. Will you become a magistrate?"
+
+Jean became slightly pale, and answered:
+
+"No!"
+
+The father bent forward as if he were going to rise, and without
+taking his eyes off him whose moral energy he was weighing and
+judging at that moment:
+
+"Administrator?"
+
+"Neither. Nothing official."
+
+"Then your law studies?"
+
+"Useless."
+
+"Because?"
+
+"Because," said the young man, trying to steady his voice, "I have
+not the German spirit."
+
+M. Oberlé had not expected this answer. It was a disavowal. He
+started, and instinctively looked into the workshop to make sure
+that no one had heard or even guessed at such words. He met the
+raised eyes of many workmen, who thought he was supervising the
+work, and who turned away at once.
+
+M. Oberlé turned again to his son. A violent irritation had seized
+him. But he understood that it was best not to let it be seen. For
+fear that his hands should show his agitation, he had seized the two
+arms of the arm-chair in which he was seated, bent forward as
+before, but now considering this young man from head to foot,
+considering his attitude, his clothes, his manner, this young man
+who was voicing ideas which seemed like a judgment on the conduct of
+his father. After a moment of silence, his voice broken, he asked:
+
+"Who has put you against me? Your mother?"
+
+"No one," said Jean Oberlé quickly. "I have nothing against you. Why
+do you take it like that? I say simply that I have not the German
+spirit. It is the result of a long comparison, and nothing else."
+
+M. Joseph Oberlé saw that he had shown his hand too much. He
+withdrew into himself, and putting on that expression of cold irony
+with which he was accustomed to disguise his true sentiments:
+
+"Then, since you refuse to follow the career which I destined for
+you, have you chosen another?"
+
+"Without doubt, with your consent."
+
+"Which?"
+
+"Yours. Do not be mistaken with regard to what I have just told you.
+I have lived without a quarrel for ten years in an exclusively
+German centre. I know what it has cost me. You ask me the result of
+my experience. Well, I do not believe that my character is supple
+enough, or easy-going enough if you like, to do more than that, or
+to become a German official. I am sure that I should not always
+understand, and that I should disobey sometimes. My decision is
+irrevocable. And, on the contrary, your work pleases me."
+
+"You imagine that a manufacturer is independent?"
+
+"No; but he is more independent than many are. I studied law so
+that I should not refuse to follow without reflection, without
+examination, the way you pointed out to me. But I have profited by
+the travels which you suggested, every year."
+
+"You may say which I imposed upon you; that is the truth, and I am
+going to explain my reasons."
+
+"I have profited by them to study the forest industry wherever I
+could--in Germany, in Austria, in the Caucasus. I have given more
+thought and consideration to those questions than you might suppose.
+And I wish to live in Alsheim. Will you allow me to?"
+
+The father did not answer at first. He was trying on his son an
+experiment to which he deliberately submitted other men who came to
+treat with him about some important affair. He was silent at the
+moment when decisive words were to be expected from him. If the
+questioner, disturbed, turned away to escape the look which seemed
+to be oppressive, or if he renewed the explanation already made, M.
+Joseph Oberlé classed him among weak men, his inferiors. Jean bore
+his father's look, and did not open his mouth. M. Oberlé was
+secretly flattered. He understood that he found himself in the
+presence of a man completely formed, of a very resolute, and
+probably inflexible spirit. He knew others like him in the
+neighbourhood. He secretly appreciated their independence of temper,
+and feared it. With the quickness of combination and organisation
+habitual to him, he perceived very clearly the industry of Alsheim
+directed by Jean, and the father of Jean, Joseph Oberlé, sitting in
+the Reichstag, admitted among the financiers, the administrators,
+and the powerful men of Germany. He was one of those who know how to
+turn his mistakes to some advantage, just as he managed to get
+something from the factory waste. This new vision softened him. Far
+from being angry, he let the ironical expression relax which he had
+put on while speaking of his son's project. With a movement of his
+hand he pointed to the immense workshop, where, without ceasing,
+with a roar which slightly shook the double windows, the steel
+blades entered into the heart of the old trees of the Vosges, and
+said, in a tone of affectionate scolding:
+
+"So be it, my son. It will give joy to my father, to your mother,
+and to Ulrich. I agree that you put me in the wrong on one point
+with regard to them, but in one point only. Some years ago I should
+not have allowed you to refuse the career which seemed to me the
+best for you, and which would have saved us all from difficulties
+which you could not take the measure of. At that moment you were not
+able to judge for yourself. And further, I found my work, my
+position, too precarious and too dangerous to pass it on to you.
+That has changed. My business has increased. Life has become
+possible for me and for you all, thanks to the efforts, and perhaps
+to the sacrifices, for which those about me are not sufficiently
+grateful. To-day I admit that the business has a future. You wish to
+succeed me? I open the door for you immediately! You will go through
+the practical part of your apprenticeship in the seven months which
+remain before you join your regiment. Yes, I consent, but on one
+condition."
+
+"Which?"
+
+"You will not mix yourself up with politics."
+
+"I have no taste for politics."
+
+"Ah, excuse me," continued M. Oberlé with animation; "we must
+understand one another, must we not? I do not think you have any
+political ambition for yourself; you are not old enough, and perhaps
+you are not of the right stuff. And that is not what I forbid--I
+forbid you to have anything to do with Alsatian chauvinism; to go
+about repeating, as others do, on every occasion--'France, France';
+to wear under your waistcoat a tricolour belt; to imitate the
+Alsatian students of Strasburg, who, to recognise and encourage one
+another, and for the fun of it, whistle in the ears of the police
+the six notes of the Marseillaise 'Form your battalions.' I won't
+have any of those little proceedings, of those little bravadoes, and
+of those great risks, my dear fellow! They are forbidden
+manifestations for us business men who work in a German country.
+They go against our efforts and interests, for it is not France who
+buys. France is very far away, my dear fellow; she is more than two
+hundred leagues from here, at least one would think so, considering
+the little noise, movement, or money which come to us from there. Do
+not forget that! You are by your own wish a German manufacturer; if
+you turn your back on the Germans you are lost. Think what you
+please about the history of your country, of its past, and of its
+present. I am ignorant of your opinions on that subject. I will not
+try to guess what they will be in a neighbourhood so behind the
+times as ours at Alsheim; but whatever you think, either try to hold
+your tongue, or make a career for yourself elsewhere."
+
+A smile stole round Jean's turned-up moustache, while the upper part
+of his face remained grave and firm.
+
+"You are asking yourself, I am sure, what I think about France?"
+
+"Let us hear."
+
+"I love her."
+
+"You do not know her!"
+
+"I have read her history and her literature carefully, and I have
+compared: that is all. When one is oneself of the nation, that
+enables one to divine much. I do not know it otherwise, it is true.
+You have taken your precautions."
+
+"What you say is true, though at the same time you intended to
+wound----"
+
+"Not at all."
+
+"Yes, I have taken my precautions, in order to free your sister and
+you from that deadly spirit of opposition which would have made your
+lives barren from the beginning, which would have made you
+discontented people, powerless, poor; there are too many people of
+that sort in Alsace, who render no service to France or to Alsace,
+or to themselves, by perpetually furnishing Germany with reasons for
+anger. I do not regret that you make me explain myself as to the
+system of education which I desired for you, and which I alone
+desired. I wished to spare you the trial I have borne, of which I
+have just spoken to you: to fail in life. There is still another
+reason. Ah, I know well that credit will not be given me for that! I
+am obliged to praise myself in my own family. My child, it is not
+possible to have been brought up in France, to belong to France
+through all one's ancestry, and not to love French culture."
+
+He interrupted himself a moment to see the impression this phrase
+produced, and he could see nothing, not a movement on the impassible
+face of his son, who decidedly was a highly self-controlled man. The
+implacable desire for justification which governed M. Oberlé, made
+him go on:
+
+"You know that the French language is not favourably looked upon
+here, my dear Jean. In Bavaria you had a literary and historical
+education, better from that point of view than you would have had in
+Strasburg. I was able to desire, without prejudicing your masters
+against you, that you should have many extra French lessons. In
+Alsace, you and I would both have suffered for that. Those are the
+motives which guided me. Experience will show whether I was
+mistaken. I did it in any case in good faith, and for your good."
+
+"My dear father," said Jean, "I have no right to judge what you have
+done. What I can tell you is that, thanks to that education I have
+received, if I have not an unbounded taste or admiration for German
+civilisation, I have at least the habit of living with the Germans.
+And I am persuaded that I could live with them in Alsace."
+
+The father raised his eyebrows as if he would say, "I am not so sure
+of that."
+
+"My ideas, up to now, have made me no enemy in Germany; and it seems
+to me that one can direct a saw-mill in an annexed country with the
+opinions I have just shown you."
+
+"I hope so," said M. Oberlé simply.
+
+"Then you accept me? I come to you?"
+
+For answer the master pressed his finger on an electric button.
+
+A man came up the steps which led from the machine hall to the
+observatory that M. Oberlé had had built, and opened the port-hole,
+and in the opening one saw a square blond beard, long hair, and two
+eyes like two blue gems.
+
+"Wilhelm," said the master in German, "you will make my son
+conversant with the works, and you will explain to him the purchases
+we have made for the past six months. From to-morrow he will
+accompany you in your round of visits to where the fellings and
+cuttings are being carried out in the interests of the firm."
+
+The door was shut again.
+
+That young enthusiast, the elegant Jean Oberlé, was standing in
+front of his father. He held out his hand to him and said, pale with
+joy:
+
+"Now I am again some one in Alsace! How I thank you!"
+
+The father took his son's hand with a somewhat studied effusion. He
+thought:
+
+"He is the image of his mother! In him I find again the spirit, the
+words, and the enthusiasm of Monica." Aloud he said:
+
+"You see, my son, that I have only one aim in view, to make you
+happy. I have always had it. I agree to your adopting a career quite
+different from the one I chose for you. Try now to understand our
+position as your sister understands it."
+
+Jean went away, and his father, a few minutes later, went out also.
+But while M. Joseph Oberlé went towards the house, being in haste to
+see his daughter, the only confidante of his thoughts, and to report
+the conversation he had just had with Jean, the latter crossed the
+timber yard to the left, passed before the lodge, and took the road
+to the forest. But he did not go far, because the luncheon hour was
+approaching. By the road that wound upward he reached the region of
+the vineyards of Alsheim, beyond the hop-fields which were still
+bare, where the poles rose tied together, like a stack of arms. His
+soul was glad. When he came to the entrance of a vineyard which he
+had known since his earliest childhood, where he had gathered the
+grapes in the days of long ago, he climbed on to a hill which
+overlooked the road and the rows of vines at the bottom. In spite of
+the grey light, in spite of the clouds and the wind, he found his
+Alsace beautiful, divinely beautiful--Alsace, sloping down very
+gently in front of him, and becoming a smooth plain with strips of
+grass and strips of ploughed land, and whence the villages here and
+there lifted their tile roofs and the point of their belfries.
+Round, isolated trees--leafless because it was winter--resembled dry
+thistles; some crows were flying, helped by the north wind, and
+seeking a newly sown spot.
+
+Jean raised his hands, and spread them as if to embrace the expanse
+of land stretching out from Obernai, which he saw in the farthest
+undulations to the left, as far as Barr, half buried under the
+avalanche of pines down the mountain-side. "I love thee, Alsace, and
+I have come back to thee!" he cried. He gazed at the village of
+Alsheim, at the house of red stone which rose a little below him,
+and which was his; then at the other extremity of the pile of
+houses, inhabited by the workmen and peasants, he marked a sort of
+forest promontory which pushed out into the smooth plain. It was an
+avenue ending in a great group of leafless trees, grey, between
+which one could see the slopes of a roof. Jean let his eyes rest a
+long time on this half-hidden dwelling, and said: "Good day,
+Alsatian woman! Perhaps I am going to find that I love you. It would
+be so good to live here with you!"
+
+The bell rang for luncheon, rang out from the Oberlés' house, and
+recalled him to himself. It had a thin, miserable sound, which gave
+some idea of the immensity of free space in which the noise vanished
+away, and the strength of the tide of the wind which carried it away
+over the lands of Alsace.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE FIRST FAMILY MEETING
+
+
+Jean turned slowly towards this bell which was calling him. He was
+full of joy at this moment. He was taking possession of a world
+which, after some years, had just been opened to him and pointed out
+as his place of habitation, of work, and of happiness. These words
+played on his troubled mind deliciously. They pursued each other
+like a troop of porpoises, those travellers on the surface, and
+other words accompanied them. Family life, comfort, social
+authority, embellishments, enlargements. The house took to itself a
+name--"the paternal home." He looked at it with tenderness,
+following the alley near the stream; he went up the steps with a
+feeling of respect, remembering that they had been built by the
+grandfather to whom the house still belonged, as also all the
+grounds except the saw-mill and the timber yard.
+
+After having gone across the entrance hall, which extended from the
+front to the back of the house, he opened the last door on the left.
+The dining-room was the only room which had been "done up" according
+to the directions and the taste of M. Joseph Oberlé. Whilst one
+found elsewhere--in the drawing-room, the billiard-room, and the
+other rooms--the furniture bought by the grandfather, of yellow or
+green Utrecht velvet and mahogany, "My Creation," according to the
+expression of M. Joseph Oberlé, showed a complete absence of line.
+Colour took the place of style. The walls were covered with
+wainscoting of veined maple, blue-grey, purple in places, ash-grey,
+and pink-grey, covering half the height of the room. Above this, and
+reaching to the small beams, were four panels of stretched cloth,
+decorated with designs of smooth felt representing irises,
+hollyhocks, verbena, and gladioli. Everywhere, as far as possible,
+the straight line had been modified. The door mouldings described
+curves which rambled madly like stalks of tropical bindweed without
+any apparent reason. The framework of the large window was curved.
+The chairs of bent beechwood came from Vienna. The whole had no
+character, but a charm of softened light, and a remote resemblance
+to the vegetable kingdom. One would have taken it for the
+dining-room of a newly married couple.
+
+The four usual table companions Jean was going to meet there hardly
+corresponded to this joyous picture, and there was no harmony
+between them and the decorations of the room. They invariably sat in
+the same places, round the square table, according to the
+established order of deep affinities and antipathies.
+
+The first to the left of the window, the nearest to the glass, which
+shed on her the reflection of its levelled edges, was Madame Monica
+Oberlé, tall and slender, with a face that had been rounded and
+fresh, but was now pale, lined, and thin. She gave the impression of
+a being accustomed only to hear around her the words "You are
+wrong." Her short-sighted eyes, very gentle, glanced at the guests
+who were introduced to her with a smile always ready to withdraw and
+fade away. They only paused after they had looked about for a little
+time, when nothing had repulsed or misunderstood them. Then they
+revealed a clear intelligence, a very kind heart, become a little
+shy and sad, but still capable of illusions and outbursts of youth.
+No one could have had a more careless youth, nor one that seemed a
+less fitting preparation for the part she had to play later. She was
+then called Monica Biehler, of the ancient family Biehler of
+Obernai. From the top of her father's house, whose fortified
+gable-end rises on the ramparts of the little town, she saw the
+immense plain all round her. The garden full of trimmed box and
+pear-trees, and hawthorn, where she played, was only separated by an
+iron railing from the public promenade built on the old wall, so
+that the vision of Alsace was printed each day on this child's soul,
+and at the same time love of her country, so happy then--love of its
+beauty, its peace, and its liberty, of its villages, whose names she
+knew, whose rosy bunches of grapes she could have pointed out among
+the harvest fields. Monica Biehler knew nothing else. She only left
+Obernai to go with all the family to spend two summer months in the
+lodge at Heidenbruch, in the Forest of Sainte Odile. Only once did
+she happen to cross the Vosges, the year before her wedding, to make
+a pilgrimage to Domrémy in Lorraine. Those had been three days full
+of enthusiasm. Madame Oberlé remembered those three days as the
+purest joy of her life. She would say: "My journey in France." She
+had remained simple; she had kept, in her very retired life at
+Alsheim, the easy fears, but also the sincerity--the secret boldness
+of her youthful affection for the country and for the country
+people. She had therefore suffered more than another would have done
+in her place, in seeing her husband draw near to the German party in
+Alsace, and finally join it. She had suffered in her Alsatian pride,
+and still more in her maternal love. For the same cause which
+separated her morally from her husband, her children were taken from
+her. The lines on her face, faded before its time, could each have
+borne a name, that of the grief which had scored them there: the
+line of despised goodness, the line of useless warnings, the line of
+her insulted country, of separation from Jean and Lucienne, of the
+uselessness of the treasure of love she had stored up for them
+during her single and married life.
+
+Her bitterness had been the greater because Madame Oberlé had no
+illusions as to the true motives which guided her husband. And this
+he had divined. He was humiliated by this witness whom he could not
+deceive, and whom he could not help esteeming. She personified for
+him the cause which he had abandoned. It was to her he spoke when he
+felt the need of justifying himself, and he did so whenever he had
+the chance. It was against her that his anger rose, against her mute
+disapproval. Never once in twenty years had he been able to get her
+to agree--not by one word--that Alsace was German. This timid woman
+yielded to force but she did not approve of it. She followed her
+husband into German society; there she bore herself with such
+dignity that one could neither deceive oneself as to her attitude,
+nor bear a grudge against her for it. There she safeguarded more
+than appearances. A mother, separated from her children, she had
+not separated herself from her husband. They still used the
+twin-bedsteads in the same room. They had continual scenes,
+sometimes on one side, sometimes acrimonious and violent on both
+sides. Nevertheless Madame Oberlé understood that her husband only
+hated her clear-sightedness and judgment. She hoped she would not
+always be in the wrong. Now that the children were grown up she
+believed that some very important decisions would have to be made
+with regard to them, and that by her long patience and by her
+numerous concessions she had perhaps gained the right to speak then
+and be heard.
+
+Near her, and at her right, the grandfather, M. Philippe Oberlé,
+had always sat. For some years, five minutes before the time of the
+meal the dining-room door would open, the old man would come in,
+leaning on the arm of his valet, trying to walk straight, clothed in
+an anomalous garment of dark wool, his red ribbon in his
+button-hole, his head weary and bent, his eyelids nearly closed, his
+face swollen and bloodless. They placed him in a large chair with
+arms upholstered in grey; they tied his table napkin round his neck,
+and he waited, his body leaning against the chair-back, his hands on
+the table--hands pale as wax, in which the knotted blue veins were
+distinctly visible. When the others arrived M. Joseph Oberlé shook
+him by the hand; Lucienne threw him a kiss and a number of words
+audibly spoken in her fresh young voice; Madame Oberlé bent down and
+pressed her faithful lips on the old man's forehead. He thanked her
+by watching her sit down. He did not look at the others. Then he
+made the sign of the cross, she and he alone, being a son of that
+old Alsace which still prayed. And served by this neighbour so
+silently charitable, who knew all his tastes, his shame of a certain
+clumsiness, and who forestalled his wishes, he began to eat, slowly,
+with difficulty moving his relaxed muscles. His dreamy head remained
+leaning against the chair. His head alone was watching in a body
+nearly destroyed. It was the theatre where, for the pleasure and
+pain of one alone, there passed before his mental vision the
+forebears of those whose names were mentioned before him. He did not
+speak, but he remembered. Sometimes he drew from his pocket a
+schoolboy's slate and pencil, and he wrote, with an uncertain
+writing, two or three words, which he made his neighbour read; some
+rectification, some forgotten date, his approval or disapproval to
+join in with the words just spoken on the other side of the table.
+Generally they knew when he was interested by the movement of his
+heavy eyelids. It was only for a moment. Life sank again to the
+depth of the prison whose bars she had tried to shake. Night closed
+in once more round those thoughts of his, unable to make themselves
+intelligible. And in spite of being accustomed to it, the sight of
+this suffering and of this ruin weighed on each of the members of
+the assembled family. It was less painful to strangers who sat for
+one evening at the Alsheim table, for the grandfather on those days
+did not try to break the circle of darkness and death which
+oppressed him. Until these last years M. Joseph Oberlé had always
+continued to present his guests to his father, up to the day when he
+wrote on his slate: "Do not present any one to me, above all, no
+Germans. Let them acknowledge my presence: that will be enough." The
+son had kept the habit--and it was a touching thought on the part of
+this selfish man--to give every evening an account of the business
+of the factory to the old chief. After dinner, smoking in the
+dining-room, while the two women went into the drawing-room, he told
+him all about the day's mail, the consignments, and the purchases of
+wood. Although M. Philippe Oberlé was now only the sleeping partner
+of the business he had founded, he was under the illusion that he
+was advising and directing still. He heard talk of the maples, pines
+and firs, oaks and beeches among which he had breathed for fifty
+years. He thought much of the "conference," as he called it, as the
+only moment in the day in which he appeared himself, to himself, and
+as some one of importance in the lives of others. Except for that he
+was only a shadow, a dumb soul present, who judged his house, but
+rarely gave voice to his decision.
+
+His son on some important question disagreed with him. Seated at
+table just opposite his father, M. Joseph Oberlé could make a show
+of addressing himself to his wife and daughter only; during the
+whole of the meal he could avoid seeing the fingers which moved
+impatiently or which wrote to Madame Oberlé, but he was not the man
+to keep off painful subjects. Like all those who have had to make a
+great decision in their lives, and who have not taken it without a
+profound disturbance of their conscience, he was always reverting to
+the German Question. Everything gave him a pretext to begin it,
+praise or blame--various facts, political events announced in the
+morning's newspaper, a visiting card brought by the postman, an
+order for planks received from Hanover or Dresden, the wish
+expressed by Lucienne to accept an invitation to some ball. He felt
+the need of applauding himself for what he had done, like defeated
+generals who want to explain the battle, and to demonstrate how the
+force of circumstances had compelled them to act in such or such a
+manner. All the resources of his fertile mind were brought to bear
+on this case of conscience, on which he declared himself a long time
+resolute, and which aroused no more discussion, either on the part
+of the sick grandfather or on that of the depressed wife, who had
+decided to keep silence.
+
+Lucienne alone approved and supported her father.
+
+She did it with the decision of youth, which judges without
+consideration the grief of old people, the memories and all the
+charm of the past, without understanding, and as if they were dead
+things to be dealt with by reason only. She was only twenty, at once
+very proud and very sincere; she had an artless confidence in
+herself, an impetuous nature, and a reputation for beauty only
+partly justified. Tall, like her mother, and, like her, well made,
+she had her father's larger features more conformed to the usual
+Alsatian type--with a tendency to thicken. All the lines of her body
+were already formed and fully developed. To those who saw her for
+the first time, Lucienne Oberlé gave the impression of being a
+young woman rather than a young girl. Her face was extremely open
+and mobile. When she listened, her eyes--not so large as, and of a
+lighter green than, her brother's, her eyes and her mouth equally
+sharp when she smiled--followed the conversation and told her
+thoughts. She dreamed little. Another charm besides the vivacity of
+her mind explained her social success: the incomparable brightness
+of her complexion, of her red lips, the splendour of her fair hair,
+with its shining tresses of blonde and auburn intermingled, so
+abundant and so heavy that it broke tortoise-shell combs, escaped
+from hairpins, and hung down behind in a heavy mass and obliged her
+to raise her brow, which was enhaloed by the light from it, and gave
+to Lucienne Oberlé the carriage of a proud young goddess.
+
+Her Uncle Ulrich said to her, laughing: "When I kiss you, I think I
+am kissing a peach growing in the open air." She walked well; she
+played tennis well; she swam to perfection, and more than once the
+papers of Baden-Baden had printed the initials of her name in
+articles in which they spoke of "our best skaters."
+
+This physical education had already alienated her from her mother,
+who had never been more than a good walker, and was now only a fair
+one. But other causes had been at work and had separated them more
+deeply and more irrevocably from each other. Doubtless it was the
+entirely German education of the Mündner school, more scientific,
+more solemn, more pedantic, more varied, and much less pious than
+that which her mother had received, who had been educated partly at
+Obernai, and partly with the nuns of Notre-Dame, in the convent of
+the rue des Mineurs in Strasburg. But above all it was owing to the
+acquaintances she made, and her surroundings. Lucienne, ambitious
+like her father, like him bent on success, entirely removed from
+maternal influence, entrusted to German mistresses for seven years,
+received in German families, living among pupils chiefly German,
+flattered a little by everybody--here because of the charm of her
+nature, there for political motives and unconscious proselytism,
+Lucienne had formed habits of mind very different from those of old
+Alsace. Once more at home, she no longer understood the past of her
+people or her family. For her, those who stood up for the old state
+of things or regretted it--her mother, her grandfather, her uncle
+Ulrich--were the representatives of an epoch ended, of an
+unreasonable and childish attitude of mind. At once she placed
+herself on her father's side against the others. And she suffered
+from it. It depressed her to be brought into such close contact with
+persons of this sort, whom the Mündner school and all her worldly
+acquaintances of Baden-Baden and Strasburg would look upon as behind
+the times. For two years she had lived in an atmosphere of
+contradiction. For her family she felt conflicting sentiments; for
+her mother, for example, she felt a true tenderness and a great pity
+because she belonged to a condemned society and to another century.
+She had no confidants. Would her brother Jean be one? Restless at
+his arrival, almost a stranger to him, desiring affection, worn out
+with family quarrels, and hoping that Jean would place himself on
+the side she had chosen, that he would be a support and a new
+argument, she at once desired and feared this meeting. Her father
+came to tell her of the conversation he had had with Jean. She had
+said--cried out rather--"Thank you for giving me my brother!"
+
+They were all four at table when the young man entered the
+dining-room. The two women who were facing each other and in the
+light of the window, turned their heads, one sweetly with a smile
+that said, "How proud I am of my child!"; the other leaning back on
+her chair, her lips half open, her eyes as tender as if he had been
+her betrothed who entered, desirous to please and sure of pleasing
+him, saying aloud: "Come and sit here near me, at the end of the
+table. I have made myself fine in your honour! Look!" and kissing
+him, she said in a low tone, "Oh, how good it is to have some one
+young to say good morning to!" She knew she was pleasant to look
+upon in her bodice of mauve surah silk trimmed with lace insertion.
+It also gave her real pleasure to meet this brother whom she had
+only seen for a moment last night, before catching the train to
+Strasburg. Jean thanked her with a friendly glance and seated
+himself at the end of the table between Lucienne and his mother. He
+unfolded his table napkin, and the servant Victor, son of an
+Alsatian farmer, with his full-moon face and eyes like a little
+girl's, always afraid of doing something wrong, approached him,
+carrying a dish of _hors-d'oeuvre_, when M. Joseph Oberlé, who had
+just finished writing a note in his pocket-book, stroked his
+whiskers and said:
+
+"You see Jean Oberlé here present, you my father, you Monica, and
+you Lucienne. Well, I have a piece of news to give you concerning
+him. I have agreed that he shall live definitely at Alsheim and
+become a manufacturer and a wood merchant."
+
+Three faces coloured at once; even Victor, shaking like a leaf,
+withdrew his _hors-d'oeuvre_ dish.
+
+"Is it possible?" said Lucienne, who did not wish to let her mother
+see that she had already been told of the arrangement. "Will he not
+finish his referendary course?"
+
+"No."
+
+"After his year's service he will come back here for always?"
+
+"Yes; to stay with us always."
+
+The second moment of emotion is sometimes more unnerving than the
+first. Lucienne's eyelids fluttered quickly and became moist. She
+laughed at the same time, tender words trembling on her red lips.
+
+"Oh," said she, "so much the better. I don't know if it is in your
+own interest, Jean, but for us, so much the better."
+
+She was really pretty at that moment, leaning towards her brother,
+vibrating with a joy which was not feigned.
+
+"I thank you," said Madame Oberlé, looking gravely at her husband to
+try to guess what reason he had obeyed; "I thank you, Joseph; I
+should not have dared to ask it of you."
+
+"But you see, my dear," answered the manufacturer, bending towards
+her, "you see, when proposals are reasonable I accept them. Besides,
+I am so little accustomed to be thanked that for once the word
+pleases me. Yes; we have just had a decisive conversation. Jean will
+accompany my buyer to-morrow and visit some of our cuttings in work.
+I never lose time--you know that."
+
+Madame Oberlé saw the awkward hand of the grandfather stretch
+towards her. She took the slate which he held and read this line:
+
+"That is the final joy of my life!"
+
+There was no sign of happiness on this face, expressionless as a
+mask, none, if not perhaps the fixedness with which M. Philippe
+Oberlé looked at his son, who had given back a child to Alsace and a
+successor to the family. He was astonished, and he rejoiced. He
+forgot to eat, and all at the table were like him. The servant also
+forgot to serve; he was thinking of the importance he would have in
+announcing in the kitchen and in the village: "M. Jean has decided
+to take the factory! He will never leave the country again!" For
+some minutes in the dining-room of grey maple each of the four
+persons who met there every day had a different dream and passed a
+secret judgment; each had a vision, which was not divulged, of
+possible or probable consequences which the event would have
+relative to him or herself; each felt disturbed at the thought that
+to-morrow might be quite different from what had been imagined.
+Something was falling to pieces--habits, plans, a rule accepted or
+submitted to for years. It was like a disorder, or a defeat mixed
+with joy at the news.
+
+The youngest of all was the first to regain her freedom of mind.
+Lucienne said:
+
+"Are we not going to have lunch because Jean lunches with us? My
+dear, we are just like what we were before you came, not every day,
+but sometimes--mute beings who think only for themselves. That is
+quite contrary to the charms of meeting again. We are not going to
+begin again. Tell me?"
+
+She began to laugh, as if from henceforward misunderstandings had
+disappeared. She joked wittily about silent meals, about the parties
+at Alsheim that finished at nine o'clock, the rare visits, and the
+importance of an invitation received from Strasburg. And everybody
+tacitly encouraged her to speak ill of the past, abolished by the
+resolution of this man, thoroughly happy, master of himself, who was
+watching and studying his sister with astonished admiration.
+
+"Now," she said, "all is going to change. From now to October we
+shall be five instead of four under the roof of Alsheim. Then you
+will do your service; but that only lasts a year--and besides, you
+will have leave?"
+
+"Every Sunday."
+
+"You will sleep here?" asked Madame Oberlé.
+
+"I should think so--on Saturday nights."
+
+"And a nice uniform. Do you know," continued Lucienne, "that Attila
+tunic, cornflower colour, braided with yellow, black boots; but
+above all I like the full dress sealskin busby, with its plume of
+black-and-white horsehair--and the white frogs. It is one of the
+handsomest uniforms in our army."
+
+"Yes, one of the handsomest in the German army," Madame Oberlé
+hastened to correct, wishing to make amends for the unlucky words of
+her daughter, for the grandfather had made a gesture with his hand
+as if to rub out something from the cloth.
+
+M. Joseph Oberlé added, laughing:
+
+"And equally one of the dearest. I am giving you a nice present,
+Jean, in leaving you to choose the Rhenish Hussars, No. 9, as your
+regiment. I shall not get off for less than eight thousand marks."
+
+"Do you think so? As expensive as that?"
+
+"I am sure of it. Only yesterday, at the Councillor Von Boscher's,
+before two officers, I mentioned the amount which I thought exact,
+and no one contradicted me. Officially, the one year's service man
+in the infantry should spend two thousand two hundred marks; in
+reality he spends four thousand. In the artillery he should spend
+two thousand seven hundred, and spends five thousand; in the cavalry
+the difference is still more; and when people maintain that you can
+finish the business with three thousand six hundred marks they are
+making fun of you. You must reckon seven or eight thousand marks.
+That is what I contend, and what I uphold."
+
+"The regiment is admirably made up, father," interrupted Lucienne.
+
+"A good deal of fortune in fact...."
+
+"A good deal of nobility also, mixed with the sons of the rich
+manufacturers on the banks of the Rhine."
+
+A quick smile of intelligence passed between Lucienne and her
+father. Jean was the only one who noticed it. Scarcely had the young
+girl had time to straighten her lips when she said:
+
+"The volunteer places in the regiment are taken up so quickly that
+it is necessary to apply early in order to get one."
+
+"I spoke to your colonel three months ago," said M. Oberlé. "You
+will be recommended to several of the chiefs."
+
+Lucienne chimed in giddily:
+
+"You will be able to bring some here; it would be amusing!"
+
+Jean did not answer. Madame Oberlé blushed, as she often did when a
+word too much had been said before her. Lucienne was laughing again,
+when the grandfather stopped eating, and painfully, by jerks, each
+of which must have been painful, turned his sad, white head towards
+his grand-daughter. The eyes of the old Alsatian must have spoken a
+language very easy to translate, for the young girl ceased laughing,
+made a gesture of impatience as if she said, "Oh! I did not remember
+that you were here," and bent towards her father to offer him some
+Wolxheim wine, but really to escape the reproach she felt weighing
+on her.
+
+The three others, M. Joseph Oberlé, Jean, and his mother, as if they
+were agreed not to prolong the incident, began to talk of the
+service, men at the St. Nicolas barracks, but hurriedly, multiplying
+their words and their signs of interest with useless gestures.
+
+No one dared raise his head in the direction of the grandfather. M.
+Philippe Oberlé continued to stare with his look as implacable as
+remorse, at his grand-daughter, guilty of a giddy and regrettable
+speech. The meal was shortened owing to the general awkwardness,
+which had become almost unbearable, when M. Philippe Oberlé, begged
+by his daughter-in-law to forget what Lucienne had said, had
+answered "No," and refused to eat further.
+
+Ten minutes later, Lucienne went into the alleys of the park, to
+rejoin her brother, who had gone out before and was lighting a
+cigar. Hearing her approach behind him, he turned round. She was no
+longer laughing. She had put on no hat, in spite of the wind, which
+disarranged her hair; but having thrown a shawl of white wool round
+her shoulders, no longer trying to charm but become all at once
+passionate and domineering, she ran up to him.
+
+"You saw it? It is intolerable!"
+
+Jean lit his cigar, clasping his hands to protect the lighted match,
+then throwing away the glowing vesta.
+
+"Without doubt, but one must learn to put up with it, little one."
+
+"There is no little one," she interrupted quickly, "there is a
+grown-up one, on the contrary, who wants to have a clear explanation
+with you. We have been separated for a long time, my dear, we must
+learn to know each other, for I hardly know you and you do not know
+me. I am going to help you--don't be afraid--I came for that."
+
+He had a look of admiration for this fine creature violently moved,
+who had deliberately come to him; then, without losing his calmness,
+feeling that his part and his man's honour commanded him to be judge
+and not to get excited in his turn, he began to walk along by the
+side of Lucienne, in the alley which ran between a clump of trees on
+one side and the lawn on the other.
+
+"You can speak to me, Lucienne--you may be sure...."
+
+"Of your discretion? I thank you. I do not want any this morning. I
+came simply to explain to you my way of thinking on a certain point,
+and I am not going to make any mystery about it. I repeat that it is
+intolerable. You may say nothing here about Germany or the Germans,
+if it is not something bad. As soon as one has a word of praise or
+only of justice for them mamma bites her lips, and grandfather makes
+a disgraceful scene and shames me in front of the servants, as
+happened just now. Is it a crime to say to a volunteer: 'You will
+bring us some officers to Alsheim'? Can we prevent you serving your
+turn in a German regiment, in a German town, commanded by officers
+who, in spite of being Germans, are not the less men of the world?"
+
+She walked nervously, and with her right hand twisted a gold chain
+which she wore on her mauve bodice.
+
+"If you knew, Jean, what I have suffered by this want of liberty in
+the house, to find our parents so different from what they have had
+us trained to be. For I ask, why did they give it to me?"
+
+The young man took the cigar he was smoking from his lips:
+
+"Our education, Lucienne? It was only our father who wished it."
+
+"He alone is intelligent."
+
+"Oh, how can you speak like that of your mother?"
+
+"Understand clearly," she answered, embarrassed. "I am not of those
+who hide one half of their thoughts and who make the others
+unrecognisable because of the flowery language they are wrapped up
+in. I love mamma very much more than you think, but I judge her
+also. She is possessed of intelligence as regards household affairs;
+she is refined; she has some little taste for literature, but she
+cannot deal intelligently with general questions. She does not see
+farther than Alsheim. My father has understood far better the
+position which is given us in Alsace; he has been enlightened by his
+intercourse, which is very wide and of all kinds, by his commercial
+interest and by his ambition...."
+
+And as Jean made a questioning movement: "What ambition do you
+mean?"
+
+Lucienne continued: "I surprise you; yes, for a young girl, as you
+said, I seem audacious and even irreverent. Is it not true?"
+
+"A little."
+
+"My dear Jean, I am only anticipating your own judgment--only
+hindering you from losing time in comparative psychological studies.
+You have just come home, I left school two years and a half ago. I
+am letting you benefit by my experience. Well, there is no doubt
+about it: our father is ambitious. He has all that is necessary for
+success. A will of iron for his inferiors, much flexibility
+_vis-ŕ-vis_ others, wealth, a quickness of mind which makes him the
+superior of all the manufacturers or German officials we meet here.
+I prophesy you that now that he is in favour with the Stadthalter
+you will not be long in seeing him a candidate for the Reichstag."
+
+"That is impossible, Lucienne."
+
+"Perhaps; but it will come to pass, nevertheless; I am sure of it. I
+do not say that he will stand for Obernai, but for some place in
+Alsace, and he will be elected, because he will be supported by the
+Government and he will settle the price.... Perhaps you did not give
+this a place in your calculations when you decided to return to
+Alsheim? I know I upset your ideas. You will have many such
+disturbances. What you must know, my dear Jean"--she laid stress on
+the word "dear"--"is that the home of the family is not an amusing
+one. We are irremediably divided."
+
+Jean and Lucienne were silent for a moment, because the lodge was
+quite near; then they turned towards the lawn and took the second
+alley, which led to the house.
+
+"Irremediably? You believe this?"
+
+"It would be childish to doubt it. My father will not change and
+will not become French again, because that would be to give up his
+future for ever, and many commercial advantages. Mamma will not
+change, because she is a woman, and because to become a German
+would be to give up a sentiment which she thinks very noble. You
+surely do not aim at converting grandfather? Well then?"
+
+She stopped and faced Jean.
+
+"Well, my dear, as you cannot bring peace into the family by
+gentleness, bring it by being strong. Do not imagine you can remain
+neutral. Even if you would, circumstances will not permit it. I am
+sure of that. Join with me and father, even if you do not think as
+we do in everything.
+
+"I have sought you out to implore you to be on our side. When mamma
+understands that her two children think her wrong she will defend
+her childhood's memories less energetically; she will advise
+grandfather to abstain from demonstrations like those of to-day, and
+our meals will be less like combats at close quarters. We shall
+command the situation. It is all that we can hope for. Will you?
+Papa told me, quickly this morning, that your tenderness for the
+Germans was not a lively one. But you do not hate them?"
+
+"No."
+
+"I only ask for tolerance and a certain amount of consideration for
+them--that is to say, for us who see them. You have lived ten years
+in Germany; you will continue to do here what you did there. You
+will not leave the drawing-room when one of them comes to see us?"
+
+"Of course not. But you see, Lucienne, even if I act differently
+from mamma, because my education has made me put up with what is
+odious to her, I cannot blame her. I can find the most touching
+reasons why she should be what she is."
+
+"Touching?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I find them unreasonable."
+
+Jean's green eyes and Lucienne's lighter ones questioned one another
+for a moment. The two young people, both grave, with an expression
+of astonishment and defiance, measured each other and thought: "Is
+it she I saw just now so smiling and so tender?" "Is it really he
+who resists me, a brother brought up like me, and who ought to yield
+to me, if it were only because I am young and he is glad to see me
+again?" She was displeased. This first meeting had placed in
+opposition the paternal violence which Lucienne had inherited and
+the inflexible will which the mother had transmitted to her son. It
+was Lucienne who broke the silence. She turned to continue the walk,
+and shaking her head:
+
+"I see," she said. "You imagine that you will have a confidante in
+mamma, a friend to whom you can open your heart fully? She is worthy
+of all respect, my dear. But there again you are mistaken. I have
+tried. She is, or thinks she is, too miserable. All you tell her
+will immediately serve her as an argument in her own quarrel. If you
+wished, for example, to marry a German----"
+
+"No, no; but no."
+
+"I am only supposing. Mamma would go at once to find my father, and
+would say to him: 'Look at this! It is horrible! It is your fault!
+Yours!' And if you wished to marry an Alsatian our mother would at
+once take advantage of it and say: 'He is on my side, against you,
+against you.' No, my dear, the real, true confidante at Alsheim is
+Lucienne."
+
+She took Jean's hand, and without ceasing to walk she looked up at
+him, her face beaming with life and youthfulness.
+
+"Believe me, let us be frank with each other. You do not know me
+well. You have travelled so much. I astonish you. You will see that
+I have great faults. I am proud and selfish, hardly capable of
+making sacrifices; something of a flirt, but I have no roundabout
+ways. Lately, when I was looking forward to your arrival, I
+promised myself a lasting joy, the joy of having your youth near
+mine to understand it. I will tell you all that is important in my
+life, all that I am resolved to do--I have no one here whom I can
+trust absolutely. You cannot know what I have suffered. Will you?"
+
+"Oh yes."
+
+"You will tell me your thoughts, but above all I shall have spoken
+to you. I shall not suffocate, as I have often done in this house. I
+shall have many things to tell you. It will be some way of regaining
+the intimacy we have almost lost, and will give us a little tardy
+fraternal companionship. What are you thinking about?"
+
+"About this poor house."
+
+Lucienne lifted her eyes above the slate roof which rose in front.
+She wished to say, "If you knew how sad it really is," then she
+embraced her brother, and said:
+
+"I am not so bad as you think me, brother, nor so ungrateful to
+mamma. I am going to find her to talk about your return. She
+certainly wants to speak of her happiness to some one."
+
+Lucienne left her brother, turning again to smile at him, and
+walking as a goddess might, with steps free and finely poised, with
+her hand replacing the pins which held up her hair so badly,
+disarranged as it was by the walk and blown about by the wind, she
+took the fifty steps which separated her from the staircase, and
+disappeared.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE GUARDIANS OF THE HEARTH
+
+
+When Lucienne left Jean he had turned round the house, crossed a
+semicircular court formed by stables and coach-houses, then a large
+kitchen-garden surrounded by walls, and opening a private door at
+the end on the right he found himself in the country, behind the
+village of Alsheim. His first joy at his return had already lessened
+and faded. He heard again sentences which had sunk into the depths
+of his soul; their very accent came back to him with the appearance
+and the gesture of the one who had uttered them.
+
+He thought of the "sad house" there quite close to the wall which
+enclosed the grounds, and it pained him to remember what an entirely
+different idea he had formed years ago of the welcome which awaited
+him at Alsheim, and the almost religious emotion he had felt far
+away, in the towns and on the roads of Europe and the East, when he
+thought, "My mother, my father, my sister! My first day at home
+after my father has said yes!" The first day had begun. It had not
+been, up to the present, worthy of this old-time dream.
+
+Even the weather was bad. Before him the plain of Alsace, smooth,
+scarcely marked with some lines of trees, stretched out to the foot
+of the Vosges, covered with forests which made their height appear
+less than it was. The north wind, blowing from the sea, filling all
+the valley with its continuous wailing, chased the dark clouds from
+the sky, broken and heaped together like furrows in fields, clouds
+full of rain and hail, which would dissolve in compact masses to
+fall in the south, on the side of the Alps. It was cold.
+
+Meanwhile Jean Oberlé, having looked to the left, from the side
+where the land declined a little, perceived the avenue ending in a
+little wood, which he had seen in the morning, and he felt again
+that his youth called to _her_. He made sure no one was watching him
+from the windows of his home, and he took the path which turned
+round the village.
+
+It was really only a track traced by people going to, and coming
+from work. It followed very nearly the zigzag line made by the
+sheds, the pig-styes, the stables, the barns, the low boundaries
+commanded by the manure-heaps, fowl-houses, all the back buildings
+of the dwellings of Alsheim, which had on the other side, on the
+road, their principal façade, or at least a white wall, a cart-door,
+and a great mulberry-tree overflowing the edge of it. The young man
+walked quietly on the beaten track. He passed the church which,
+almost in the centre of Alsheim, raised its square tower, surmounted
+by a slate roof in the form of a steeple, with a metal point, and
+came to the centre of a group of four enormous walnut-trees, serving
+as landmarks, as ornament and shelter to the last farm in the
+village. There began the property of M. Xavier Bastian, the mayor of
+Alsheim, the old friend of M. Joseph Oberlé, a man of influence,
+rich and patriotic, and to whose house Jean was going. The sound of
+flails could be heard in the neighbouring yard. It must be the fine,
+big sons of the Ramspacher, the Bastians' tenants. One had served
+his time in the German army, the other was going to join his
+regiment in the month of November. They were threshing under the
+barn in the old style. Every autumn, every winter, when the miller's
+store of corn diminished, and when the weather was bad outside, they
+spread out some sheaves in the shelter, and their flails struck
+blithely and galloped like colts let loose in high grass. Nothing
+had stopped the tradition.
+
+"Isn't my Alsheim old?" said Jean to himself. Although he was very
+anxious not to be recognised, he approached the latticed door which
+opened on to the fields on this side, and if he did not see the
+workers, hidden by an unharnessed cart, he saw again with a friendly
+smile the yard of the old farm, a kind of road bordered with
+buildings which were only apparently framework with a little earth
+between the wooden beams, a demonstration of the everlasting
+strength of the chestnut which had furnished the jambs, the raising
+pieces, the wooden balconies, and the framework of the windows. No
+one heard him, no one saw him. He went on his way and his heart
+began to beat violently. For immediately after the farm of the
+Ramspachers, the path fell, at right angles, to an avenue of
+cherry-trees leading from the village to the house of M. Bastian. It
+was not probable that in this bad weather the Mayor would be far
+from home. In a few moments Jean would speak with him; he would meet
+Odile; he would find some means of knowing if she were betrothed.
+
+Odile. All Jean's early childhood was full of that name. The
+daughter of M. Bastian had formerly been the playfellow of Lucienne
+and of Jean when the evolution of M. Oberlé had not been affirmed
+and known in the country-side; a little later she had become the
+charming vision which Jean saw again at the Munich Gymnasium when he
+thought of Alsheim; the young, growing girl, whom one saw in the
+holidays, on Sundays in church, whom one saluted without
+approaching when Monsieur or Madame Oberlé were present, but also
+the passer-by of the grape harvest and of the woods, and the walker
+who had a smile for Lucienne or for Jean met at the turn of a road.
+What secret enchantment did this girl of Alsheim possess, brought up
+entirely in the country, except for two or three years passed with
+the nuns of Notre-Dame in Strasburg, not worldly--less brilliant
+than Lucienne, more silent and more grave? The same, no doubt, as
+the country where she was born. Jean had left her, as he had left
+Alsace, without being able to forget her. He had forbidden himself
+to see her during his last short stay in Alsheim, in order to prove
+himself and to find out if truly the memory of Odile would resist a
+long separation, studies, and travels. He had thought: "If she
+marries in the interval, it will be a proof that she has never
+thought of me, and I shall not weep for her." She had not married.
+Nothing showed that she was engaged. And certainly Jean was going to
+see her again.
+
+He preferred not to go down the wild cherry avenue, celebrated for
+its beauty, which guarded the Bastians' property. The people of the
+little town, the few workers in the neighbouring country, although
+they were few, would have recognised the manufacturer's son going to
+the Mayor of Alsheim's. He followed the trimmed blackthorn hedge,
+which bounded the alley, walking on the red earth or on the narrow
+border of grass left by the plough at the edge of the ditch. Behind
+him the noise of the flails in the barn followed him, fading in the
+distance and scattered by the wind. Jean asked himself: "How shall I
+approach M. Bastian? How will he receive me? Bah! I arrive; I am
+supposed to be ignorant of much!"
+
+Two hundred yards to the south of the farm the avenue of wild
+cherries ended, and the grove, which one saw from so far off,
+bordered the sown fields. The wood was composed of fine old trees,
+oaks, planes, and elms, at this time bare of leaves--under which
+evergreen trees had grown up: pines, spindletrees, and laurels. Jean
+continued to follow the hedge as it curved across a field of lucerne
+to a rustic gate, with worn paint and half rotten, which rose
+between two jambs. A piece of sandstone thrown across the ditch
+served as a bridge. The laurel-trees growing out over the fence of
+blackthorn on each side of the upright posts, closed in the view at
+two yards. When Jean came near, a blackbird flew off, uttering a
+warning note. Jean remembered that to enter one had only to pass
+one's hand through the hedge and to lift an iron hook. So he opened
+the door, and, a little uneasy at his audacity, grazed from his coat
+to his gaiters by the overgrown branches of an alley far too narrow
+and hardly ever entered, he came out on to a sanded space, passed
+several clumps of shrubs edged with box, and arrived at the house on
+the far side from Alsheim. Here there were plane-trees more than a
+hundred years old, planted in a semi-circle, which sheltered a tiny
+lawn and spread their branches over the tiles of an old, low, squat
+house, from which two balconies projected, topped with overhanging
+roofs. Store-rooms, presses, barns, and a bee-hive formed the
+continuation of the master's house, where abundance, good nature,
+and the simplicity of the old Alsatian homely spirit were in
+evidence. Jean, kept back for a moment by the irresistible
+attraction of these places, once so familiar to him, looked at the
+plane-trees, the roof, a window with a balcony on which ivy grew. He
+was going to take the few steps which separated him from the
+half-open door, when on the threshold a tall man appeared, and
+recognising the visitor made a sign of surprise. It was M. Xavier
+Bastian. No man of sixty years of age in the division of Erstein was
+more robust or of a more youthful turn of mind. He had wide
+shoulders, a massive head, as wide below as above, quite white hair,
+divided in short locks overlapping each other, his cheeks and the
+upper lip shaven, the nose large, the eyes fine and grey, the mouth
+thickset, and on his countenance the sort of prepossessing pride of
+those who have never known fear of anything. He wore the long
+frock-coat to which many notable Alsatians remained faithful, even
+in the villages such as Alsheim, where the inhabitants have no
+special costume or any memory of having had any.
+
+Seeing Jean Oberlé, whom he had often dandled on his knees, he made
+a movement of surprise.
+
+"Is it you, my boy?" he said, in the dialect of Alsace, which he
+mostly used, and with which he was more familiar than with French.
+"What has happened to bring you here?"
+
+"Nothing, M. Bastian, if not that I have just come home."
+
+He held out his hand to the old Alsatian, who took it, pressed it,
+and suddenly lost that gaiety which had been in his welcome, for he
+thought: "It is now ten years since your father last came here, ten
+years that your family and mine have been enemies." But he only
+said, in answer to himself, and as if doing away with an objection:
+
+"Come in all the same, Jean; there is no harm for once."
+
+But the gladness of the first meeting was gone, and did not return.
+
+"How did you know that I was on your land?" asked Jean, who did not
+understand. "Did you hear me?"
+
+"No; I heard the blackbird. I thought it was my servant, whom I have
+sent to Obernai to get the lamps of my victoria mended. Come into
+the hall."
+
+He thought, with a feeling of regret and reprobation: "As your
+father used to come in when he was worthy."
+
+In the corridor to the left he opened a door, and both went into the
+"big room," which was at the same time the dining-room and the
+reception-room of this rich citizen, heir of lands and of the
+traditions of a long series of ancestors, who had only left the
+house at Alsheim for the cemetery. Nearly all the picturesque
+furniture which one still meets with in the old houses of rural
+Alsace had disappeared from the dwelling of M. Bastian. No more
+carved cupboards; no more chairs of solid wood, with the backs cut
+in the shape of hearts; no clock in its painted case; no more little
+weights at the windows. The few chairs in the big, square, light
+hall, the table, the cupboard, and the big chest, on the top of
+which was the cast of a Pietŕ not known to fame, were all of
+polished walnut. The only thing that was old was the historical
+stove of faience, bearing the signature of Master Hugelin of
+Strasburg, and of which M. Bastian was as proud as if it had been a
+treasure. About two-thirds down the room, between the stove and the
+table, a woman of about fifty was sitting, dressed in black, rather
+stout, having regular, thick features, bands of grey hair, the
+forehead almost without lines, fine long eyebrows, and eyes as dark
+as if she had come from the south, calm and dignified, which she
+lifted first to Jean and then to her husband as if to ask, "How does
+he come here?"
+
+She was sewing the hem of an unbleached linen sheet, which fell
+about her in big folds. Seeing Jean enter, she dropped it. She
+remained dumb with surprise, not understanding how her husband could
+bring to her the son, educated in Germany, of a renegade father,
+traitor to Alsace. During the war she had had three brothers killed
+in the service of France.
+
+"I met him coming to see me," M. Bastian said, as if to excuse
+himself, "and I begged him to enter, Marie."
+
+"Good day, madame," said the young man, who was hurt by the
+astonishment and coolness of Madame Bastian's first glance, and who
+had stopped in the middle of the hall. "Old memories brought me
+here."
+
+"Good day, Jean."
+
+The words died away before reaching the walls, papered with old
+peonies. One could hardly hear them. The silence which followed was
+so cruel that Jean grew pale, and M. Bastian, who had shut the door,
+and who, a little behind Jean, was scolding gently, with a shake of
+the head, those beautiful, severe eyes of the Alsatian woman, which
+did not lower themselves, intervened, saying:
+
+"I have not told you, Marie, that I saw our friend Ulrich this
+morning in our vineyards of Sainte Odile. He spoke to me of this
+boy's return to Alsheim. He assured me that we ought to congratulate
+ourselves that we are going to see his nephew settle in the country.
+He told me that he was one of ours."
+
+The silent lips of the Alsatian wore a vague smile of incredulity,
+which died as the words died. And Madame Bastian again began to sew.
+
+Jean turned round, pale, as yet more miserable than irritated, and
+said in a low voice to M. Bastian:
+
+"I knew that our two families were divided, but not to such an
+extent as they evidently are. I left Alsheim some time ago. You will
+excuse me for having come."
+
+"Stay, stay! I will explain to you. Believe me that we have nothing
+against you, no animosity whatever, neither one nor the other."
+
+The old man placed his hand on Jean's arm in a friendly manner:
+
+"I do not want you to go like that. No; since you are here I will
+not let you say that I have sent you away without doing the
+honours. The thought would weigh heavy on me. I will not!"
+
+"No, M. Bastian, I ought not to be here. I am in the way; I cannot
+stay one instant."
+
+He moved to go away. The solid hand of the old Mayor of Alsheim
+fastened round the wrist he held. His voice rose and became harsh.
+
+"Presently. But do not at least refuse the civility I am accustomed
+to show to all who come here. It is the custom of the country and of
+the house. Drink with me, Jean Oberlé, or I shall repudiate you, and
+we shall not even recognise each other."
+
+Jean remembered that no house in the country round Barr or Obernai,
+not even the oldest and richest, possessed better recipes for making
+beam-tree-berry brandy or cherry brandy, or elderberry wine, or wine
+made with dried grapes, or spring drinks. He saw that the old Mayor
+of Alsheim would be deeply hurt by a refusal, and that the offer was
+a means of showing his cordiality without disavowing in words, or in
+thought, the mother, queen, and mistress of the big house, who
+continued to ignore the guest, because the guest was the son of
+Joseph Oberlé.
+
+"So be it," he said.
+
+Then M. Bastian called, "Odile!"
+
+The hands that held the linen, near the stove, rested on the folds
+of her black dress, and for half a minute there were three human
+beings, each with very different thoughts, who awaited her who was
+going to enter at the end of the room, on the right, near the great
+walnut cupboard. She came out of the shadow of a neighbouring room
+and advanced into the light, while Jean controlled his feelings and
+was saying to himself, "I did well to remember her!"
+
+"Give me the oldest brandy that we have," said the father.
+
+Odile Bastian had at first smiled at her father, whom she saw near
+the door, then she had, with a movement of her brown eyebrows, shown
+her astonishment, without displeasure, when she recognised Jean
+Oberlé near him; then the smile had disappeared when she saw her
+mother, bending over her work-table, dumb and holding herself aloof
+from what was going on around her. Then her bosom heaved, the words
+she was going to say were arrested before reaching her lips; and
+Odile Bastian, too intelligent not to guess the affront, too much a
+woman to emphasise the secret trouble, had simply and silently
+obeyed. She had sought a key in the drawer of a chest, had gone to
+the big cupboard, and raising herself on the tips of her toes, one
+hand leaning on one of the doors at the top of the piece of
+furniture, her head thrown back, she ransacked the depths of the
+hiding-place.
+
+She was just the same girl, but more developed, who had lived in
+Jean's memory for years, and who had followed him over the world.
+Her features were not regular. But in spite of that she was
+beautiful, with a strong, glowing beauty. She seemed like the
+statues of Alsace, which one sees on monuments and in French
+souvenir pictures, like those daughters of rich and warlike blood,
+wrathful and daring, while near them a more feminine Lorraine weeps
+sadly. She was tall; there were no hollows in her full cheeks,
+curving to a chin as firm and pink. It is true she did not wear the
+wide bows of black ribbon which make two wings on the head, but that
+only accentuated the unusual, the exceptional beauty of her hair,
+which was of the colour of ripe corn, of a perfectly dull, even
+tint, bound in bands round her temples and there twisted and raised
+on her head. Her eyebrows were of the same colour, long and finely
+marked, and the lashes, and even the eyes, slightly apart, where
+dwelt a soul at rest, were deep and passionate. In a moment M.
+Bastian had on a stand two glasses of cut crystal and a big-bellied
+black bottle. He took the bottle in one hand and with the other he
+drew out, without shaking it, a cork which swelled out as it left
+the neck, being damp as sapwood in spring time. At the same time a
+smell of ripe fruit was diffused under the beams of the room.
+
+"It is fifty years old," said he, pouring a little of the liqueur
+into each of the glasses.
+
+He added seriously, "I drink to your health, Jean Oberlé, and to
+your return to Alsheim!"
+
+But Jean, without answering directly, and with every one silent, and
+looking at Odile, who had withdrawn to the cupboard, and who,
+standing erect against it, was also looking at and studying her old
+playfellow returned to his native country, said:
+
+"I drink to the land of Alsace!"
+
+By the tone of the words, by the gesture of the hand raising the
+little sparkling glass, by the look fixed on the end of the room,
+some one understood that the land of Alsace was here personified and
+present. The tall, beautiful daughter of the Bastians remained
+motionless, leaning against the cupboard, which framed her in its
+yellowish shadow. But her eyes had the brightness that wheat has
+when it waves at a breath of wind in the sunshine, and without
+turning her head, without ceasing to look straight in front of her,
+her eyelids slowly lowered and shut, saying thank you!
+
+And that was all.
+
+Madame Bastian had not even looked up. Odile had said not a
+word--Jean bowed and went out.
+
+The old Mayor of Alsheim rejoined him outside.
+
+"I will go with you to the other end of my garden," he said, "for it
+is better for us--for you--and for your father, that you should not
+be seen coming down the avenue. You will seem to be coming from the
+fields."
+
+"What a strange country this has become!" said the young man in an
+angry tone. "Because you do not hold the same opinions as my father
+you cannot receive me, and when I leave you I must do so secretly,
+and after having had to submit to the insult of a silence which was
+hard to bear. I can tell you that!"
+
+He spoke loudly enough to be heard from the house, from which he was
+only a few steps away. The usual paleness of his complexion was more
+noticeable, and emotion contracted the muscles of his neck and jaws,
+and all his face had a tragic expression.
+
+M. Bastian led him on.
+
+"I have another reason for taking you that way," he said, "it will
+be longer, and I have things to explain to you."
+
+They took a path that was not gravelled, which went by the
+plane-trees, passed a kitchen garden and then crossed a little wood.
+
+"You do not understand, dear boy," said M. Bastian, in a voice which
+was firm without being harsh, "because you have not yet really lived
+among us. It has not changed; what you see dates back for thirty
+years."
+
+Through an opening in the trees they saw a little bit of the plain,
+with the belfry of Barr in the distance, and the blue Vosges
+mountains above and beyond.
+
+"Formerly," continued M. Bastian, pointing vaguely to the country,
+"our Alsace was just one family. Big and little knew each other and
+lived happily together. You know that even now I make no difference
+between rich and poor, between a citizen of Strasburg and a
+wood-cutter from the mountain. But what is done is done--we have
+been torn away, against our will, from France, and treated brutally
+because we did not say 'Yes.' We cannot revolt--we cannot drive
+away our masters, who know nothing about our hearts or our lives.
+But we do not admit them to our friendship, neither them nor those
+amongst us who have taken the side of the stronger."
+
+He stopped speaking for a moment, not wishing to say all that he
+thought on this subject, and went on, taking Jean's hand.
+
+"You are very angry with my wife because of her reception of you;
+but you are not the cause of it, neither is she. Until the doubt
+which rests on you is lifted, you are he who was educated in
+Germany, and the woman you have just seen is this country.
+Reflect--you must not bear a grudge against her. We have not all
+been faithful to Alsace, we men; and the best of us have compromised
+and have more or less recognised the new master. Not so the
+women--Ah! Jean Oberlé, I have not the courage to disclaim them even
+when you whom I love so well are the subject. Our Alsatian women are
+not insulting you in any ordinary way when they do not receive you;
+they are defending their country, they are carrying on the war." The
+old man had tears in his red and wrinkled eyes.
+
+"You will know me later," said Jean.
+
+They were at the end of the little park before a wooden door as
+mouldy as the other. M. Bastian opened it, shook the young man's
+hand and stayed a long time at the end of the wood watching Jean go
+away and get smaller on the plain, his head bent against the wind,
+which was still blowing, and more violently.
+
+Jean was troubled to the depth of his soul.
+
+Between him and each family in this old country he felt he was going
+to find his father. He was suffering from having been born in the
+house towards which he was going. He saw the image of Odile as the
+only sweet thing of this first day, and her eyes were slowly, slowly
+closing.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+COMPANIONS OF THE ROAD
+
+
+The winter did not allow M. Oberlé's ideas about the professional
+education of Jean to be carried out exactly. The snow which remained
+on the summits of the Vosges, without being thick, made travelling
+very difficult. So Jean paid only two or three visits to the
+wood-cutting centres situated near Alsheim and in the Vosges
+valleys. The excursions to more distant places were put off for a
+warmer season. But he learned to cube a pine or a beech without
+making a mistake, to value it according to the place it occupied in
+the forest, according to the height of the trunk below the branches,
+the appearance of the bark, which indicated the health of the tree,
+and by other calculations into which a kind of divining quality
+enters, which cannot be taught anywhere, and which makes the expert.
+His father initiated him into the working of the factory and the
+management of the machines, the reading of agreements, and the
+traditions of fifty years kept up by the Oberlés regarding sale and
+carriage contracts. He put him into relationship with two officials
+of the administration of the forests of Strasburg, who showed
+themselves very ready to be of service, and proposed to Jean to
+explain to him personally the new forest legislation, of which he
+still knew but little. "Come," said the younger, "come to see me at
+my office, and I will tell you more things you will find it useful
+to know than you will learn in books. For the law is the law, but
+the administration is another thing."
+
+Jean promised to profit when occasions offered themselves. But
+several weeks went by without his having the time to go to the town.
+Then March came in mildly and melted the snows. In a week, and much
+earlier than usual, the brooks swelled to overflowing, and the high
+peaks of the Vosges and Sainte Odile which one could see from
+Alsheim, which had had their slopes and paths white with snow,
+appeared in their summer robes of dark and pale green.
+
+The walks round Alsheim were going to be exquisite and such as the
+young man had pictured to himself in his youthful memories. The
+home, without being a model of family unity, had witnessed no
+repetition of the painful scene which occurred the day after Jean's
+return. In each camp words were noted and deeds observed, which
+would one day become arguments and subjects of reproach and
+discussion, but just now there was a sort of truce brought about by
+different causes.
+
+In M. Joseph Oberlé it was the desire not to be wrong in his son's
+eyes; for his son was going to be useful, and he did not wish to be
+accused of provocation. In Lucienne it was the diversion which the
+presence of her brother had brought into her life, and the interest,
+not yet exhausted, that she took in his tales of travel and student
+life. In Madame Oberlé it was fear of making her son suffer, and of
+alienating him by letting him see the family feuds. Nothing had
+really changed. There was only a superficial gaiety, an appearance
+of peace, a truce. But although Jean felt that the agreement of the
+hearts and minds around him was not real, he enjoyed it because he
+had spent long years in moral solitude.
+
+The worries and clashing of interests came from elsewhere, and were
+not wanting. Nearly every day Jean had occasion to go through the
+village of Alsheim, which was built on each side of three roads
+forming a fork, the handle of which was the mountain side, and the
+two prongs towards the plain. At the bifurcation was the tavern, the
+Swan, which took up a corner of the church square. A little farther
+on, on the left road leading to Bernhardsweiler, dwelt the German
+workmen engaged by M. Joseph Oberlé, and lodged in little houses all
+alike, each with a little garden in front. So that in whatever part
+of Alsheim he showed himself, the young man could not help reading,
+in the faces and gestures of those he met, different opinions, and
+all equally distressing. The Germans and their wives--the workmen,
+better disciplined and more tame-spirited than the Alsatians,
+fearing all authority without respecting it, quartered in a corner
+of Alsheim by the hatred of the population on which they hoped to
+take vengeance some day, when they should be the more numerous,
+having with the other inhabitants no ties of origin, family,
+customs, or religion--could only have indifference or hostility for
+the master, which were badly disguised by the salutations of the
+men, and the furtive smiles of the women.
+
+But many of the Alsatians were less under restraint. It was enough
+that Jean had entered the business and that he was seen constantly
+with his father, for their disapproval to extend to him. He saw
+himself covered with a prudent contempt, the kind that little people
+can always express towards powerful neighbours. The forest workmen,
+the labourers, the women, and even the children pretended not to see
+him when he passed, others withdrew into their houses; others, the
+old ones especially, watched the rich man come and go as if he had
+been from another country. Those who showed the most signs of
+respect were the tradesmen or the employés, or the relations of the
+employés of the house. And Jean found it difficult to bear the
+reopening of this wound each time he left the park.
+
+On Sunday, at church, in the whitewashed nave, he waited for the
+coming of Odile. To reach the seat reserved for her family for
+years, which was the first on the Epistle side, she had to pass near
+Jean. She passed, with her father and her mother, without any of
+them appearing to know that Jean was there, and M. Oberlé, and
+Lucienne. She only smiled at the end of Mass, when she came down the
+aisle, but she smiled at whole rows of friendly faces, at women, old
+men, at big boys who would have died for her, and at the children of
+the choir, the chanters of the "Concordia," who scampered off by the
+sacristy door, to be able to salute, surround, and welcome at the
+door the daughter of M. Bastian, the Alsatian girl, the friend, the
+beloved of all this poor village; she did not give away more money
+than Madame Oberlé, but they knew that there was no division in her
+house, no treachery, and that the only difference between it and the
+other houses in the valleys and mountains of Alsace was its wealth.
+What did she think of Jean? She, whose eyes never spoke in vain, did
+not look at him. She who used to speak to him in the roads now said
+nothing.
+
+The first month of Jean's new life passed away like this in Alsheim.
+Then spring was born. M. Joseph Oberlé waited two days and then,
+seeing the buds of his birch-trees burst in the sunshine, he said to
+his son on the third day:
+
+"You are a good enough apprentice now to go alone and inspect our
+timber-yard in the Vosges. You will get ready to start. This year I
+have made exceptional purchases. I have cuttings as far as the
+Schlucht, and to visit them you will have to visit nearly all the
+Vosges. I give you no instructions, only observe, and bring me a
+report, in which you will note down your observations of each of our
+cuttings."
+
+"When shall I start?"
+
+"To-morrow, if you like--the winter is over." M. Oberlé said that
+with the assurance of a man who has had need to know the weather
+like a peasant, and who knows it. He had, before speaking, ordered a
+list to be prepared of the cuttings of wood bought by the house
+either from the German State or from the Communes, or from private
+people, with the detailed directions on the position they occupied
+in the mountains, and he gave this list to Jean.
+
+There were a dozen cuttings distributed over the whole length of the
+Vosges, from the valley of the Bruche on the north to the mouth of
+the Schlucht.
+
+The next day Jean put a little linen and a change of shoes in a bag,
+and without telling any one of his intention hurried to the
+mountain, and up to the lodge of Heidenbruch.
+
+The square house, with green shutters, and the meadow, and the
+forest all round the clearing, were smoking as if a fire had
+devoured the heath and grass, and left the beech and pines intact.
+Long wreaths of mist seemed to emanate from the soil, and to grow
+tenuous, and uniting, lose themselves in the low clouds, which
+glided along, rising from the valleys and going up the slopes
+towards the invisible monastery of Sainte Odile. The humidity
+penetrated to the very depths of the forests. It was everywhere.
+Drops of water shone on the pine needles, streamed in threads down
+the bare trunks of the beeches, polished the pebbles, swelled the
+many mosses, and travelling over the land, and flowing on dead
+leaves, went to swell the brooks, whose cadenced song could be heard
+on all sides--the grasshopper of winter whose song never ceases.
+
+Jean went up to the middle of the wooden palisade painted green,
+which surrounded Heidenbruch, passed through the gate, and in the
+front of the lodge called out gaily to the windows closed because of
+the fog, "Uncle Ulrich."
+
+A cap appeared behind the window panes, the cap of an Alsatian woman
+who takes care of her big black ribbons--and under the cap there was
+the smile of an old friend.
+
+"Lise, tell uncle!"
+
+This time the last window to the left opened, and the refined face,
+the eyes of a watcher, the pointed beard of M. Ulrich Biehler were
+framed between two shutters thrown back against the white wall.
+
+"Uncle, I have at least a dozen wood-cutting places to visit. I
+begin this morning, and I come to take you for a companion, to-day,
+to-morrow, and every day...."
+
+"Twelve journeys in the forest," answered his uncle, who leaned, his
+arms crossed, on the window sill, "this is a fine ending to Lent! My
+compliments on your mission!" He looked at his nephew in
+walking-clothes, his strong, masculine face raised in the fog; he
+was thinking that one could have sworn that he was a French officer,
+and then, carried away by his imagination, he forgot to say whether
+or not he would accompany his morning visitor.
+
+"Come, uncle," continued Jean. "Come! Don't refuse me! We will sleep
+in the inns; you will show me Alsace."
+
+"I walked seven leagues yesterday, my friend!"
+
+"We will only do six to-day."
+
+"You really want me to come?"
+
+"An absence of three years, Uncle Ulrich, think of that, and a whole
+education to go through!"
+
+"Well! I won't refuse you, Jean; I am too delighted that you should
+have thought of me. I have even a second reason for agreeing to the
+journey and to thank you for it. I will tell you presently."
+
+He shut the window. In the silence of the woods Jean heard him call
+the old valet, who was second in command in Heidenbruch.
+
+"Pierre! Pierre! Ah! there you are! We are going for twelve days
+into the mountains. I take you with me. You will pack my bag; put it
+on your back with my nephew's bag. Take your shoes with the nails,
+your stick, and you will go in front to the halting-place, while
+Jean and I go to visit the cuttings. Do not forget my waterproof,
+nor my pocket medicine chest."
+
+Going into the house, the young man saw Uncle Ulrich, full of
+business and radiant, pass him, open the drawing-room door, go to
+the wall, take down a long object in copper on two nails, and go
+quickly upstairs again.
+
+"What are you taking away, uncle?"
+
+"My telescope."
+
+"Such an old one."
+
+"I cling to it, my friend; it belonged to my great uncle, General
+Biehler. It saw the back of the Prussians at Jena!"
+
+Half an hour later, in the meadow on the slope in front of the house
+was M. Ulrich, gaitered like Jean, with a soft hat, the telescope
+slung over his shoulder, his dog gambolling round him; old Pierre
+very dignified and solemn, carrying on his mountaineer's shoulders a
+great pack wrapped in linen and fastened by straps; then Jean
+Oberlé, bending over a staff-officer's map, which the others knew by
+heart, discussing the two ways to go--the way of the baggage and the
+way of the walkers. The discussion was short. The servant went on in
+front, bearing to the left to reach the village where they would
+sleep, while the uncle and nephew took a path to the middle of the
+mountain--in a north-easterly direction.
+
+"So much the better that it is a long way," said M. Ulrich, when
+they gained the shade of the wood. "So much the better. I wish it
+were for a lifetime. Two people who understand one another and go
+through the forest--what a dream!"
+
+He half shut his eyes, as painters do, and breathed in the mist with
+pleasure.
+
+"Do you know," he added, in the way he would have confided to him
+something delightful, "Do you know that we have had spring here for
+three days? There it is--that's my second reason!"
+
+The forester said with enthusiasm what the manufacturer had said
+without admiration. By the same signs he recognised that a new
+season had begun. With his stick he pointed out to Jean the pine
+buds, red like arbutus berries; the bursting bark on the beech
+trunks, the shoots of wild strawberries running along the stones. In
+the uncovered pathways the north wind still blew, but in the
+hollows, the combes, the sheltered spots, one felt, in spite of the
+fog, the first warmth of the sun, which goes to the heart and makes
+men tremble, that warmth which touches the germ of the plants.
+
+That day, and during those which followed, uncle and nephew lived
+under wood. They understood one another perfectly, whether they
+spoke fully on any subject or were silent. M. Ulrich knew the forest
+and the mountains by heart. He enjoyed this opportunity which had
+been given him to explain the Vosges and to discover his nephew.
+Jean's ardent youthfulness often amused him and recalled bygone
+times. The instincts of the forester and hunter, slumbering in the
+young man's heart, were ripening and strengthening. But he had also
+his rage, his revolts, his juvenile threatening words, against which
+the uncle protested but feebly, because he really approved of them.
+
+The plaint of Alsace rose to his ear for the first time, the
+complaining cry the stranger does not hear and the conqueror only
+half listens to, but can never understand. For Jean did not only
+observe the forest; he also observed the people of the forest, from
+the merchants and the officials, feudal lords on whom depend a
+multitude almost past numbering, down to woodcutters, jobbers,
+fellers, carters, charcoal burners, down even to wanderers,
+shepherds, and swineherds, pedlars of dead wood, freebooters,
+poachers, myrtle gatherers, who also gather mushrooms and wild
+strawberries and raspberries.
+
+Introduced by Uncle Ulrich, or passing by in his shadow, he aroused
+no suspicions.
+
+He talked freely with the people--in their words, their silence, and
+in the atmosphere in which he lived day and night, he absorbed unto
+himself the very soul of his race. Many did not know France, among
+the young ones, and could not have said if they loved her, but even
+those had France in their veins. They did not get on with the
+German. A gesture, a look, an allusion, showed the secret disdain of
+the Alsatian peasant for his conqueror. The idea of a yoke was
+everywhere, and everywhere there was antipathy against the master
+who only knew how to govern by fear. Other young men of the families
+with traditions, instructed by their parents in the history of the
+past, faithful without any precise hope, complained that the poor of
+the mountain and plain were denied justice and subjected to
+annoyances if they were suspected of the crime of regretting France.
+They spoke of the tricks played by way of revenge on the custom
+officers, on the police, on the forest guard--proud of their green
+uniform and of their Tyrolese hat--the stories of smuggling and
+desertion, of the Marseillaise sung in the taverns with closed
+doors, of fętes on French land, of perquisitions, domiciliary visits
+and pursuits, of the comic or tragic duel, useless and exasperating,
+between the strength of a great country and the mind of a small
+one. When the latter suffered, its thoughts, inherited from
+ancestors, through habit and from affection, went over the
+mountains.
+
+There were also the old folk, and it was M. Ulrich's delight to make
+them talk. When on the roads, and in the villages, he saw a man of
+fifty years or more, and he knew him to be an Alsatian, it was
+seldom that he himself was not recognised and that a mysterious
+smile did not prepare the question for the Master of Heidenbruch:
+
+"Come, is this not another friend--a child of our family?"
+
+If M. Ulrich, by the expression of the face, by the movement of the
+eyes, by a little fear sometimes, felt that his conclusion was
+justified, he added in a low voice:
+
+"You--you have the face of a French soldier!"
+
+Then there were smiles or tears, sudden shocks to the heart, which
+changed the expression of the face pallors, flushings, pipes taken
+from the corner of the lips, and often, very often, a hand raised,
+turned palm outwards, touching the brim of the felt hat, thus making
+the military salute, as long as the two travellers were in sight.
+
+"Do you see him?" said Uncle Ulrich, quite softly; "if he had a
+bugle he would play 'La Casquette.'"
+
+Jean Oberlé never ceased talking of France. He asked when he came to
+the top of a mountain ridge: "Are we far from the frontier?" He made
+the uncle tell him what Alsace was like under the "gentle
+rule"--what liberty was enjoyed by each and all, how the towns were
+administered? What difference was there between the French
+gendarmes--whom M. Ulrich mentioned with a friendly smile as good
+fellows, not too hard on the poor--and these German gendarmes,
+common informers, brutal, always officious and full of zeal, whom
+the whole of the Alsace of to-day hated? What was the name of that
+prefect of the First Empire who placed by the roadsides of Lower
+Alsace benches of stone of two tiers so that the women going to
+market could sit down, and place at the same time their load above
+them? "The marquis de Lezay Marnésia, my boy."
+
+"Tell me the story of our artists, of our deputies in the old days,
+of our bishops. Tell me what Strasburg was like in your youth, and
+what a sight it was when the military band played at Contades?"
+
+M. Ulrich, with the joy of living over again which mingles with all
+our memories, remembered and related. While climbing and descending
+the intersections of the Vosges he went through the history of
+French Alsace. He had only to let his ardent heart speak, and it
+made him weep. It also made him sing, with the gaiety of a child,
+the songs of Nadaud, of Béranger, La Marseillaise, or the old Noels,
+which he sang to the pointed arches of the forest.
+
+Jean took such a passionate interest in these evocations of old
+Alsace, and he so naturally entered into the hatreds and revolts of
+the present that his uncle, who was at first pleased at it as a sign
+of good family, ended by growing uneasy. One evening, when they had
+given alms to an old teacher, deprived of the right of teaching
+French, and reduced to misery because she was too old to get a
+German diploma, Jean's anger had carried him away.
+
+"My dear Jean," said the uncle, "you must be careful not to go too
+far. You have to live with Germans."
+
+Since then M. Ulrich had avoided returning so often to the question
+of the annexation. But alas! it was the whole of Alsace, it was the
+landscape, the descending road, the sign of some shop, the women's
+dress, the type of men, the sight of soldiers, the fortifications at
+the top of a hill, a finger-post, the different items in a
+newspaper bought in the Alsatian inn where they had dined in the
+evening--it was every hour of the day which called their minds back
+to the condition of Alsace, a nation conquered but not assimilated.
+In vain did M. Ulrich answer more carelessly and quickly--he could
+not hinder Jean's thought from travelling the road to the unknown.
+And when they climbed together a neck of the Vosges, the elder man
+saw with pleasure and apprehension Jean's eyes travel to seek the
+horizon on the west, and gaze there as at some loved face. Jean did
+not look so long at the east or the south.
+
+A fortnight was employed in visiting the forest of the Vosges, and
+during this time M. Ulrich came back to Heidenbruch only twice for
+some hours. The separation took place only on Palm Sunday, in a
+village of the Valley of Münster.
+
+It was evening--the hour when the valleys of the German side of the
+mountains were quite blue, and there was only a strip of light on
+the last pines which surrounded the shade. M. Ulrich Biehler had
+already said good-bye to this nephew, his dearest friend.
+
+The servant had taken the train that same morning for Obernai, M.
+Ulrich, the collar of his cloak turned up because the cold was
+piercing, had just whistled to Fidčle and was leaving the inn, when
+Jean, in his blue hunting-costume, without a hat, came down the
+flight of steps.
+
+"Again good-bye," he said.
+
+And as the uncle, very upset, and not wishing to show it, made a
+sign with his hand to avoid words which might be tremulous--
+
+"I will go with you to the last house of the village," continued
+Jean.
+
+"Why, my boy, it is useless to prolong----"
+
+His head turned towards his uncle, and his uncle, looking down the
+road, Jean began to walk. He commenced in his cajoling young voice:
+
+"I am inexpressibly sorry to leave you, Uncle Ulrich, and I must
+tell you why. You understand before one says twenty words. You do
+not contradict aggressively: when you are not of my opinion, I know
+it by your mouth, which makes the point of your white beard
+rise--that is all. You are kind. You do not get angry, and I feel
+you are very decided. Other people's ideas all seem familiar to
+you--you are able to answer them so easily; you are respected by the
+weak. I was not accustomed to that on the other side of the Rhine."
+
+"Bah! bah!"
+
+"I even appreciate your fears about me."
+
+"My fears?"
+
+"Yes. Do you think that I did not see that there is another question
+which interests me intensely, and of which you have not spoken to me
+for six days?"
+
+This time Jean did not see his uncle's profile; he saw his full
+face, and its expression was a little anxious.
+
+"My boy, I did that purposely," said M. Ulrich. "When you questioned
+me, I told you what we were and what we are. And then I saw that I
+must not insist too much, because you would be full of grief. You
+see, grief is good for me; but for you, youth, it is better that you
+should start off like the horses which have not yet run a race, and
+only carry a very slight weight."
+
+The last house was passed. They were in the country, between a
+stream strewn with many boulders, and a steep slope which joined the
+forest up above.
+
+"Too late," said Jean Oberlé, holding out his hand and stopping,
+"too late; you have said too much, Uncle Ulrich. I feel I belong to
+the older times, as you do. And so much the worse, as to-morrow I
+go up to the Schlucht. I shall see her--I shall say good day to our
+country of France!"
+
+He laughed as he uttered these words. M. Ulrich shook his head once
+or twice to scold him, but without answering, and he went away into
+the mist.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE FRONTIER
+
+
+The next day Jean started in the morning on foot to go to the
+cutting bought by the House of Oberlé, which was situated on the
+crest of the mountains, enclosing the valley, to the left of the
+neck of the Schlucht, in the forest of Stosswihr. The way was
+long--the soil made slippery by a recent shower; besides, Jean lost
+several hours in going round a great rock he ought to have climbed.
+The afternoon was well advanced when he came to a wood cabin at the
+place where the road ended: just the time to talk to the German
+foreman who directed, under the supervision of the forest
+administration, the felling and transport of the firs; and the young
+man, continuing his climb, passed the workmen from the timber-yard
+coming down before the end of the day, to regain the valley. The
+sun, still splendid, was about to disappear on the other side of the
+Vosges. Jean was thinking with a beating heart of the frontier now
+quite near; however, he would not ask the way of the men who saluted
+him in passing, for he prided himself on hiding his emotions, and
+his words might have betrayed him before this gang of woodcutters
+released from work, and curious at the meeting. He entered the
+cutting they had just left. Around him the pine-trees, branchless
+and despoiled of their bark, were lying on the slopes, which they
+seemed to light up by the whiteness of their trunks. They had
+rolled--and stopped--one could not see why. At other times they had
+made a barrier and placed themselves pell-mell like spilikins on a
+game board. In the high forest there only remained one workman, an
+old man dressed in dark clothes who, kneeling, tied up in his
+handkerchief, a store of mushrooms he had gathered. When he had
+finished tying the ends of the red stuff with his clumsy fingers he
+got up, pushed his woollen cap well on to his head, and began to
+descend, with long strides over the moss, his mouth open to the
+odour of the forests.
+
+"Ah," said Jean, "one minute, my man."
+
+The man between two immense pine trunks, himself the colour of the
+bark, turned his head.
+
+"Which is my nearest way to get to the neck of the Schlucht?"
+
+"Go down by the waterfall, the way I go, and then turn up again. But
+do not go up there another two hundred yards, for then you go down
+into France; you will find paths which will lead you to the
+Schlucht. Good evening!"
+
+"Good evening!"
+
+The words rang out, soon lost in the vast silence. But one of them
+went on speaking to Jean Oberlé's heart: "You will go down into
+France." He was in a hurry to see her, this mysterious France, which
+held such a large place in his dreams, in his life--she, who had
+destroyed the unity of his family because the older members, some of
+them at least, remained faithful to her charms. France, for whom so
+many Alsatians had died and for whom so many others were waiting and
+whom they were loving with that silent love which makes hearts sad.
+So near him--she from whom he had been so jealously kept--she for
+whom Uncle Ulrich, M. Bastian, his mother, his grandfather Philippe,
+and thousands and thousands of others said a prayer every night!
+
+In a few minutes he had reached the top and begun his descent on the
+other side. But the trees formed a thick curtain round him. And he
+began to run to find a road and a free space to see France. He took
+pleasure in sliding down and letting himself almost fall, head
+foremost, seeking the desired opening. On this side of the mountain
+the sun was touching the earth; here and there the air was still
+warm; but the pines always made a wall.
+
+"Halt!" cried a man, showing himself suddenly, and coming out from
+behind the trunk of a tree. Jean went on running some steps--carried
+away by the impetus. Then he came back to the customs official who
+had called to him. Then the man, who was a brigadier, young and
+squat, with defective eyes, a little wild, two locks of yellow hair
+framing the thick-set face--the real type of a man of the Vosges,
+looked at the young man and said:
+
+"Why the devil did you run? I thought you were a smuggler."
+
+"I was trying to find a place to see a landscape in France...."
+
+"Does that interest you? You are from the other side?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Not a Prussian all the same?"
+
+"No; an Alsatian."
+
+The man smiled slightly and said, "That is better!"
+
+But Jean continued without taking up the conversation, and as if he
+had forgotten his question, to look at this poor officer of France,
+his face, his uniform, and to photograph them on his mind. The
+officer seemed amused at his curiosity and said, laughing:
+
+"If it is a view you are after, you have only to follow me. I have
+one which the Government offers me to complete my treatment."
+
+They both began to laugh, looking straight into each other's eyes
+quickly--less for what the customs officer had said than because of
+a certain sympathy which they felt for each other.
+
+"We have no time to lose," said the brigadier, "the sun is dying
+down."
+
+They went on under the vault of pines, turning round a cliff of bare
+rocks on which were planted at some distance two posts marking the
+spot where Germany ended and where France began, and at the end
+point, which was like a spur in the green, on a straight platform,
+which had its bed down in the forest, they found a watch-house of
+heavy planks of pines nailed on to the beams. From there one could
+see an immense landscape, which went on and on, sloping down--as far
+as human eye could see. In this moment and in the setting sun a pale
+golden light bathed the terraced lands, forests, villages, and
+rivers, the lakes of Retournemer and Longemer, softening the
+reliefs, and casting a colour like that of corn on uncultivated
+lands covered with heath. Jean remained standing, drinking in the
+picture to intoxication, and kept silence, while his emotion
+increased. He felt that the whole depth of his soul was full of joy.
+
+"How beautiful it is!" he said.
+
+The brigadier of customs, who was observing him from the corner of
+his eye, was flattered by the other's unstinted praise of his native
+district and answered:
+
+"It is tiring, but in summer it is good to walk--for those who have
+the time. People come from Gérardmer, and from Saint Dié and
+Remiremont and from farther still. Many people come from over
+there----"
+
+Over his shoulder, with his thumb reversed and turned backwards, he
+pointed to the country beyond the frontier.
+
+Jean was shown in which direction lay the three towns of which the
+Custom House official had spoken. But he only followed his own
+thought with attention. What delighted him was the clearness of the
+air, and the idea of the illimitable, of the sweetness of life and
+of fertility which came to his mind at the sight of the French land.
+It was all he knew of France, what he had read, and what he had
+heard his mother, grandfather, and uncle Ulrich talk about, what he
+had pictured to himself, memories buried deep in his mind, which
+rose again suddenly like millions of grains of corn to the call of
+the sun.
+
+The brigadier was seated on a bench, along the side of the hut; he
+had taken his short pipe from his pocket and was smoking.
+
+When he saw the visitor turn towards him, his eyes full of tears,
+and seat himself on the bench, he guessed Jean's feelings; for
+Jean's admiration of the picturesque had escaped him, but the tears
+of regret at once made the brigadier grave. Those were from the
+heart, and a sublime equality united the two men. However, as he did
+not dare to question he stiffened his neck, until the muscles were
+visible, and began to study the horizon silently.
+
+"What part of France do you come from?" asked Jean.
+
+"About five leagues from here, in the mountain."
+
+"Have you served your time in the army?"
+
+The brigadier took his pipe from his mouth and his hand quickly
+touched the medal hanging on his breast.
+
+"Six years," said he--"two furloughs. When I left I was a sergeant,
+with this medal, which I brought back from Tonquin. A fine time when
+it is finished." He spoke like travellers who prefer the remembrance
+of a journey but all the same have not disliked it. And he
+continued:
+
+"With you, they say it is harder."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I have always heard it said Germany is a great country, but the
+officer and the soldier are not relatives as in France."
+
+The sun was going down; the great golden landscape became tawny in
+places and purple in shadow. This purple spread with the rapidity of
+racing clouds on shadowed slopes and veiled plains--how Jean Oberlé
+would have loved to see you again in strong light! He asked:
+
+"Do you ever see any deserters?"
+
+Those who pass the frontier before their service begins are naturally
+not known, only the soldiers serving in the Alsace-Lorraine regiments
+and who desert in uniform. "Yes; I have seen several poor fellows who
+had been too severely punished or whose tempers were too proud. You
+will say that some desert from our side too, and it is true; but then
+they are not so many----"
+
+Shaking his head and looking tenderly at the sleeping forests:
+
+"When one belongs to this side, you see, one can speak ill of it,
+but one is not satisfied elsewhere. You do not know the country,
+sir, and yet to look at you one would swear you belonged to it."
+
+Jean felt himself getting red; his throat was dry; he could not
+answer. And the man, thinking that he had taken a liberty, said:
+
+"Excuse me, sir; one never knows whom one meets; and it is better
+not to talk about these things. I must continue my rounds and go
+down again."
+
+He was going to salute in military fashion; Jean took his hand and
+pressed it.
+
+"You are not mistaken, my friend," he said.
+
+Then, feeling in his pocket, he held out his cigar-case to him.
+
+"Come, take a cigar!"
+
+And then, with a kind of childish joy, he emptied his case into the
+hand which the Custom House official held out.
+
+"Take them all; you will give me pleasure. Do not refuse me!"
+
+It seemed as if he wanted to give something to France.
+
+The brigadier hesitated for a moment, and closed his hand over them,
+saying:
+
+"I will smoke them on Sunday. Thank you, sir! Good-bye!"
+
+He saluted quickly, and was lost to sight almost immediately in the
+firs that clothe the mountains. Jean heard his footsteps growing
+fainter in the distance. Above all, he heard echoing in his soul,
+and with indescribable emotion, the words of this unknown man.
+
+"You belong to us." "Yes, I belong here; I feel it, I see it; and
+that explains to me so many things in my life."
+
+The shadow descended.
+
+Jean saw the land darkening. He thought of those of his family who
+had fought there, round the villages submerged by the night, so that
+Alsace should remain united to that great country stretched out
+before him. "Sweet country--my country--every one has tender words
+for her; and I, why did I come? Why am I as moved as if she were
+living before me?"
+
+In a little while, on the fringe of the sky just where the blue
+began, rose the evening star. Alone, faint but dominating as an
+idea.
+
+Jean rose; the night was becoming quite dark, and he took the path
+which follows the crest of the hills; but he could not take his eyes
+from the star. Walking all alone in the deep silence, on the summit
+of the divided Vosges, he said to the star and to the shadow
+beneath:
+
+"I belong to you; I am happy to have seen you. It frightens me to
+love you as I do!"
+
+Soon he reached the frontier, and by the magnificent road crossing
+the Schlucht, went back again into the German-land.
+
+The following day, the Tuesday of Holy Week, he was again at
+Alsheim, and handed to his father the report he had drawn up. Every
+one welcomed his return with such evident pleasure that he was very
+much touched by it. The evening after the "conference" between the
+old grandfather and the manufacturer, and at which Jean was present,
+since he had just returned from visiting the cuttings, Lucienne
+called her brother to the fire before which she was warming herself
+in the large yellow drawing-room. Madame Oberlé was reading near the
+window; her husband had gone out, the coachman having informed him
+that one of the horses had gone lame.
+
+"Well!" asked Lucienne. "What is the most beautiful thing you saw?"
+
+"You."
+
+"No, do not joke; tell me, the most beautiful thing during your
+journey?"
+
+"France!"
+
+"Where?"
+
+"At the Schlucht. You cannot imagine the emotion it made me feel. It
+was a shock--like a revelation. You do not seem to understand me."
+
+She answered in an indifferent manner:
+
+"Yes; I am delighted that you were pleased. It ought to be a very
+fine excursion at this time of the year. The first spring flowers,
+are there not? And the breeze in the woods? Ah, my dear boy, there
+is so much convention in all that!"
+
+Jean did not go on. She it was who continued, and in a confidential
+voice, which she modulated, and made marvellously musical:
+
+"Here we've had grand visits--oh, visits which nearly cost a scene.
+Imagine, two German officers came last Wednesday in a motor car to
+the lodge, and asked permission to see the saw-mills. Happily they
+were in mufti. The Alsheim people only saw two gentlemen like any
+others. Very fashionable; an old one--a commandant, and a young one
+with a grand air, and accustomed to society. If you had seen him bow
+to papa! I was in the park. They bowed to me too, and visited the
+whole of the works, personally conducted by our father. While this
+was going on that idiot Victor informed grandfather, who showed he
+was annoyed when we came in. I ought to have run away, it appears.
+As the gentlemen did not enter the house--'my house,' as grandfather
+says--his irritation did not last long. However, there was a
+sequel----"
+
+Lucienne laughed a little stifled laugh.
+
+"My dear, Madame Bastian did not approve of me."
+
+"You were then present during their visit to the works, when these
+gentlemen----"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"All the time?"
+
+"My father kept me. In any case, I do not see how that should affect
+the Mayor's wife. But I had such a cold bow from her, my dear, last
+Sunday at the church door. Do you care about the Bastians' bows?"
+
+"Yes; in the same way that I care for the greetings of all good
+people."
+
+"Good people--yes; but they do not know what life is! To be blamed
+by them is just the same to me as if I were to be blamed by an
+Egyptian mummy come to life for the purpose. I should answer: 'You
+do not understand anything about it; go and wrap yourself up again.'
+Is it not strange that you do not think as I do--you, my brother?"
+
+Jean stroked the hand which was raised in front of him to make a
+screen.
+
+"Even mummies can judge of certain things of our time, my
+darling--the things which are of all times."
+
+"Oh! how serious you are. Come now, where was I wrong? Was it in
+going for a walk? In not looking away? In answering a greeting? In
+obeying my father, who told me to come and stay?"
+
+"No; assuredly not!"
+
+"What harm have I done?"
+
+"None. I have danced with many German girls. You can acknowledge an
+officer's greeting."
+
+"Then I did right?"
+
+"As a fact, yes. But there are so many sorrows around us--real
+sorrows, and so noble. You must remember that they all come to life
+again at a word, or a gesture."
+
+"I shall never consider that. Since what I do is not wrong, no one
+shall ever stop me. Do you hear?"
+
+"That is where we differ, Lucienne. It is not so much in our ideas;
+it is in a whole range of feelings which your education prevents you
+from possessing."
+
+He kissed her, and the conversation wandered to different topics.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE EASTER VIGIL
+
+
+The weather had settled fine. Jean found the plain of Alsace in full
+spring glory.
+
+However, he only felt a faint and mixed pleasure in the sight he had
+longed for. He came back from this excursion more upset than he
+cared to own to himself. It had revealed to him the opposition of
+the two nations--that is to say, of two minds, the persistent memory
+of many of the poor, and the difficulty they found to make a
+livelihood which their prudent and even hidden opinions created for
+them. He understood better now how difficult a part his would be to
+play in the family, at the works, in the village, in Alsace.
+
+The pleasure he felt the morning after his return at his father's
+congratulations on the report of the forest cultivation by the House
+of Oberlé made only a short diversion in the midst of this worry. He
+tried in vain to appear quite happy, and he duly deceived those
+whose interest it was to be deceived.
+
+"My Jean," said his mother, kissing him as he was going to sit down
+to breakfast, "I think you look splendid. The strong Alsheim air
+agrees with you, and also being near your poor mamma!"
+
+"Fancy that!" said Lucienne, "and I thought him very gloomy!"
+
+"Business," explained M. Joseph Oberlé, turning towards the window
+where his son was sitting, "cares of business. He has handed me a
+report, on which I must congratulate him publicly; it is very well
+drawn up, very clear, and the result of which will be that I shall
+economise, in four places at least, in the transport of my trees.
+You understand, father?"
+
+The grandfather made a sign with his head. But he finished writing
+something on the slate, and showed it to his daughter-in-law.
+
+"Has he already seen the country weep?"
+
+Madame Monica rubbed the sentences out quickly with her fingers. The
+others looked at her, and all were uneasy, as if there had been some
+painful explanation between them.
+
+Jean again experienced that intimate sorrow for which there is no
+remedy. All the afternoon he worked in the office at the saw-mills,
+but he was distracted and dreamy. He reflected that Lucienne would
+go away one day, and that nothing would be altered; that the
+grandfather might disappear also, and that the division would still
+go on. All the plans that he had had when far away, the hope of
+being himself a diversion, of bringing peace, of uniting them or of
+giving them an appearance of union: all that appeared childish to
+him now. He saw that Lucienne had spoken truly when she made fun of
+his illusions.
+
+No, the evil was not in his family, it was in the whole of Alsace.
+Even if no one of his name lived at Alsheim, Jean Oberlé would meet
+at his door, in the village, among his workmen, his clients, and his
+friends the same annoyance at certain moments, always the same
+question. Neither his will nor any will like his could deliver his
+race, either now or later.
+
+In this melancholy mood the idea of seeing Odile again, and making
+her love him, came back to him and took possession of his mind. Who
+else besides Odile could make life at Alsheim acceptable to him, and
+bring back his scattered and suspicious friends, and re-establish
+the name of Oberlé in the esteem of "Old Alsace"? He saw now that
+she was more than a pretty woman towards whom his youthful heart
+went out in song; he saw in her peace and dignity, and the only
+strength possible in the difficult future which awaited him.
+
+She was the brave and faithful creature whom he needed here.
+
+How to tell her? How to find an opportunity to speak freely to her,
+without the risk of being surprised, and troubling this orderly and
+jealous family? Evidently not at Alsheim. Then where should he
+arrange to meet her? And how could he forewarn her?
+
+Jean thought of this all the evening.
+
+The next day, Maundy Thursday, was the day on which in Catholic
+churches the Tomb would be decorated with flowers, branches of
+trees, materials, and torches placed in ledges, where the faithful
+hasten to adore the Host. It was beautiful weather, clear, even too
+clear for the time of year, when clearness calls up mist or rain.
+
+After he had talked with his mother and Lucienne in M. Philippe
+Oberlé's room--it was the first time that he had felt that his home
+held a family--Jean went towards the orchards, which are behind the
+houses of Alsheim, and followed the road which he had taken a few
+weeks ago to call on the Bastians. But a little beyond the
+Ramspachers' farm he took the path which up to there ran at right
+angles to the avenue, and was now parallel with it, and with it
+joined the village road. He came out on to a piece of waste land,
+used for carts by many farmers on the plain. The neighbouring fields
+were deserted. The road was partially screened by a bank of earth
+planted with hazel-trees. Jean walked along the quick-set hedge
+which ran round the Bastians' property, approached the village, and
+came back again. He waited. He hoped that Odile would soon come into
+the path on the other side of the hedge to go to the Alsheim church
+to pray at the Tomb.
+
+The remembrance of former meetings, at the same place and on the
+same day, had come into his mind, and had decided him. As he began
+the walk for the third time he saw what he had not seen at first.
+
+"How wonderful," he said to himself. "The road was made for her!"
+
+At the end of the avenue, for more than two hundred yards in front,
+the fence, the clumps of trees, a small portion of the long roof
+appeared in a marvellous frame.
+
+The old cherry-trees had flowered all together in the same week with
+the almond-trees and the pear-trees. The pear-trees blossom in
+clusters, the almond-trees in stars; as for the wild cherry-trees,
+from the forest transplanted to the plain--they blossom into white
+distaffs of bloom.
+
+Round the substantial branches, swollen and coloured red with sap,
+thousands of white corollas like a drift of snowflakes, trembled on
+their fragile stalks, and so thick were they that in many places one
+could not see the branch itself. Every tree cast its flowery
+spindles in all directions. So many of the cherry-trees were old
+that from one side of the avenue to the other the points of the
+flowering branches touched and intermingled. A swarm of bees covered
+them with hovering wings. A subtle odour of honey floated in waves
+down the avenue, and was wafted on the wind far away to the plain,
+to the fields, to the scarcely covered ground surprised by this
+feeling of spring. There were no trees in the large open valley
+which could vie with these for splendour--only to the right--and
+quite close, the four walnut-trees of the Ramspachers had begun to
+show their leaves, and seemed with their heavy branches to be
+enamels encrusting the farm walls.
+
+The minutes passed by--the petals of the cherry-blossoms fell in
+showers. And lo, here is a woman stooping to unlatch the gate--it is
+she! She stands erect, and walks onwards in the middle of the path,
+between its two borders of grass--quite slowly, for she is gazing
+upwards. She is looking at the white blossoms which are open. The
+idea of a bride's wedding wreath, an idea so familiar to young
+girls, passes through her mind. Odile does not smile, only her face
+beams with an uplifted look, and an involuntary stretching out of
+her hands gives the greeting and thanks of her youth to the joyous
+earth.
+
+She goes down towards Alsheim. On her fur cap, on her rounded
+cheeks, on her blue cloth dress, the wild cherry-trees shed their
+blossoms. She is serious. In her left hand she carries a prayer
+book, half hidden in the folds of her skirt. She thinks she is
+alone.
+
+The splendour of the day speaks to her. But there is nothing languid
+about her. She is a valiant creature; she is made to face life
+bravely. Her eyes, which seek the tree-tops, are alive and masters
+of her thoughts, and do not give themselves up to a tempting dream.
+She was drawing near, never suspecting that Jean was waiting for
+her. The meal-time ended, the usual noises were going on in the
+village of Alsheim, rumbling cart-wheels, barking dogs, voices of
+men, of children calling to each other, but all softened by the
+distance, scattered in the vast aerial space, drowned in the tide of
+the wind, as is the noise of a clod of earth which has become loose
+and falls into the sea.
+
+As she came near, Jean took off his hat and stood up a little on
+the other side of the hedge. And she who walked between two walls of
+blossoms, although she was gazing upwards, turned her head, her
+glance still full of the spring which had excited her.
+
+"Oh, is that you?" she said.
+
+And she came at once across the strip of grass where the
+cherry-trees were planted, up to the place in the hedge where Jean
+was.
+
+"I cannot come to you freely as I used to," he said, "so I came to
+wait for you. I have a favour to ask of you...."
+
+"A favour? And you say that so seriously!" She tried to smile, but
+her lips refused. They had both become pale.
+
+"I am going," said Jean, as if he was making a grave declaration; "I
+am going up to Sainte Odile the day after to-morrow--I shall go to
+hear the bells ring in Easter. If you also asked for permission to
+come----"
+
+"You have made a vow?"
+
+He answered:
+
+"Something like it. I must speak to you--to you alone."
+
+Odile withdrew slightly. With something of fear in her look she was
+trying to find out if Jean was speaking the truth--if she had
+guessed aright. He was watching her in an agony of anxiety. They
+were motionless, trembling, and so near and yet so far from each
+other that one would have said that they were threatening each
+other. And in fact both felt that the peace of their lives was at
+stake. They were not children, but a man and a woman of a strong and
+passionate race. All the powers of their being asserted themselves
+and broke through the hackneyed commonplaces of custom, because in
+these simple words, "I must speak to you," Odile had heard the
+breath of a soul which was giving itself, and which demanded a
+return.
+
+In the deserted avenue the old cherry-trees lifted their white
+distaffs of blossom, and in the cup of each flower the spring sun
+was resting.
+
+"The day after to-morrow?" she said, "at Sainte Odile--to hear the
+bells ring?"
+
+She repeated what he had said. But that was to gain time, and to
+gaze deeper into those eyes fixed upon her, eyes which looked like
+the green depths of the forest.
+
+There was a great calm in the plain and in the next village. The
+wind ceased for a moment--Odile turned away.
+
+"I will go," she said.
+
+Neither of them explained themselves further. A covered cart rolled
+along the road, not far off. A man shut the gate through which carts
+pass to the Bastians' farm. But the great thing was Jean had said
+what he had to say.
+
+In the profound depths of their souls the words echoed and
+re-echoed. They were no longer alone. Both had the sacred moment of
+their meeting enclosed, as it were, in themselves, and they fell
+back on their own thoughts as the earth in the furrows does when the
+sowing is done, and the germinating seed is beginning to expand.
+
+Odile went away. Jean admired the healthy and beautiful woman
+disappearing along the road. She walked well, without swinging her
+body. Above the white neck, Jean placed in imagination the big black
+bows of the Alsatian women who live beyond Strasburg. She no longer
+raised her eyes towards the cherry-trees. She let her skirt trail,
+and it swept the grass, making a little dust fly, and the petals of
+cherry blossoms, which flew about a little in the wind before dying.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The day after to-morrow was slow in coming. Jean had said to his
+father:
+
+"Some pilgrims are going up to Sainte Odile on Saturday to hear the
+Easter bells. I have never been there at this time. If you do not
+mind, it is an excursion I should much like to make."
+
+He did not mind.
+
+Jean opened his window when he woke that morning. There was a thick
+fog. The fields near the house were invisible.
+
+"You will not go in this weather?" asked Lucienne, when she saw her
+brother come into the dining-room, where she was drinking her
+chocolate.
+
+"Yes, I shall go."
+
+"You will see nothing."
+
+"I shall hear."
+
+"Is it then so extraordinary?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then will you take me?"
+
+She did not wish to go to Sainte Odile. Dressed in a light
+morning-gown trimmed with lace, and drinking her chocolate in little
+sips, she had no intention whatever of doing anything but stop her
+brother on his way and kiss him.
+
+"Seriously, are you making a kind of pilgrimage up there?"
+
+"Yes--a kind of----"
+
+Bending at this moment over her cup, she did not see the quick smile
+which accompanied the words. She answered a little bitterly:
+
+"You know I'm not devout. I fulfil my obligations as a Catholic but
+poorly, and the practices of devotion do not tempt me. But you, you
+have more faith than I have. I am going to tell you what you ought
+to ask for--it will be worth a pilgrimage, I can tell you." She
+changed her tone, and her voice became suddenly passionate; she
+raised her eyebrows, her eyes were at once self-willed and
+affectionate, and she said:
+
+"You must ask for that miracle of perfection among women who will
+live with you here. When I am married and go away life will be
+terrible for you here. You will have to bear all alone the misery of
+the family quarrels, and the suspicions of the peasants. You will
+have no one to pity you. That is the part to play. Ask for some one
+strong enough, gay enough, and with a conscience fine enough to do
+it, since you would live at Alsheim. You see, my thought is that of
+a friend."
+
+"Of a great friend."
+
+They kissed each other.
+
+"Good-bye, Pilgrim, good-bye--good luck!"
+
+"Good-bye."
+
+Jean got away. He was soon in the park, turned after passing through
+the gate, went through the hop-fields and the vineyards, and so into
+the forest.
+
+The forest was also full of mist. The serried masses of pines, which
+took the hill as it were by storm, appeared grey from one bank of
+the stream to the other, and were almost immediately lost in a thick
+mist without sun and without shadow.
+
+Jean did not go up the beaten track. He went gaily climbing up the
+woods when not too steep, and stopping sometimes to take breath and
+to listen if he could not catch above as below, somewhere in the
+mysterious and impenetrable mists of the mountain, either the voice
+of Odile or the chant of the pilgrims. But no; he only heard the
+rushing of water, or perhaps the voice of some one calling to his
+dog, or the timid call of some poor peasant of Obernai picking up
+dead sticks with his child, in spite of the regulation which allows
+wood-picking only on Thursdays. The saucepan must boil on Easter
+Sunday! And was not this fog which hid everything a divine
+protection against the forest guard?
+
+Jean experienced great pleasure from this solitary, stiff climb. As
+he went up he thought of Odile more and more, and he was more and
+more glad that he had chosen this holy place of Alsace in which to
+meet her--and this day--doubly affecting. Everywhere around him the
+beautiful scalefern which carpets the rocky slopes unfolded its
+velvet fronds. On all last year's shoots of honeysuckle there were
+little leaves; the first strawberries were in flower, and the first
+lilies of the valley. The geraniums, which are so fine in Sainte
+Odile, lifted their hairy stalks, and the multitude of whortle
+berries and bilberries and raspberries, that is the entire
+undergrowth, whole fields of it, began to pour out on the breeze the
+perfume of their moving sap. The fog retained these few scents and
+kept them in like a net work on the sides of the Vosges.
+
+Jean came close to Heidenbruch, looked at the green shutters and
+went on his way. "Uncle Ulrich," he murmured, "you would be glad if
+you saw me, and if you knew where I am going, and with whom,
+perhaps, I shall be presently!" Fidčle barked, half asleep, but did
+not come. The mountain was again deserted. A buzzard called above
+the mist. Jean, who had not been this way since his childhood,
+enjoyed the wildness and peacefulness of the place. He reached the
+higher part, which is the property of the bishopric of Strasburg,
+and followed the "pagan wall" which surrounds the summit for ten
+miles, that he might recall his school-boy impressions of long ago.
+
+At midday he had passed the Männelstein rock and entered the convent
+courtyard, built on the mountain top, a crown of old stone placed
+above the summit of the pine forests; and there, although there was
+no crowd, he found groups of pilgrims, carriages with horses
+unharnessed, fastened to the trunks of ancient lime-trees, grown no
+one knew how at this altitude, and covering with their branches
+nearly the whole enclosure. Jean remembered the way; he went towards
+the chapels on the right. He merely passed through the first, which
+is painted, but stopped in the second, with elliptical arches
+leading to the shrine, where lies the wax figure of the patroness of
+Alsace, the Abbess Sainte Odile--so gentle, with her pink face, her
+veil, and her golden crozier, her purple mantle lined with ermine.
+Jean knelt down: with all the strength of his faith he prayed for
+his home, so sadly divided against itself, from which he felt glad
+to be away, and that Odile Bastian should not fail to keep this love
+tryst, the hour for which was so near at hand. As his was a sincere
+soul, he added: "Let our way be made clear to us! May we follow it
+together! Let us see all obstacles removed from our path!"
+
+The whole of Alsace had knelt at the same spot for centuries.
+
+Then he went out to the refectory, where the nuns had begun to help
+the first visitors. Odile was not there. After the lunch, which was
+very long, being continually lengthened by the arrival of fresh
+pilgrims, Jean went hastily to the foot of the great rock on which
+the convent is built, and finding once more the road which comes
+from Saint Nabor and passes by Sainte Odile's well, he posted
+himself in a thick part of the wood which overlooked a bend in the
+road. At his feet was the narrow strip of downtrodden earth, bare of
+grass and covered with pine needles, and which seemed hanging in the
+air. Far beyond that point the slope of the mountain became so steep
+that he could see no farther. In clear weather you could see to
+right and left two sunken wooden buttresses, but now the curtain of
+white mist hid everything--the abyss, the slopes, and the trees. But
+the wind blew and moved the mist, whose thickness, one could feel,
+varied from minute to minute.
+
+It was two o'clock. In an hour the Easter bells would ring. The
+people who wanted to hear them could not now be far from the summit,
+and in the great silence Jean heard, rising upwards from below,
+voices blending round the bend of the wood. Then a phrase whistled:
+"_Formez vos bataillons!_" warned him that Alsatian students were
+near. Two young men--he who had whistled overtaken by another--came
+little by little out of the fog and went towards the abbey.
+
+Then a young couple passed, the wife dressed in black, her
+square-cut bodice showing a white chemise, and wearing a lace cap
+like a helmet on her head; the man wore a flowered velvet waistcoat,
+a jacket with a row of copper buttons, and a fur cap.
+
+Weissenburg peasants thought Jean.
+
+Then he saw florid women from Alsheim and Heiligenstein pass,
+chattering, but not showing any trace of Alsatian dress.
+
+Among them was a woman from the Münster valley, recognisable by her
+cap of dark stuff, bound round her head like the handkerchief of the
+southerners, and decorated in front with a red rosette. Two minutes
+slipped by. A step was heard through the fog, and a priest
+appeared--an old, heavy man, who wiped his face as he walked. Two
+children, very alert, doubtless the belated children of one of the
+women who had already gone by, overtook him, greeting him in
+Alsatian with the words, "Praised be Jesus Christ, M. le curé!"
+
+"For ever and ever!" answered the priest.
+
+He did not know them; he only spoke to them to answer the old and
+beautiful form of greeting. Jean, seated near a pine-tree and half
+hidden, heard an old man overtake the priest at the bend of the road
+and say, "Praised be Jesus Christ!"
+
+How many times must that greeting have echoed through the vaults of
+the forest!
+
+Jean looked before him as one in a dream, who sees only vague
+figures without attaching any meaning to them.
+
+He stayed like that a short time. Then a murmur, almost
+imperceptible, so faint as to pass almost unheard, weaker than the
+twitter of a bird, was borne up on the fog: "Hail, Mary, full of
+grace; blessed art thou among women!" Another murmur followed, and
+finished with "Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us!" and an
+involuntary agitation, a mysterious certainty, preceded the
+appearance of two women.
+
+They were both tall. The elder was an old spinster of Alsheim, whose
+face was the colour of the fog, and who lived in the shadow of the
+church, which she decorated on feast-days. She looked weary, but she
+smiled as she recited the rosary. The younger walked on the right,
+at the edge of the path, even with the slope, her proud head raised.
+Her fair hair was like a beautiful piece of pine bark, her body,
+robust and perfectly proportioned, stood out completely from the
+pale screen of cloudy mist which filled the bend of the road.
+
+Jean did not move, nevertheless the younger woman saw him, and
+turned her head towards him. Odile smiled, and without interrupting
+her prayer, her eyes, turned towards the summit of the mountain,
+said:
+
+"I will wait for you up there."
+
+The two women did not slacken their steps. With even steps, upright,
+moving slightly the rosaries which they held in their hands by the
+swaying of their bodies, they mounted upwards, and were hidden in
+the shadow of the old wood. Jean let some moments pass by and
+followed the same road. At the turning, where the road becomes
+straight and crosses the crest of the mountain to reach the convent,
+he saw the two women again. They were walking more quickly, glad to
+have arrived, their sunshades open, for the mist, which had not
+dispersed, was now warm, and there were splashes of shadow at the
+foot of the trees. The sun was going down towards the peaks of the
+Vosges and towards the plains of France beyond.
+
+The pilgrims who had arrived had already made their pilgrimage to
+the shrine of Sainte Odile, and were hastening to visit the places
+consecrated by pious or profane tradition: Sainte Odile's well, St.
+John's well, or by the pagan wall along the goat-path to the Rock of
+Männelstein, from where there is generally such a lovely view, to
+the tops of the Bloss and the Elsberg, to the ruined castles which
+lift their ancient towers among the pines--Andlau, Spesburg,
+Landsberg, and others. Jean saw the two women cross the courtyard
+and go towards the chapel. He retraced his steps to the beginning of
+the wind-swept avenue, along the old building, which reminds one of
+the advance works of old forts, and passes through a vaulted porch
+used as an entrance.
+
+Ten minutes later Odile came out of the chapel alone, and guessing
+that Jean Oberlé was waiting for her elsewhere rather than in this
+courtyard too full of onlookers, took the road leading to the
+forest.
+
+She was dressed in the clothes she had worn on Maundy Thursday, the
+same dark dress, but her hat was very simple, very youthful, and
+suited her to perfection: a straw, with a wide brim turned up on one
+side, and trimmed with a twist of tulle. She carried a summer jacket
+on her arm, and a sunshade. Odile walked quickly, with her head
+slightly bent, as those walk who are not interested in the road, or
+who are either praying or dreaming. When she came near Jean, who was
+on the right of the portico, she looked up, and said without
+stopping:
+
+"The woman who came with me is resting. Here I am!"
+
+"It is good of you to have trusted me!" said Jean. "Come, Odile!"
+
+He followed, close to her, the avenue planted with sorry trees
+distorted by the winter winds. He was so much affected by the
+realisation of his dream that he could only think and speak of one
+thing: his gratitude to Odile, who was absolutely silent, only
+listening to what he did not say--and as full of emotion as he was.
+
+They left the road at the place where it begins to slope downwards,
+and took a path through the forest of lofty pines in serried ranks
+which leads round the convent. There was no one there, and Jean saw
+that Odile's eyes of the colour of ripe corn, eyes deep and serious,
+were turned towards him. There was no sound in the wood save that
+from the drops of moisture falling from the leaves. They were quite
+close to each other.
+
+"I asked you to come," said Jean, "so that you should decide what my
+life is to be. You were the love of my early youth. I want you to be
+my love always!"
+
+Odile's look was far away, lost in the distance. She trembled
+slightly, and said:
+
+"Have you thought?"
+
+"Of everything!"
+
+"Even of that which may separate us?"
+
+"What do you mean by that? What are you afraid of? Of entering a
+disunited family?"
+
+"No!"
+
+"You would bring them together, I am sure of it. You would be its
+joy and peace. What do you fear--my father's or your father's
+opposition because they are now enemies?"
+
+"That could be got over," said the young girl.
+
+"Then it is because your mother detests me," said Jean hastily. "She
+does hate me, does she not? The other day she was so stiff to me, so
+offensive."
+
+The fair head made a sign of denial.
+
+"She will be slower in believing in you than my father was, slower
+than I was myself. But when she sees that your education has not
+changed your mind towards Alsace she will overcome her prejudices."
+
+After a moment's silence Odile said:
+
+"I do not think I am making any mistake. To-day's difficulties can
+be brushed on one side by you or by me, or by both of us. I am only
+afraid of what I do not know, the least thing which to-morrow might
+aggravate such a disturbed state----"
+
+"I understand," said Jean, "you are afraid of my father's ambition?"
+
+"Perhaps!"
+
+"We have already suffered much from that. But he is my father. He is
+set on keeping me here; he says it every day. When he knows that I
+have chosen you, Odile, if he has personal projects which would
+prevent our marriage, he will at least put them off. Do not have any
+fear; we shall win!"
+
+"We shall win!" she repeated.
+
+"I am sure of it, Odile. You will make my life, Odile, which will be
+difficult, perhaps impossible, if you were not there. It was for you
+that I came back to the country. If I tell you that I have travelled
+much, and found no woman who had the charm for me that you have, or
+who made the same impression on me--how shall I tell you? The
+impression of a mountain stream so fresh and deep! Every time I
+think of my future marriage your image comes before my eyes. I love
+you, Odile!"
+
+He took Odile's hand, and she answered, lifting her eyes to the
+light coming from above the trees.
+
+"God is my witness that I love you, too!"
+
+She thrilled with joy, and Jean felt her hand tremble.
+
+"Yes," said Jean; and he tried to look into her eyes, which were
+still fixed on the distance.
+
+"We shall overcome everything. We shall overcome the numerous
+obstacles arising from this terrible subject: that is all that is
+between us."
+
+"Yes; it is the one and only question in this part of the world."
+
+"It poisons everything!"
+
+She stopped, and turned her radiant face full of love to him--of
+that beautiful and proud love which he had longed to know and to
+inspire.
+
+"Say rather that it makes everything greater. Our quarrels here are
+not village quarrels--we are either for or against a country. We are
+obliged to have courage every day, to make enemies every day, every
+day to break with old friends who would willingly have remained
+faithful to us, but who are not faithful to Alsace. No action of our
+lives is indifferent; there is no action that is not an affirmation.
+I assure you, Jean, there is nobleness in that."
+
+"That is true, Odile, my beloved."
+
+They stopped to enjoy that delicious word to the full. Their souls
+were in their eyes, and they looked at each other tremblingly. In
+low tones, although there were no onlookers other than the pines
+swayed by the wind, they spoke of the future as of a battle already
+begun.
+
+"Lucienne will be on my side," said Jean. "I shall entrust my secret
+to her when occasion occurs. She will help me, and I count on her."
+
+"I count on my father," said Odile; "for he is already well disposed
+towards you. But take care not to do anything that would annoy him.
+Do not try to see me at Alsheim. Do not try to hurry on the time."
+
+"That glorious time when you will be mine!"
+
+They smiled at each other for the first time.
+
+"I love you so dearly," continued Jean, "that I shall not ask you
+for the kiss that you would no doubt give me--I have no right to it.
+We do not entirely depend on ourselves, Odile. And then it pleases
+me to show you how sacred you are to me. Tell me at least that I
+shall take away with me a little of your soul?"
+
+The lips so near his murmured "Yes!" And almost immediately:
+
+"Do you hear down there? Is that the first Easter bell?"
+
+They turned together towards the side where the wood sloped
+downwards.
+
+"No; it must be the wind in the trees."
+
+"Come," said she: "the bells are going to ring. And if I were not
+seen up there when they rang, old Rose would speak of it...."
+
+Hardly saying a word, she led him to the base of the rock. There
+they separated to go back to the Abbey by two different paths.
+
+"I shall find you again on the terrace," said Odile.
+
+The daylight was growing blue in the hollows. That was the hour when
+waiting for the night does not seem long, and the morrow already
+dawns in the dreaming mind.
+
+In a few minutes Jean had crossed the yard, followed the corridors
+of the convent, and opened a door leading to the garden in a sharp
+angle at the east of the buildings. There it was that all the
+pilgrims to Sainte Odile met to see Alsace when the weather was
+clear. A wall, high enough to lean on, runs along the top of an
+enormous block of rock, advancing like a spur above the forest. It
+overlooks the pines which cover the slopes everywhere. From the
+extreme point shut in, like the lantern of a lighthouse, one can see
+to the right quite a group of mountains, and in front and to the
+left the plain of Alsace. At this moment the fog was divided into
+two parts, for the sun was shining on the peaks of the Vosges. All
+the cloudy mist which did not reach that waving line of peaks, was
+grey and wan; but just above, almost horizontal rays pierced the
+mist and coloured it, giving to the second half of the landscape a
+look of brightness like luminous foam. And this separation showed
+with what quickness the mist came up from the valley towards the
+departing sun. The fleecy clouds intermingling, were wafted into the
+illumined space, were irradiated, showing thus their incessantly
+changing shapes, and the strength of the motion impelling them, as
+if the light had summoned their columns to greater heights.
+
+There was at the entrance of this narrow place, arranged for
+pilgrims and visitors, an old man wearing the costume of the old
+Alsatians to the north of Strasburg; near him the priest with grey
+curly hair whom the children had greeted in the morning on the slope
+of Sainte Odile; a step or two farther on were the young Weissenburg
+peasants, and at the narrowest spot, squeezed close together on the
+wall, were the two students who might have been taken for brothers
+on account of their protruding lips and their beards divided in the
+middle, one fair, the other chestnut coloured. Both were Alsatians.
+They exchanged everyday remarks, as is usual among people who do not
+know each other. When they saw Jean Oberlé they turned round, and
+they felt themselves suddenly united by a common bond of race which
+becomes stronger in the face of a common danger.
+
+"Is he a German--that one there?" asked a voice.
+
+The old man who was near the priest cast a glance in the direction
+of the garden and answered:
+
+"No; he wears his moustache in the French fashion and he looks like
+one of us."
+
+"I saw him walking with Mademoiselle Odile Bastian, of Alsheim,"
+said the young woman.
+
+The group was reassured, and more so when Jean greeted the priest in
+Alsatian and asked:
+
+"Are the bells of Alsace late?"
+
+They all smiled, not because of what he had said, but because they
+felt at home among themselves without an inconvenient witness.
+
+Odile came in her turn and leaned against a wall on the right of the
+first group. Jean took up a similar position on the other side of
+the group. They were suffering from loving so much, from having said
+it, and from only being sure of themselves.
+
+The bells were not late. Their voices were encircled and enclosed by
+the rising mists. Suddenly they escaped from the cloudy masses, and
+it seemed as if each separate morsel of fog burst like a bubble on
+touching the wall and poured out on the summit of the sacred
+mountain all the harmony of the pealing bells. "Easter! Easter! The
+Lord is risen! He has changed the world and delivered men! The
+heavens are opened!" So sang the bells of Alsace. They were ringing
+from the foot of the mountain, and from the distance, and from far,
+far away, voices of the little bells, and voices of the great bells
+of cathedrals; voices which never ceased and from peal to peal were
+prolonged in re-echoing reverberations; voices that passed away
+lightly, intermittently, delicately, like a shuttle in a loom; a
+prodigious choir, whose singers were never visible to each other;
+cries of joy from a whole population of churches, songs of the
+spring eternal, which rose up from the depths of the misty plain and
+mounted to the summit of Sainte Odile to blend into one harmonious
+whole.
+
+The grandeur of this concert of pealing bells silenced the few folk
+gathered together up there. The very air prayed. Souls thought of
+the risen Christ. Several thought of Alsace.
+
+"There is some blue sky," said a voice.
+
+"Some blue up there," repeated a woman's voice, as if in a dream.
+
+They scarcely heard it, in the roar of sounds which rose from the
+valley. Yet all eyes were raised at once. They saw in the sky,
+amidst the masses of fog fleeing before the assailing sun, blue
+depths opening and opening with bewildering rapidity. And when they
+again looked downwards they perceived that the cloud of mist also
+was tearing itself to pieces on the slopes. It was the clearing up.
+Parts of the forest slipped, as it were, into the divisions made in
+the moving fog; then others; then black crevasses, the thickets, and
+rocks; then of a sudden the last rags of mist, drawn, thin,
+contorted, lamentable, went up in whirling masses, brushed against
+the terrace, and disappeared above. And the plain of Alsace appeared
+all blue and gold.
+
+One of those who saw it cried out:
+
+"How beautiful!"
+
+All leaned forward to see in the opening of the mountain the plain
+growing lighter and lighter as far as eye could see.
+
+All these Alsatian souls were touched. Three hundred villages of
+their own country lay below them scattered about amidst the young
+green of the cornfields. They were sleeping to the sound of the
+bells. Each was only a rose-red spot. The river, near the horizon,
+showed like a bar of dusky silver. And beyond rose stretches of
+country, whose shape was vanishing rapidly in the fogs which still
+hung above the Rhine. Quite near by, following the slope of the fir
+plantations, one saw, on the contrary, the smallest details of the
+forest of Sainte Odile. Several points of dark green jutted out into
+the valley and mixed with the pale green of the meadows. All was lit
+up by reflection from a sky full of rays of light. No bright spot
+attracted the eye. As the bells had united their voices, so the
+varying shades of the earth had melted into a harmonious unity. The
+old Alsatian, who kept his place at the side of the priest,
+stretched his arms, and said:
+
+"I hear the cathedral bells."
+
+He pointed, away in the distance over the flat country, to the
+celebrated spire of Strasburg, which looked like an amethyst the
+size of a thumbnail. Now that they could see the rose-red of
+villages, they imagined they could recognise the sound of the bells.
+
+A voice said: "I recognise the sound of the bells of the Abbey of
+Marmoutier. How well they chime!"
+
+"I," said another, "I hear the bells of Obernai!"
+
+"And I the bells of Heiligenstein."
+
+The peasant, who came from the neighbourhood of Weissenburg, also
+said:
+
+"We are too far off to hear what the bells of Saint George of
+Haguenau are ringing. However, listen, listen; there--now."
+
+The old Alsatian repeated seriously:
+
+"I hear the cathedral!" and he added: "Look up there again!"
+
+They could all see that the clouds had ascended to the regions of
+the sunbeams. The cloud, shapeless at the base of the mountain, had
+spread across the sky, and was like sheaves of gladioli thrown above
+the Vosges and the plain: some red, like blood, some quite pale, and
+some like molten gold. And all those witnesses looking up from
+between the two abysses, their gaze having followed the long light
+line, remarked that it lit up the earth with its reflection, and
+that the distant houses of the capital and the spire of the
+cathedral stood out in a tawny light from the thickening shadow.
+
+"That is like what I saw on the night of August the 23rd, 1870,"
+said the old Alsatian. "I was just here----"
+
+They, even the very young ones, had heard this date frequently
+spoken of. Their looks were fixed more steadily on the little spire,
+whence came still a little shining light and the sound of the
+resurrection bells.
+
+"I was here with the women and girls from yonder villages, who had
+come up here because the noise of the cannons had redoubled. We
+heard the cannons as we now hear the bells. The bombs burst like
+rockets. Our women were weeping here where you stand. That was the
+night when the library caught fire, that the new church caught fire,
+and the picture gallery, and ten houses in Broglie. Then a
+yellow-and-red smoke rose, and the clouds looked like these we now
+see. Strasburg was burning. They had fired one hundred and
+ninety-three shells against the city.
+
+One of the students, the younger one, shook his fist.
+
+"Down with them!" muttered the other.
+
+The peasant took his cap off and kept it under his arm, without
+saying a word.
+
+The bells were still ringing, but not so many of them. They could no
+longer hear the bells of Obernai, nor of Saint Nabor, nor some of
+the others they thought they had heard. They were like lights going
+out. Night was coming.
+
+Jean saw that the two women were almost weeping, and that every one
+was silent.
+
+"Please say one prayer for Alsace," he said to the priest, "while
+the bells are still ringing for the resurrection."
+
+"Right! that's right, my boy!" said the old peasant standing by the
+priest; "you belong to the country!"
+
+The heavy, weary face of the priest brightened at the same time. His
+voice, which was slightly broken, was not steady. An old and
+enduring sorrow, yet always new, spoke through his lips, and while
+they were all looking, as he was himself, towards Strasburg, the
+city which night was hiding, he prayed:
+
+"My God, here, now we can see from your Sainte Odile nearly all the
+beloved land, our towns, our villages, and our fields. But some of
+our land lies also on the other side of the mountains, and yet that
+is also our country. You permitted us to be separated. My heart
+breaks to think of it. For on the other side of the mountains is the
+nation we love, and which you still love. It is the oldest of the
+Christian nations; it is the nearest to Godlike things. It has more
+angels in its skies because it has more churches and chapels on
+earth, more holy tombs to defend, more sacred dust mixed with its
+fields, with its grass, with the waters which permeate the land and
+nourish it. Oh God, we have suffered in our bodies, in our goods; we
+still suffer in our memories. Nevertheless, make our memories last.
+Grant that France also will not forget. Make her more worthy to lead
+nations. Give her back her lost sister, who may also return. Amen!"
+
+"As the Easter bells return."
+
+"Amen!" said the voices of two men.
+
+"Amen! Amen!"
+
+The others wept in silence. There was only the hollow sound of one
+single bell in the cold air that came up from the depths. The
+ringers had left the towers, already lost in the shadow that covered
+the plain.
+
+Above the high platform in the garden the darkened clouds, flying to
+the west, left a border of purple on the crest of the mountains.
+Stars came out, in the black depths of the night, as the first
+primroses were coming out, at the same time under the pines. Only
+three persons were left on the terrace. The others had gone when the
+secret of their Alsatian souls had been revealed.
+
+The old priest, seeing before him two young people close to each
+other, and Odile's head near Jean's shoulder, asked:
+
+"Betrothed?"
+
+"Alas!" answered Jean. "Wish that it may become true."
+
+"I do wish it. What you just said is right. I wish that you, who are
+young, may see Alsace once more French."
+
+He went away.
+
+"Good-bye," said Odile quickly, "Good-bye, Jean!"
+
+She held out her hand, and went away without turning to look back.
+Jean remained near the terrace wall.
+
+The night birds--owls, sea-eagles, eagle-owls, and horned
+owls--mingling their cries, flew from wood to wood. For a quarter of
+an hour, the time of their passage, which they made in sweeping
+flights, their calls resounded over the mountain sides. Then
+complete silence settled down. Peace arose with the perfumes of the
+sleeping forests.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+AT CAROLIS
+
+
+At the beginning of the rue de Zurich, facing the Quay des
+Bateliers, one of the relics of old Strasburg, there is a narrow
+house, much lower than its neighbours, with a roof of two stories
+like a Chinese pagoda. The front, formerly adorned with the pattern
+of its painted beams, is now covered with whitewash, on which is
+this inscription:
+
+   "JEAN, CALLED CAROLIS, _WEINSTUBE_."
+
+This wine-shop, whose exterior has nothing about it to arouse the
+curiosity of the passer-by, is not a nondescript place, nor is it an
+ordinary public-house. The place is historical. The inhabitants of
+Zurich came here in 1576, or, at least, the best shots among them,
+to take part in the grand shooting competition to which Strasburg
+had summoned the Empire and the confederated States. They had
+brought with them a pot of boiled millet, and scarcely were they out
+of the boat than they made the Strasburg people understand that the
+pudding was still warm.
+
+"We could easily come to your aid, neighbours," they said; "by the
+Rhine and the Ill, the distance between our cities is very short."
+The word given in 1576 was kept in 1870, as is testified to by an
+engraved inscription just near by on the Zurich Fountain. At the
+moment when besieged Strasburg was in the most distressed condition
+the people of Zurich intervened, and obtained from General Werder
+permission to allow the old men and children to leave the city. This
+house was noted for something else--thanks to the Southerner who in
+1860 established a shop there for wines of the South.
+
+Jean, called Carolis, bore a remarkable resemblance to Gambetta. He
+knew him, and copied his gestures and his clothes, the cut of his
+beard, and the sound of his voice. His trade was fairly flourishing
+before the war, but he became prosperous in the years that followed.
+And a certain number of German officers got into the habit of coming
+there to drink the black wines of Narbonne, Cette, and Montpellier.
+
+One morning towards the end of April, Jean Oberlé, who was going to
+see the Chief of the Administration of Forests, whom he had long
+promised to visit, was passing along the quay, when a woman of about
+forty, clothed in black, evidently an Alsatian, came out of the
+café, crossed the road, and, apologising, said:
+
+"Pardon me, monsieur, but will you kindly come in? One of your
+friends is asking for you."
+
+"Who is it?" asked Jean, astonished.
+
+"The youngest officer there."
+
+She pointed with her finger to the confused mass of shadow moving
+under the lowered linen blind, and which he saw to be the inside of
+the room with its groups of customers.
+
+Jean, after hesitating for a moment, followed her, and was
+surprised--for not belonging to Strasburg, he was ignorant of the
+reputation and also of the customers of this wine-shop--at finding
+there six officers, three of whom were Hussars, seated at tables
+covered with red and blue check cloths, talking loudly, smoking, and
+drinking Carolis wine.
+
+The first glance he gave, on coming from the light into the
+semi-darkness, showed him that the room was small--there were only
+four tables--and decorated with allegorical pictures in the German
+style; he saw a monkey, a cat, a pack of cards, a packet of
+cigarettes, but above all there was a semi-circular mirror filling a
+recess in the left wall and round which hung framed photographs of
+the present or past habitués of the house. Jean looked again to see
+who could have sent for him, when a very young cavalryman got up.
+This simple movement displayed the beauty of his slender form in its
+sky-blue tunic with gold lace. He rose from the back of the room to
+the left. Near him, and round the same table, a captain and a
+commandant remained seated.
+
+The three officers must have returned from a long march; they were
+covered with dust, their foreheads were wet with perspiration, their
+features were drawn, and the veins stood out on their temples. The
+youngest had even brought back from this country ride a branch of
+hawthorn, which he had slipped under his flat epaulet, on the side
+near the heart.
+
+The Alsatian recognised Lieutenant Wilhelm von Farnow, a Prussian,
+three years older than himself, whom he had met before during his
+first year's law course in Munich, where Farnow was then
+sub-lieutenant in a regiment of Bavarian Uhlans. Since then he had
+not seen him. He only knew that in consequence of an altercation
+between Bavarian and Prussian officers in the regimental casino,
+some of the officers implicated had been removed, and that his old
+comrade was among their number.
+
+No; doubt was not possible. It was Farnow, with the same elegant,
+haughty way of offering his hand, the same fair, beardless face, too
+thick-set and too flat, with thick lips, an impertinent little nose,
+slightly turned up, and fine eyes of steel-blue--a hard blue where
+dwelt the pride of youth, of command, of a bold and disputatious
+temper. His body gave promise of developing into that of a solid
+and massive cuirassier later on. But at present he was still thin,
+and so well-proportioned, so agile, so evidently inured to warlike
+exercises, so vigorous, there was such disciplined precision in all
+his movements, that de Farnow, although he had not a handsome face,
+had gained a reputation for good looks, so much so that in Munich
+one would call him sometimes "Beauty" Farnow, and sometimes "Death's
+Head" Farnow. With reddish moustaches, bushy brows, and a helmet
+accentuating the shadow over his eyes, he would have been
+terrifying. But, though scarcely twenty-seven, he gave the
+impression of a warlike being, violent, conqueror of himself,
+disciplined even to his acquired and perfectly polished manners.
+
+Jean Oberlé remarked that when he rose Farnow spoke to the
+commandant, his immediate neighbour, a robust soldier with slow,
+sure eyes. He was explaining something, and the other approved, with
+an inclination of his head, at the moment when the lieutenant made
+the introduction.
+
+"Will the commandant permit me to present to him my comrade, Jean
+Oberlé, son of the factory owner of Alsheim?"
+
+"Certainly, sir. An intelligent Alsatian--very well known."
+
+Jean's introduction to the captain, a man still young, with straight
+features, evidently cultured, and no less evidently of a haughty
+temper, led to the same flattering expressions regarding the factory
+owner at Alsheim: "Yes, truly Monsieur Oberlé is well known--an
+enlightened mind. I have had the pleasure of seeing him--kindly
+remember me to him."
+
+Jean felt humiliated by the marked attentions of these two officers.
+He had the impression that he was the object of exceptional
+attention, he, a civilian, a citizen; he, an Alsatian; he, who from
+every point of view should have been looked upon by these lofty
+personages as their inferior. "What my father has done then is of
+great importance," he thought, "that they should requite him in this
+fashion. Neither his fortune, nor his style of living, nor his
+conversation, can justify this. He does not live at Strasburg, nor
+has he filled any office."
+
+A sign from the commandant almost at once put an end to the awkward
+situation, and gave the young men liberty to go and sit at the table
+farthest away from the window at the back of the room.
+
+"It is quite by chance that you meet me here," said Farnow, in a
+slightly sarcastic tone, which revealed the pride of the Prussian
+lieutenant.
+
+"My regiment is hardly ever here--it is mostly infantry officers who
+come here.... I generally go to the 'Germania'--but we have just
+been reconnoitring, as you see, and my commandant was very hot....
+You will pardon me, my dear Oberlé, for having sent for you."
+
+"On the contrary, it was very friendly. You could hardly leave your
+chiefs."
+
+"And I wanted to renew my acquaintance with you. I have not seen you
+for so long, not since Munich days. You had just gone past the
+corner of the house over there, when I said to the servant, 'That is
+one of my friends! Run and fetch M. Oberlé here!'"
+
+"And truly, you see me very happy, Farnow."
+
+The two young men looked at each other with the curiosity of two
+beings who try to fill in the unknown years. "What sort of a life
+has he led? What does he think of me? How far can I trust him?"
+
+"I fancy," said Farnow, "that you have arrived quite recently?"
+
+"Just so; I came at the end of February."
+
+"They told me that you were going to commence your military service
+in October in the Hussars."
+
+"That is true."
+
+"Do you know, Oberlé, that I had the honour of meeting your father
+in society last winter? I asked to be introduced."
+
+"Excuse me, I am still such a new-comer...."
+
+Conversation languished at this moment at Carolis, and Jean noticed
+that the two blue tunics had turned towards him, and that the
+commandant and the captain were both examining the face of the
+future volunteer.
+
+They finished drinking the wine like Bordeaux they had ordered in a
+sealed bottle.
+
+"I should much like to see more of you," said Farnow, lowering his
+voice. "I hope we shall be able to meet."
+
+"Do you know Alsheim?"
+
+"Yes; I've been through it several times during manoeuvres."
+
+The lieutenant was visibly trying to find out how far he could go.
+
+He was in an annexed country; many incidents of daily life had
+taught him that. He did not care about renewing the experience. He
+was feeling his way. Should he promise a call? He did not know yet.
+And this uncertainty, so contrary to his energetic nature; this
+caution, so wounding to his pride--made him hold up his head as if
+he were going to pick up a challenge.
+
+Jean, on his side, was disturbed. This simple thing, the receiving a
+former comrade, seemed to him now a delicate problem to solve.
+Personally he should have inclined towards the affirmative. But
+neither Madame Oberlé nor the grandfather would admit any exception
+to the rule so strictly kept up to now--that no Germans, except
+quick and commonplace business men, should be admitted to the house
+of the old protesting deputy. They would never consent. But it was
+hard for Jean to show himself less tolerant in Strasburg than he had
+been in Munich, and at the first meeting on Alsatian ground to
+offend the young officer who had come to him with hand outstretched.
+He tried at least to put a note of cordiality into his answer:
+
+"I will come and see you, dear Farnow, with pleasure."
+
+The German understood, frowned, and was silent. Evidently others had
+refused even to visit him. He did not meet in Oberlé that systematic
+and complete hostility. His anger did not last, or he did not show
+it. He reached out his slender hand, the wrist of which looked like
+a bundle of steel threads covered with skin, and with the tips of
+his fingers he touched the hilt of his sword, which had not left his
+side.
+
+"I shall be charmed," he said at last.
+
+He ordered a bottle of Burgundy, and having filled Jean's glass and
+his own, drank.
+
+"To your return to Alsheim!" he said.
+
+Then, drinking it in a draught, he placed the glass upon the table.
+
+"I am really very pleased to see you again. I live pretty well
+alone, and you know my tastes outside my profession, which I adore,
+above which I place nothing whatever, nothing if it be not God, who
+is the great judge of it. I love hunting best--I think man is made
+to move in large spaces, to strengthen his power and his dominion
+over the beasts, when he has not the occasion to do it over his
+kind. For me there is no pleasure to equal it. Apropos of this, it
+seems that M. Oberlé has been ousted from his hunting rights?"
+
+"Yes," said Jean; "he has given them up almost entirely----"
+
+"Would you like to have a turn at my place? I have rented some
+shooting near Haguenau, half wood and half plain; I have roebuck
+which come from the forest--the ancient Sacred Forest; I have hares
+and pheasants, and snipe at the time of passage; and if you like
+glowworms, I have some who fly under the pine-trees and shine like
+the lances of my Hussars."
+
+The conversation ran on for a while on this subject. Then Farnow
+finished the bottle of Carolis wine with Jean, and lifting the
+hawthorn which beflowered his epaulet and letting it drop to the
+ground, said:
+
+"If you will allow me, Oberlé, I will go some way with you. What
+direction do you take?"
+
+"Towards the University!"
+
+"That is my way."
+
+The two young men got up together. They were nearly of the same
+height and figure; both were of an energetic type, although
+different in expression--Oberlé, careful to relax all that was too
+serious in his face when at rest; Farnow exaggerating the harshness
+of his whole personality. The young lieutenant drew down his tunic
+to take out the creases, took from a chair his flat cap decorated in
+front with a cockade of the Prussian colours, and walking first with
+a studied stiffness, half turned towards the table where the
+commandant and the captain were sitting, saluted them with an almost
+invisible and several times repeated inclination of the body. The
+respectful good-fellowship of a short time ago was not now in place.
+The two chiefs from habit inspected this lieutenant leaving Carolis.
+Gentlemen themselves, very jealous of the honour of their corps,
+having learned by heart all the articles of the code of the perfect
+officer, they interested themselves in all that had to do with the
+conduct, the attitude, the dress, and the speech of a subordinate,
+who is the object of public criticism. The examination must have
+been favourable to Farnow. With a friendly and protective movement
+of his hand, the commandant dismissed him.
+
+As soon as they were in the street Farnow asked:
+
+"Well, they were perfect, were they not?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"How you say that? Did you not find them kindly? You ought to see
+them in the service."
+
+"On the contrary," interrupted Jean, "they were too amiable. I see
+every day more and more that my father must have humiliated himself
+very much to be so honoured in high places. And that wounds me,
+Farnow."
+
+The other looked serious, and said:
+
+"_Franzosenkopf!_ What a strange character this nation has--who
+cannot accept their position as the conquered, and think themselves
+dishonoured if Germans make advances to them!"
+
+"It is because they do nothing gratuitously," said Oberlé.
+
+Farnow was not displeased at the word. It seemed to him a kind of
+homage to the hard, utilitarian temperamant of his race. Besides,
+the young lieutenant would not enter into a discussion where he knew
+that friendships ran the risk of being spoilt. He greeted a young
+woman, who came towards him, and followed her with his eyes.
+
+"That is the wife of Captain von Holtzberg. Pretty, isn't she?"
+
+Then pointing to the left, beyond the bridge to the quarters of the
+old city, illumined by the vaporous light of this spring morning, he
+added, as if the two thoughts were united naturally in his mind:
+
+"I like this old-world Strasburg. How feudal it is!"
+
+Above the river, whose waters were soiled by works and sewers, rose
+the long sloping roofs, with their high dormer windows, the tiles of
+all shades of red--the medićval purple of Strasburg, mended,
+patched, and spotted, and washed, violet in places, nearly yellow in
+others adjoining, rose-colour on certain slopes, orange-coloured in
+some lights, royally beautiful everywhere and stretched out like a
+marvellous Eastern carpet of soft faded silks round the cathedral.
+The cathedral itself, built in red stone, viewed from this point,
+seemed to have been, and still to be, the pattern which had decided
+the colour of all the rest; it was the ornament, the glory, and the
+centre of all. A stork, with open wings, cleaving the air with wide
+strokes, as an oarsman cleaves water, his feet horizontally
+prolonging his body and acting as rudder, his bill a little raised
+like a prow, an heraldic bird, was flying through the blue, faithful
+to Strasburg, like all its ancient race, protected, sacred like the
+place, and always returning to the same nests above the same chimney
+stacks.
+
+Jean and Farnow saw it inclining towards the cathedral spire, and
+seen from behind, foreshortened, it looked like some bird beating
+the air with its bow of feathers, and then it disappeared.
+
+"These are the inhabitants," said Farnow, "whom neither the smoke of
+our factories, nor the tramways, nor the railways, nor the new
+palaces, nor the new order of things can astonish."
+
+"They have always been German," said Jean with a smile. "The storks
+have always worn your colours--white belly, red bill, black wings."
+
+"So they have," said the officer, laughing.
+
+He went on his way along the quays, and almost immediately stopped
+laughing. Before him, coming from the direction of the new part of
+the town, an artillery soldier was leading two horses, or rather he
+was being led by them. He was drunk. Walking between the two brown
+horses, holding the reins in his raised hands, he went on stumbling,
+knocking against the shoulder of one or the other of the beasts, and
+to save himself from falling, dragged from time to time at one of
+them, which resisted and moved away.
+
+"What is this?" growled Farnow--"a drunken soldier at this time of
+day!"
+
+"A little too much malt spirit," said Oberlé. "He is not merry in
+drink."
+
+Farnow did not answer. Frowning, he watched the man who was
+approaching, and who was only about ten yards away.
+
+At this distance, according to regimental rules, the man ought to
+have walked in step and turned his head in the direction of his
+superior officer. Not only had he forgotten all his instruction and
+continued to roll painfully between the horses; but at the moment
+when he had to pass Farnow he murmured something, no doubt an
+insult.
+
+That was too much. The lieutenant's shoulders shook with anger for a
+moment, and then he marched straight to the soldier, whose
+frightened horses backed. The officer felt humiliated for Germany.
+
+"Halt!" he cried. "Stand straight!"
+
+The soldier looked at him, stupefied, made an effort, and succeeded
+in standing still and nearly erect.
+
+"Your name?"
+
+The soldier told his name.
+
+"You will have your punishment at the barracks, you brute! But in
+expectation of better things, take this on account, for dishonouring
+the uniform as you have!"
+
+Saying this, he stretched his right arm out at full length, and with
+his gloved hand, hard as steel, he hit the man on the face. The
+blood ran out at the corner of his mouth; he squared his shoulders;
+he drew up his arms as if about to box. The soldier must have been
+terribly tempted to retaliate. Jean saw the wandering eyes of the
+drunkard when he was thus thrust backwards, turn right round in
+their sockets with pain and rage. Then they looked down on the
+pavement, overcome by a confused and terrifying remembrance of the
+power of the officer.
+
+"Now march!" cried Farnow. "And do not stumble!"
+
+He was in the middle of the quay--erect, booted, a head higher than
+his victim, as it were surrounded by sunlight, with flashing eyes,
+the lower lids and the corners of his lips wrinkled by anger; and
+those who called him "Death's Head" must have caught a glimpse of
+him like that.
+
+The loafers who had hurried up to witness the scene and formed a
+circle, stood aside at the order of the lieutenant, and let the
+soldier pass through, who was trying not to pull the reins too hard.
+Then, as a certain number of them remained gathered together, either
+silent or merely muttering their opinion, Farnow, turning on his
+heels and crossing his arms, looked at them one after the other. The
+little bank clerk went by first, adjusting his eyeglasses; then the
+milk-woman with her copper pot on her hip passed on by herself,
+shrugged her shoulders, ogling Farnow; then the butcher who had come
+from the neighbouring shop; then two boatmen who tried to look as if
+they did not care, although both had flushed faces; then the urchins
+who at first wanted to cry, and who now nudged each other and went
+off laughing. The officer drew near to his companion, who had
+remained on the left near the canal.
+
+"I think you went a little too far," said Oberlé. "What you have
+just done is forbidden by the Emperor's express orders. You risk a
+reprimand."
+
+"That is the only way to treat those brutes!" said Farnow, his eyes
+still blazing. "Besides, believe me, he has already passed on my
+blow to his horses, and to-morrow he will have forgotten all about
+it."
+
+The two young men walked side by side to the University gardens,
+without speaking to each other, thinking over what had just
+happened. Farnow put on a new pair of gloves to replace the others,
+probably soiled by the soldier's cheek. He bent towards Jean,
+saying gravely and with evident conviction:
+
+"You were very young when I met you, my dear fellow. We shall have
+to tell each other a few things before we shall know exactly our
+respective opinions on many points.
+
+"But I am astonished that you have not yet perceived, you who have
+stayed so long in all the German provinces, that we were born to
+conquer the world, and that conquerors are never gentle men, nor
+ever perfectly just."
+
+He added, after a few steps:
+
+"I should be vexed if I have hurt your feelings, Oberlé; but I
+cannot hide from you that I do not regret what I did. Only
+understand that behind my anger there is discipline, the inviolable
+prestige and dignity of the army of which I am a unit. Do not report
+the incident to your people, dear fellow, without also adding the
+excuse _for_ it. That would mean to betray a friend. Well,
+good-bye."
+
+He held out his hand. His blue eyes lost for the moment something of
+their haughty indifference.
+
+"Good-bye, Oberlé! Here is the door of your Clerk of the Forests."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE MEETING
+
+
+Jean came back in fairly good time to the Strasburg station and took
+the train to Obernai, where he had left his bicycle. While going
+from Obernai to Alsheim he saw in the meadows through which the
+Dachs ran, near Bernhardsweiler, a second stork--motionless on one
+leg.
+
+This was the first thing he told Lucienne, whom he met under the
+trees in the park. She was reading, and wore a grey linen dress with
+lace on the bodice. When she heard the noise of the bicycle on the
+gravel she lifted her intelligent eyes, smiling.
+
+"My dear, how I have missed you. What in the world makes you go away
+so constantly?"
+
+"I make discoveries, dear sister. First, I have seen two storks,
+arriving on the sacred day--April 23--punctual as lawyers."
+
+A slight pout of her red lips showed that the news did not interest
+her much.
+
+"Then?"
+
+"I spent three hours in the offices of the Forest Conservators,
+where I learned that----"
+
+"You can tell all that to father," she interrupted. "I see so much
+wood here, living and dead, that I have no wish to occupy my mind
+with it unnecessarily. Tell me some Strasburg news, or about some
+costumes, or some conversation you had with some one in society."
+
+"That is true," said the young man, laughing. "I did meet some one."
+
+"Interesting?"
+
+"Yes; an old acquaintance of Munich, a lieutenant in the Hussars."
+
+"Lieutenant von Farnow?"
+
+"Yes, the very man--Lieutenant Wilhelm von Farnow, lieutenant in the
+9th Rhenish Hussars. What is the matter?"
+
+They were halfway down the avenue, hidden by a clump of shrubs.
+Lucienne, bold and provoking as ever, crossed her arms and said, in
+a quieter tone of voice:
+
+"Only this--he loves me."
+
+"_He?_"
+
+"And I love him!"
+
+Jean stepped away from his sister in order to see her better.
+
+"It is not possible!"
+
+"And why not?"
+
+"Why, Lucienne, because he is a German, an officer--a Prussian!"
+
+There was silence; the blow had struck home. Jean, quite pale, went
+on:
+
+"You must also know that he is a Protestant."
+
+She flung her book on the seat and, holding up her head, quivering
+all over at the protest:
+
+"Do you imagine I have not thought it all over? I know all you can
+possibly say. I know that the people in the midst of whom we live in
+Alsace here, intolerant and narrow-minded as they are, will not
+hesitate to say what they think on the subject. Yes; they will make
+a fuss, they will blame me and pity me and try to make me give way.
+And you; are you not beginning the game? But I warn you that
+arguments are quite useless--all your arguments. I love him. It is
+not to be done, it _is_ done. I have only one wish, and that is to
+know if you are on my side or against me. For I shall not alter my
+mind."
+
+"Oh, my God! my God!" cried Jean, hiding his face in his hands.
+
+"I never thought it could hurt you so much. I do not understand. Do
+you share their stupid hatred? Tell me. I am putting a strong
+control on my feelings that I may talk to you. Tell me then. Speak.
+You are paler than I am--I, whom this alone concerns."
+
+She caught hold of his hands and uncovered his face. And Jean gazed
+at her strangely for a moment as do those whose look does not as yet
+correspond with their thoughts.
+
+Then he said:
+
+"You are mistaken; we are both concerned, Lucienne!"
+
+"Why?"
+
+"We are one against the other, because I, too, must tell you that I
+love--I love Odile Bastian!"
+
+She was terrified at what she foresaw in connection with this name;
+she was touched at the same time because the argument had reference
+to love, and was a confidence. Her irritation passed at once. She
+put her head on her brother's shoulder. The curls of her fair hair
+intermixed with auburn lay ruffled and disordered against Jean's
+neck.
+
+"Poor, dear Jean," she murmured. "Fate pursues us. Odile Bastian and
+the other. Two love affairs which exclude each other! Oh! my poor
+dear, it is the drama of our family perpetuating itself through us!"
+She straightened herself, thinking she heard a step, and taking her
+brother's arm went on nervously: "We cannot talk here, but we must
+talk about other than merely surface things. If father suddenly came
+across us, or mamma, who is working in the drawing-room at heaven
+knows what everlasting piece of embroidery. Ah, my dear, when I
+think that only a few steps away from her we are exchanging such
+secrets as these, which she little suspects! But first we must think
+of ourselves, must we not? Ourselves...!" For a moment she thought
+of returning to the house, and of going up to her room with Jean.
+Then she decided on a better place of refuge. "Come into the fields,
+there no one will disturb us."
+
+Arm-in-arm, hastening their steps, speaking to each other in low
+tones and short sentences, they went through the gate, passed the
+end of the enclosure, and to the right of the road, which was higher
+than the surrounding land; they went down a sloping path, which
+could be seen like a grey ribbon winding its seemingly endless way
+through the young corn. Already each of them, after the first moment
+of surprise, of dejection, and of real pain caused by the thought of
+what the other would suffer, had come back to thoughts of self.
+
+"Perhaps we are wrong to worry ourselves," said Lucienne, entering
+the path. "Is it certain that our plans are irreconcilable?"
+
+"Yes. Odile Bastian's mother will never agree to her daughter
+becoming the sister-in-law of a German officer."
+
+"And how do you know that this officer would not perhaps prefer
+marrying into a family a little less behind the times than ours?"
+said Lucienne, hurt. "Your plan may also injure mine."
+
+"Pardon me; I know Farnow--nothing will stop him."
+
+"To tell the truth, I think so too!" said the young girl, looking
+up, and blushing with pride.
+
+"He is one of those who are never in the wrong."
+
+"Exactly so."
+
+"You share his ambitions."
+
+"I flatter myself that I do."
+
+"You can rest assured then: he will have no hesitation. The
+scruples will come from the Bastian side, who are the souls of
+honour...."
+
+"Ah! if he heard you," said Lucienne, letting go her brother's arm,
+"he would fight you."
+
+"What would that prove?"
+
+"That he felt your insult as I felt it myself, Jean. For Lieutenant
+von Farnow is a man of honour!"
+
+"Yes, in _his_ way--which is not our way."
+
+"Very good! Very noble!"
+
+"Rather feudal, this nobility of theirs. They have not had the time
+to have that of a later date. But after all it does not matter. I am
+not in a mood for discussion. I suffer too much. All I wish to say
+is that when I ask for Odile's hand I shall be refused. I foresee
+it, I am sure of it; and that von Farnow will not understand why,
+and if he did understand he would not withdraw, he would never think
+of sacrificing himself. In speaking like this, I am not slandering
+him. I simply understand him."
+
+They walked on, enveloped in an atmosphere of light and warmth,
+which they did not enjoy, between long strips of young corn, smiling
+unnoticed around them. In the plain, some labourers seeing them pass
+side by side, walking together, envied them. Lucienne could not deny
+that her brother's forebodings were reasonable. Yes, it must be so,
+judging from what she herself knew of Lieutenant von Farnow and the
+Bastians. In any other circumstance she would have pitied her
+brother, but personal interest spoke louder than pity. She felt a
+kind of disturbed joy when she heard Jean acknowledge his fears. She
+felt encouraged _not_ to be generous, because she felt he was
+anxious. Not being able to pity him, she at any rate drew near to
+him, and talked to him about herself.
+
+"If we had lived together longer, Jean," she said, "you would have
+known my ideas on marriage, and I should astonish you less to-day. I
+had made up my mind to marry only a very rich man. I dislike the
+fear of what to-morrow may bring; I want certainty and to lead...."
+
+"The conditions are fulfilled," said Jean, with bitterness. "Farnow
+has a vast property in Silesia. But at the same time he is also
+lieutenant in the 9th regiment of Rhenish Hussars!"
+
+"Well!"
+
+"Officer in an army against which your father has fought, your uncle
+has fought, and all your relations, every one old enough to carry
+arms."
+
+"Quite right. And I would not have asked anything better than to
+marry an Alsatian. Perhaps I even wished to do so without saying
+anything about it. But I did not find what I wished. Nearly all who
+had name, fortune, or influence have chosen France; that is to say,
+they all left Alsace after the war. They called it patriotism.
+Truly, words can serve every use. Who remain? You can easily count
+the young people of Alsatian origin belonging to wealthy families,
+and who could have aspired to the hand of Lucienne Oberlé."
+
+She went on more excitedly:
+
+"But they did not ask for me; and they will not ask for me, my dear!
+That is what you have never understood. They kept away, they and
+their parents, because father....
+
+"They have put us and our family under an interdict. I am, in
+consequence, one of those they do not marry. Owing to their
+intolerance, the narrowness of their conception of life, I am
+condemned by them. They call me the 'beautiful Lucienne Oberlé,' but
+none of those who like to look at me, and greet me with affected
+respect would dare to defy his people and make me his wife. I have
+not had to choose; you cannot reproach me on that score. The
+situation is such that, willing or not, I shall not be asked in
+marriage by an Alsatian. It is not my fault. I knew what I was
+doing when I accepted Lieutenant von Farnow!"
+
+"Accepted?"
+
+"In the sense that I am bound--certainly. During last autumn, but
+especially for the last four months, Lieutenant von Farnow has paid
+me a great deal of attention."
+
+"Then it was he on horseback, there on the road, the night I
+returned?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Was it he who recently came to visit the saw-mills with another
+officer?"
+
+"Yes; but I have met him mostly in society at Strasburg, when father
+took me to balls and dinners.--You know that mamma, because of her
+poor health--but above all because of her hatred of everything
+German--generally avoids accompanying me. I met Lieutenant von
+Farnow constantly. He had every chance of talking to me.
+
+"At last, when he came here, just lately, he asked father if I would
+allow him to pay me definite attentions. And this very morning,
+after lunch, I answered 'Yes.'"
+
+"Then father consents?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"The others?"
+
+"Know nothing about it. And it will be terrible. Think of it. My
+mother, my grandfather, Uncle Ulrich! I hoped for your support,
+Jean, to help me overcome all these difficulties, and to help me
+also to heal all the wounds I am going to inflict. First of all, von
+Farnow must be introduced to mamma, who does not know him. Alsheim
+is quite impossible. We have been thinking of a meeting at some
+mutual friend's house in Strasburg. But if I have to consider you as
+one more enemy, what good is there in my telling you my plans?"
+
+They stood still, Jean reflecting for a moment, as he faced the
+plain, which unrolled its strips of barley, and young corn,
+intermingling at the edges like the flow and counterflow of running
+water. Then, gathering his thoughts together and looking at
+Lucienne, who was waiting for his words, with raised face,
+suppliant, restless, and ardent.
+
+"You cannot imagine how much I am suffering. You have destroyed all
+my joy!"
+
+"My dear, I did not know about your love!"
+
+"And I--I have not the courage to destroy yours...."
+
+Lucienne threw her arms round his neck.
+
+"How generous you are, Jean! How good you are!"
+
+He put her away from him, and said sadly:
+
+"Not so generous as you imagine, Lucienne, for that would be to show
+myself very weak. No; I do not approve of your decision. I have no
+confidence in your happiness...."
+
+"But at least you will leave me free? You will not go against me?
+You will help me against mamma?"
+
+"Yes, since you have gone so far, and since our father has given his
+consent, and since our mother's opposition might only cause still
+greater unhappiness...."
+
+"You are right, Jean. Greater unhappiness, for father told me
+that----"
+
+"Yes, I guess. He told you that he would crush all opposition, that
+he would leave our mother rather than give in. That is all very
+likely. He would do it. I shall not enter into any struggle with
+him. Only, I keep my liberty of action with regard to von Farnow."
+
+"What do you mean by that?" she asked quickly.
+
+"I wish," Jean replied, in a tone of authority, in which Lucienne
+felt her brother's invincible determination, "I wish to let him
+know exactly what I think. I shall find some means of having an
+explanation with him. If he persists, after that, in his desire to
+marry you, he will make no mistake, at least as to the difference of
+feeling and ideas which separate us."
+
+"I do not mind that," answered Lucienne, reassured, and she smiled,
+being certain that von Farnow would stand the trial.
+
+She turned towards Alsheim. A cry of victory was on her lips, but
+she restrained it. For some time she stood silent, breathing
+quickly, and seeking with her eyes and mind what she could say so
+that her happiness should not appear an insult to her brother.
+
+Then she shook her head.
+
+"Poor house," she said. "Now that I am going to leave it, it is
+becoming dear to me. I am persuaded that later on, when life in the
+garrison takes me away from Alsace, I shall have visions of Alsheim.
+I shall see it in imagination, just as it stands there."
+
+In the midst of its girdle of orchards were massed together the red
+roofs of the village. And both village and trees formed an island
+among the corn and April clover. Little birds, gilded by the
+sunshine, were flying over Alsheim. The house of the Oberlés at this
+distance seemed only to be one of many. There was so much sweetness
+in all things that one might have imagined life itself sweet.
+
+Lucienne gave herself up to this appreciation of beauty, which only
+came to her as a consequence of her thoughts of love. Again she
+heard her own words, "I shall have visions of Alsheim just as it
+stands there." Then the undulating line of the Bastians' wood, which
+rose like a little blue cloud beyond the farthest gardens, reminded
+her of Jean's trouble. She only then realised that he had not
+answered her. She was moved, not enough to ask herself if she
+should renounce her happiness to make Jean happy, but up to the
+point of regretting, with a sort of tender violence, this conflict
+between their loves. She would have liked to soothe the pain she had
+caused, to comfort it with words, to put it to rest, and not to feel
+it so close to her and so alive.
+
+"Jean, my brother Jean," she said, "I will requite you for all you
+are doing for me by helping you, by doing my very best for you. Who
+knows but by working together we may not be able to solve the
+problem?"
+
+"No; it is beyond your power and mine."
+
+"Odile loves you? Yes, of course she loves you. Then you will be
+very strong."
+
+Jean made a movement of weariness.
+
+"Do not try, Lucienne. Let us go back."
+
+"I beseech you. Tell me at least how you came to love her? I can
+understand that. We said we would tell each other more than the
+names. You have only me to whom you can speak your mind without
+danger."
+
+She was making herself out to be humble. She was even humiliated by
+her secret happiness. She renewed her request, was affectionate, and
+found the right words to describe Odile's stately beauty, and Jean
+spoke.
+
+He did it because his need to confide to some one the hope which had
+been his--a hope which was still struggling not to die. He told of
+the Easter vigil at Sainte Odile and how he had met the young girl
+on Maundy Thursday in the cherry avenue. From that, each helping the
+other to recall happenings, to fix dates, to find words, they went
+back into the past, up to long-ago times when their parents were not
+at variance, or at least when the children were ignorant of their
+dissensions or did not perceive them, when in the holidays Lucienne,
+Odile, and Jean might believe that the two families, united in
+intimate friendship, would continue to live as important
+land-owners, respected and beloved by the village of Alsheim.
+
+Lucienne did not realise that in calling up these pictures of the
+happy past she was not calming her brother's mind. He may have found
+pleasure in them for a moment, hoping to get away from the present,
+but a comparison was immediately drawn, and his revolt was only the
+more profound, arousing all the powers of his being, against his
+father, against his sister, against that false pity behind which
+Lucienne's incapability of sacrifice was hidden. Soon the young man
+gave up answering his sister. Alsheim was getting nearer, and was
+now a long outline broken here and there. In the calm evening the
+Oberlés' house raised its protecting roof amid the tops of the
+trees, still bare. When the park gates, closed each day when the
+workmen left, were opened for the two pedestrians, Jean slipped
+behind Lucienne, and, making her go on, said, in very low, ironical
+tones:
+
+"Come, Baroness von Farnow, enter the house of the old protesting
+deputy, Philippe Oberlé."
+
+She was going to make a retort, but an energetic footstep scrunched
+the gravel, a man turned into the avenue round a gigantic clump of
+beeches, and a resonant, imperious voice, which was singing in order
+to appear the voice of a happy man without any regrets, cried:
+
+"There you are, my children! What a nice walk you must have had!
+From the waterfall by the works I saw you in the corn leaning
+towards each other like lovers."
+
+M. Joseph Oberlé questioned the faces of his children, and saw that
+Lucienne at least was smiling.
+
+"Did we have things to tell each other?" he went on. "Great secrets,
+perhaps?"
+
+Lucienne, embarrassed by the nearness of the lodge, and still more
+so by the exasperation of her brother, answered quickly:
+
+"Yes; I have spoken to Jean. He has understood. He will not oppose
+my wishes."
+
+The father seized his son's hand. "I expected nothing else from him.
+I thank you, Jean. I shall not forget that."
+
+In his left hand he took Lucienne's, and, like a happy father
+between his two children, he crossed the park by the long, winding
+carriage drive.
+
+A woman behind the drawing-room window saw them come, and her
+pleasure in looking at this scene was not undiluted. She asked
+herself if the father and children had united against her.
+
+"You know, dear Jean," said the father, holding up his head and, as
+it were, questioning the front of the château. "You know that I wish
+to spare susceptibilities and to prepare solutions, and not to
+insist on them until I am forced to do so. We are invited to the
+Brausigs'----"
+
+"Ah! is it already settled?"
+
+"Yes, to a dinner, to a fairly large evening party--not too many
+people. I think that would be a very good opportunity to present
+Lieutenant von Farnow to your mother. I shall only speak of this to
+your mother later on. And in order not to bias any of her
+impressions--you know how timid she is--so that she does not meet my
+look when she talks to this young man, I shall refuse for myself--I
+shall confide Lucienne's future to you. All my dream is to make this
+dear one happy. Not a word to my father. He will be the last to
+learn what does not really concern him but secondarily."
+
+The great empty space by the flight of steps had not seen for a long
+time such a united group walk on the well-rolled gravel.
+
+In the drawing-room, keeping herself a little back, trying to make
+her mind easy and not succeeding, Madame Oberlé had left off
+working. The embroidery was on the floor.
+
+Jean was thinking.
+
+"I shall thus assist at the interview, and I shall take mamma there,
+who will suspect nothing. What a part to play to avoid greater
+evils! Happily, she will forgive me one day when she knows
+everything."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Late that night, kissing her son, Madame Oberlé said:
+
+"Your father insists upon my accepting the Brausigs' invitation. Are
+you going, my darling?"
+
+"Yes, mamma."
+
+"Then I shall also go."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE DINNER AT THE BRAUSIGS'
+
+
+At seven o'clock the guests of the Geheimrath Brausig were gathered
+together in the blue drawing-room--with its plush and gilded
+wood--which that official had taken with him to the different towns
+he had lived in. The Geheimrath was a Saxon of excellent education,
+and of amiable though somewhat fawning manners. He seemed always to
+bend in any direction in which he was touched. But the frame-work
+was solid; and, on the contrary, he was a man whose ideas were
+unchangeable. He was tall, ruddy, nearly blind, and wore his hair
+long, and his red beard streaked with white, he wore short. He did
+not wear spectacles, because his eyes, of a pale agate colour, were
+neither shortsighted nor longsighted, but were worn out and almost
+dead. He was a great talker. His speciality was to reconcile the
+most opposite opinions. In his offices, in his relations with his
+inferiors one saw the real basis of his character. Herr Brausig had
+an Imperial spirit. He never allowed private people to be in the
+right. The words "Public interest" seemed to him to answer all
+arguments. In the official world they talked about raising him to
+the nobility. He repeated this. His wife was fifty years old, had
+the remains of beauty and an imposing figure; she had received the
+officials of eight German towns before coming to live in Strasburg.
+At her entertainments she gave all her attention to supervising the
+servants, and her impatience at the countless annoyances connected
+with their service, which she tried to hide, did not allow her to
+reply to her neighbours except in sentences absolutely devoid of
+interest.
+
+The guests formed a mixture of races and professions which one would
+not so easily come across in any other German town. There are so
+many imported elements in the Strasburg of to-day! They were
+fourteen in number, the dining-room could seat sixteen with a little
+over two feet of table for each person, such space being an
+essential in the eyes of the Geheimrath. He had in his house, around
+him--and he dominated them with his sad, insipid head--some
+protégés, people recommended to him, or friends gathered together
+from various parts of the empire: two Prussian students from the
+University of Strasburg, then two young Alsatian artists, two
+painters who had been working for a year at the decoration of a
+church; these were the unimportant guests, to which we must add the
+two Oberlés, brother and sister, and even the mother, who was looked
+upon in the official world as a person of limited intellect. The
+guests of note were Professor Knäpple, from Mecklenburg, cultured
+and studious, whose erudition consisted chiefly of minutić, and the
+author of an excellent work on the socialism of Plato. He was the
+husband of a pretty wife, round and pink, who seemed fairer and
+pinker by the side of her dark husband, with his black beard curling
+like an Assyrian's. The Professor of Ćsthetics, Baron von Fincken
+from Baden--who shaved his cheeks and chin, so that the scars gained
+in the duels of his student days might be better seen, was of a
+slender, nervous build; his head was of the energetic type, his nose
+was turned up and showing the cartilage very plainly; ardent,
+passionate, and very anti-French, and yet he looked more like a
+Frenchman than any one present, except Jean Oberlé. There was no
+Madame von Fincken. But there was beautiful Madame Rosenblatt, the
+woman who was more envied, sought after, looked up to, than any
+other woman in the German society of Strasburg, even in the military
+world, because of her beauty and intelligence. She came from Rhenish
+Prussia, as did also her husband, the great iron-master, Karl
+Rosenblatt, multi-millionaire, a man of sanguine temperament, and at
+the same time methodical and silent, and one said that he was bold
+and cold and calculating in business.
+
+This party was like all the parties that the Geheimrath gave; there
+was no homogeneity. The official himself called that conciliating
+the different elements of the country. He also spoke of the "neutral
+ground" of his house and of the "open tribunal," for each and every
+opinion. But many Alsatians did not trust this eclecticism and this
+liberty. Some maintained that Herr Brausig was simply playing a
+part, and that whatever was said in his house was always known in
+higher spheres.
+
+Madame Oberlé and her children were the last to arrive at the
+Geheimrath. The German guests welcomed Lucienne, who was intimate
+with them already. They were polite to the mother, because they knew
+she only went into Government society under constraint. Wilhelm von
+Farnow, introduced by Madame Brausig, who alone knew about the
+officer's plans, bowed ceremoniously to the mother and the young
+girl, drew himself up erect, stood stiffly, then returned at once to
+the group of men standing near the mirror.
+
+A servant announced that dinner was served. There was a movement
+among the black coats, and the guests entered the large room,
+decorated as at the Oberlés' house with evident predilection. But
+the taste was not the same. The vaulted bays with two mullions,
+decorated with rose windows in the pointed arch, and filled with
+stained-glass, of which at this time only the lead-work was to be
+seen; the sideboards with torso pillars with sculptured panels; the
+wainscoting rising to the ceiling and ending in little spires; the
+ceiling itself divided into numerous sunk panels, and in the carving
+of which electric lamps shone like fire blossoms: the whole
+decoration recalled to mind Gothic art.
+
+Jean, who came in one of the last in the procession of diners, gave
+his arm to pretty Madame Knäpple, who had eyes only for the
+wonderfully made and equally wonderfully worn dress of Madame
+Rosenblatt. Professor Knäpple's little wife thought she saw that
+Jean Oberlé was noticing the same thing. So she said:
+
+"The low neck is indecent. Don't you think so?"
+
+"I find it irreproachable. I think that Madame Rosenblatt must go to
+Paris for her dresses."
+
+"Yes; you have guessed rightly," answered the homely little woman.
+"When one has such a fortune one has often odd fancies, and but
+little patriotism."
+
+The beginning of the meal was rather silent. Little by little the
+noise of different conversations rose. They began to drink. M.
+Rosenblatt had large bumpers of Rhine wine poured out for him. The
+two students in spectacles came back to Wolxheim wine, with as
+serious a mien as if it were some difficult passage in the classics.
+The voices grew louder. The servants' footsteps could no longer be
+heard on the parquet floor. General conversation began as the froth
+of intellects had been moved by the light and the wine. Professor
+Knäpple, who had a quiet voice, but a manner of pronouncing very
+clearly and distinctly, was heard above the hum of conversation,
+when he answered his neighbour, Madame Brausig:
+
+"No; I do not understand that one should join the strong because one
+is strong. I have always been a liberal."
+
+"You are alluding to the Transvaal perhaps," said the Geheimrath
+opposite, with a loud laugh, pleased at having guessed.
+
+"Precisely, Herr Geheimrath. It is not political greatness to crush
+small nations."
+
+"You find that extraordinary?"
+
+"No; very ordinary. But I do say there is nothing to boast about in
+that."
+
+"Have other nations acted differently?" asked Baron von Fincken.
+
+He turned up his insolent nose. No one carried on the discussion, as
+if the argument were unanswerable. And the wave of general talk
+rolled on, intermingling and drowning the private conversations of
+which it consisted.
+
+Madame Rosenblatt's musical voice broke the hum of talk. She was
+saying to little Madame Knäpple, placed on the other side of the
+table:
+
+"Yes, madame, I assure you that the question has been discussed.
+Everything is possible, madame; however, I should not have thought
+that the Municipality of a German town could even discuss such an
+idea."
+
+"Not so devoid of sense; don't you think so, Professor, you who
+lecture on ćsthetics?"
+
+Professor von Fincken, seated at the right hand of the beautiful
+Madame Rosenblatt, turned towards her, looked into the depths of her
+eyes, which remained like an unrippled lake, and said:
+
+"What is it about, madame?"
+
+"I told Madame Knäpple that in the Municipal Council the question
+had been raised of sending the Gobelin Tapestries which the town
+possesses, to Paris to be mended."
+
+"That is right, madame, the noes have it."
+
+"Why not to Berlin?" asked Madame Knäpple's pretty red mouth. "Do
+they happen to work so badly in Berlin?"
+
+The Geheimrath found it time to "conciliate." "To make Gobelin
+tapestry, without doubt, Madame Rosenblatt, is right, and Paris is
+necessary; but to mend them! I think--it seems to me--that can be
+done in Germany."
+
+"Send our tapestry to Paris!" expostulated Madame Knäpple. "How do
+they know if they would ever come back?"
+
+"Oh!" one of the young painters at the end of the table answered
+gravely. "Oh, madame!"
+
+"How! Oh! You are an Alsatian, sir," said the homely little woman,
+pricked by the interjection as if it had been the point of a needle.
+"But we--we have the right to be mistrustful."
+
+She had gone too far. No one stood up for her verdict--general
+conversation stopped, and was replaced by flattering appreciations
+made by each guest on some quails in aspic which had just been
+served. Madame Knäpple herself came back to subjects with which she
+was more familiar, for she but rarely took any part in discussions
+when men were present. She turned towards her neighbour, von Farnow,
+which prevented her from seeing the elegant Madame Rosenblatt, and
+Madame Rosenblatt's beautiful dress, and the periwinkle-blue eyes of
+Madame Rosenblatt, and she undertook to explain to the young man how
+to do quails in aspic, and how to make "Cup" according to her
+recipe. However, for the second time their thoughts had been turned
+to the vanquished nation--and this thought continued to disturb
+their minds in a vague way, while champagne, German-labelled, was
+sparkling in the glasses.
+
+Madame Brausig had only exchanged very unmeaning words with M.
+Rosenblatt, her neighbour on the right, and with Professor Knäpple,
+her neighbour on the left, who preferred talking to Madame
+Rosenblatt, and Baron von Fincken, her _vis-ŕ-vis_, and sometimes
+with Jean Oberlé. It was she, however, who started a fresh
+discussion, without wishing to. And the conversation rose at once to
+a height it had not yet reached. The councillor's wife was speaking
+to M. Rosenblatt--looking all the time angrily at a servant who had
+just knocked against the chair of her most important guest, Madame
+Rosenblatt; she was speaking of a marriage between an Alsatian and a
+German from Hanover, the commandant of the regiment of Foot
+Artillery No. 10. The iron-master answered quite loudly, without
+knowing that he was sitting beside the mother of a young girl sought
+after by an officer:
+
+"The children will be good Germans. Such marriages are very rare,
+and I regret it, because they add immensely to the Germanisation of
+this obstinate country."
+
+Baron von Fincken emptied his champagne glass at a draught and,
+placing it on the table, said:
+
+"All means are good, because the end is good."
+
+"Certainly," said M. Rosenblatt.
+
+Jean Oberlé was the best known of the three Alsatians present, and
+the best qualified to make a reply, and yet the most disqualified,
+it seemed to him, to give his opinion, because of the discussions
+which this question had caused in his own house. He saw that Baron
+von Fincken had looked at him as he spoke, that Herr Rosenblatt was
+staring at him, that Professor Knäpple cast a glance at his
+left-hand neighbour, that Rosenblatt smiled with the air of one who
+would say "Is this little fellow capable of defending his nation?
+Will he answer to the spur? Let us see!"
+
+The young man answered, choosing his adversary, and, turning towards
+the Baron, "On the contrary, I think that the Germanisation of
+Alsace is a bad and clumsy action."
+
+At the same time his face grew harder and the green in his eyes
+vibrated, like the green of the forests when the wind blows the
+leaves of the trees the wrong way.
+
+The Professor of Ćsthetics looked like a man of the sword.
+
+"Why bad, if you please? Do you look upon the conquest as
+unpleasant? This is the sequel of that? Do you think so, really? But
+say so, then!"
+
+In the silence of all present the answer of Jean Oberlé fell clear
+and distinct.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You dare, sir!"
+
+"Allow me," said the Geheimrath Brausig, stretching out his hand as
+if to bless them. "Here we are all good Germans, my dear baron! You
+have no right to suspect the patriotism of our young friend, who is
+only speaking from a historical point of view!"
+
+Madame Oberlé and Lucienne signed to Jean.
+
+"Be quiet! be quiet!"
+
+But Baron von Fincken saw nothing and heard nothing. The bitter
+passion of which his face was the symbol was let loose. He half
+rose, and leaning forward, with his head over the table, he said:
+
+"France is pretty! united! powerful and moral!"
+
+Little Madame Knäpple went on:
+
+"Above all, moral!"
+
+Voices high, low, ironical, and irritated rang out confusedly.
+
+"Deceivers, the French! Look at their novels and plays! France is
+decadent! A worn-out nation! What will she do against fifty-five
+millions of Germans?"
+
+Jean let the avalanche pass; he looked now at Fincken, who was
+gesticulating, now at von Farnow, who was silent, with head held
+high and frowning brows.
+
+"I believe France is very much calumniated," he said at last. "She
+may be governed badly. She may be weakened by dissensions; but since
+you attack her, I am delighted to tell you that I look upon her as
+a very great nation. Even you yourselves have no other opinion."
+
+Veritable clamours arose. Ah! Oh! Indeed.
+
+"Your very fury against her proves this. You have conquered her, but
+you have not left off envying her!"
+
+"Do you read the commercial statistics, young man?" asked the
+resolute voice of Herr Rosenblatt.
+
+"Her merchant navy is in the sixth rank!" whispered one of the
+students.
+
+Professor Knäpple fixed his spectacles on his nose and very clearly
+articulated the following proposition:
+
+"What you say, my dear Oberlé, is true as regards the past. Even
+to-day I think I can add, that if we had France to ourselves she
+would rapidly become a great country. We should know how to improve
+her."
+
+"I beg you," added von Fincken insolently, "not to discuss an
+opinion which is not tenable."
+
+"I beg you, in my turn," said Jean, "not to use in discussion
+arguments which are not conclusive, and do not really touch the
+question. One cannot judge a country simply and solely by its
+commerce, its navy, or its army."
+
+"On what would you form your judgment then, sir?"
+
+"On the soul of the country, sir. France has hers; that I know from
+history and from I know not what filial instinct I feel within me;
+and I firmly believe that there are many superior virtues, eminent
+qualities, generosity, disinterestedness, love of justice, taste,
+delicacy, and a certain flower of heroism, which are to be found
+more often than elsewhere in the past and in the present of this
+nation. I could give many proofs of it. Even if she were as weak as
+you assert, she holds treasures which are the honour of the world,
+which must be torn from her before she merits death, and by the
+side of these things the remainder seems very small. Your
+Germanisation, sir, is only destruction or diminution of those
+virtues or French qualities in the Alsatian soul. And that is why I
+maintain that it is bad!"
+
+"Come now," said Fincken, "Alsace belongs naturally to Germany; she
+has made her come back. We make our repossession sure. Who would not
+do as much?"
+
+"France!" answered Oberlé; "and that is why we love her. She might
+have taken the territory, but she would not have done violence to
+the soul. We belong to her by right of love."
+
+The baron shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Go back then to her!"
+
+Jean almost shouted, "Yes." The servants stopped to listen, in
+passing round the sweets. He went on:
+
+"I find your attempt bad in itself, because it is a repression of
+consciences; but I also find that it is clumsy, even from a German
+point of view."
+
+"Charming," said the little falsetto of Madame Knäpple. "You should
+have the interest to keep what originality and independence remains
+to us. It would be a useful example to Germany."
+
+"Thanks," said a voice.
+
+"And more and more useful," insisted the young man. "I was educated
+in Germany and I am sure of my contention. What struck me most, and
+shocked me, is the want of personality in Germans, their increasing
+forgetfulness of liberty, their effacement before the power of----"
+
+"Take care, young man!" interrupted the Geheimrath quickly.
+
+"I shall say before the power of Prussia, Geheimrath, which devours
+consciences, and which allows only three types of men to live, and
+these she has moulded from childhood--taxpayers, officials, and
+soldiers."
+
+From the end of the table one of the students rose from his chair:
+
+"The Roman Empire did the same, and it was the Roman Empire!"
+
+A vibrating voice near him cried:
+
+"Bravo!"
+
+All the guests looked up. It was Wilhelm von Farnow, who had said
+only this one word since the beginning of the discussion. The
+violence of the debate had irritated him like a personal
+provocation. It had excited others. Herr Rosenblatt clenched his
+fists. Professor Knäpple muttered stormy sentences as he wiped his
+spectacles. His wife laughed nervously.
+
+Then the beautiful Madame Rosenblatt, letting her pearl necklace run
+through her fingers, smiled, and looking pleasantly at the Alsatian,
+said:
+
+"M. Oberlé has at least the courage of his opinions. No one could be
+more openly against us."
+
+Jean felt far too irritated to answer pleasantly. He looked intently
+at the faces of Fincken, Rosenblatt, and Knäpple, at the student who
+was moving restlessly near Lucienne, and then leaning slightly
+towards Madame Rosenblatt, said:
+
+"It is only through the women that the German nation can acquire the
+refinement which is wanting, madame. Germany has some accomplished
+women."
+
+"Thank you for us!" answered three men's voices.
+
+Madame Knäpple, furious at the compliment paid to Madame Rosenblatt,
+said:
+
+"What is your scheme then, sir, for shaking off the yoke of
+Germany?"
+
+"I have none."
+
+"Then what do you ask for?"
+
+"Nothing, madame; I suffer."
+
+It was one of the Alsatian artists, the painter with the yellow
+beard, who looked like one of Giotto's pupils, who continued the
+conversation, and all the table turned towards him.
+
+"I am not like M. Oberlé, who asks for nothing. He has only just
+come into the country after a long absence. If he had lived here
+some time, he would come to a different conclusion. We Alsatians of
+the new generation through our contact with three hundred thousand
+Germans have had the difference of our French culture from that of
+Germany conclusively demonstrated. We prefer our own; that is
+permitted? In exchange for the loyalty that we have shown to
+Germany, the taxes we pay, the military service we perform--we
+desire to remain Alsatians. And you determinedly refuse to
+understand. Our demand is that we should not be compelled to submit
+to exceptional laws, to this sort of state of siege which we have
+endured for thirty years. We demand that we should not be treated
+and governed as a country of the Empire--after the fashion of the
+Cameroons, Togoland, and New Guinea, the Bismarck Archipelago, or
+the Isles of Providence, but like a European province of the German
+Empire. We shall not be satisfied until that day comes when we can
+feel we are in our own home here--Alsatians in Alsace, as the
+Bavarians are Bavarians in Bavaria. Whilst as things are, we are the
+conquered ones waiting on the good pleasure of a master. That is my
+demand!"
+
+He spoke clearly, with apparent coldness, and his golden beard
+looked like the point of an arrow. His measured words succeeded in
+exciting their minds--and one could foresee the angry answer when
+Geheimrathin Brausig rose.
+
+Her guests followed suit, and went into the blue drawing-room.
+
+"You were absurd! What were you thinking about?" Lucienne asked in
+an undertone as she passed Jean.
+
+"Perhaps what you said was imprudent," added Madame Oberlé, a moment
+after; "but you defended Alsace well--and I approve of you."
+
+The Geheimrath was already turning to all sides, making use of the
+usual formula, which he murmured into the ears of Fincken, von
+Farnow, of Rosenblatt and Professor Knäpple, the two students, Jean,
+and the two Alsatian artists:
+
+"Do me the pleasure of following me to the smoking-room!"
+
+The smoking-room was a second drawing-room, separated from the first
+by plate-glass.
+
+M. Brausig's guests were soon reunited there. Cigars and beer were
+brought. Smoke spirals went up, mingled together, and rose to the
+ceiling. M. Rosenblatt became a centre of conversation. The
+Professor Knäpple became another. The loud voices seemed to be
+wrangling, but were only explaining simple ideas with difficulty.
+
+Alone, two men were talking of a serious subject and making but
+little noise. They were Jean Oberlé and von Farnow. Scarcely had the
+former lit his cigar when von Farnow touched Jean's arm and said:
+
+"I want to have a little conversation with you apart."
+
+To be more free, the young men seated themselves near the monumental
+mantelpiece, facing the bay which opened into the drawing-room,
+while the other smokers grouped round M. Rosenblatt and Baron von
+Fincken occupied the embrasure of the windows.
+
+"You were violent to-night, my dear fellow," said von Farnow, with
+the haughty politeness which he often adopted; "I was tempted twenty
+times to answer you, but I preferred waiting. Were you not aiming at
+me a little?"
+
+"Much of what I said was meant for you. I wanted to tell you very
+clearly what I was and to teach it to you before witnesses, so that
+it should be clearly understood that if you persevere in your
+projects, I have made no concessions to you, no advances; that I
+have nothing whatever to do with the marriage you are contemplating.
+I am not going to oppose my father's wishes, but I will not have my
+ideas confused with his."
+
+"That is how I understood it. You have evidently learned that I have
+met your sister in society and that I love her?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Is that all you have to answer?"
+
+A rush of blood suffused the German's cheeks.
+
+"Explain yourself quickly!" he went on. "My family is of the
+nobility; do you recognise that?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Do you recognise that it is an honour for a woman to be sought by a
+German officer?"
+
+"For any except an Alsatian woman. But although you do not
+understand that feeling, we are not like other people--we are the
+people of Alsace. I esteem you very much, Farnow, but your marriage
+with my sister will cruelly affect three persons among us--myself
+first of all."
+
+"How? I ask you!"
+
+They were obliged to speak in an undertone and to avoid any
+gestures, because of the presence of the Geheimrath's guests at the
+farther end of the room, who were observing the young men, and were
+trying to interpret their attitudes. All their emotion and their
+irritation was in their eyes and in the whispering of words which
+must only be heard by one person.
+
+Through the sheet of plate-glass, Lucienne could see von Farnow, and
+getting up and crossing the drawing-room, or pretending to admire
+the basket of flowers which stood out from the frame-work, she
+looked inquiringly at the faces of the officer and of her brother.
+
+"You are a man of heart, von Farnow. Think what our home in Alsheim
+will be when this fresh cause of dissension is added to the others?"
+
+"I shall go away," said the officer; "I can exchange and leave
+Strasburg."
+
+"The memory will remain with us. But that is not all. And from now
+on there is my mother, who will never consent...."
+
+With a movement of his hand von Farnow showed that he brushed aside
+that objection.
+
+"There is my grandfather, whom Alsace once elected to protest, and
+who cannot to-day give the lie to all his past life."
+
+"I owe nothing to M. Philippe Oberlé," interrupted Farnow.
+
+His voice became more imperious.
+
+"I warn you that I never give up a resolution once taken. When M.
+von Kassewitz, the prefect of Strasburg, and the only near relation
+remaining to me, returns from the holiday he is going to take in a
+few days' time, he will go to Alsheim, to your house; he will ask
+for the hand of Mlle. Lucienne Oberlé for his nephew, and his
+request will be granted, because Mlle. Lucienne Oberlé wishes to
+accept me, because her father has already consented, and because I
+will have it so--I, Wilhelm von Farnow!"
+
+"It remains to be seen whether you have done well...."
+
+"According to my will: that is sufficient for me."
+
+"How much pride there is in your love, Farnow!"
+
+"It is in everything I do, Oberlé!"
+
+"Do you think I am mistaken? My sister pleases you because she is
+pretty?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Intelligent?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"But also because she is an Alsatian girl! Your pride has seen in
+her a victory to be gained. You are not ignorant of the fact that
+the women of Alsace are in the habit of refusing Germans. They are
+queens not easily accessible to your amorous ambitions, from the
+country girls, who at their gatherings refuse to dance with the
+emigrants, up to our sisters, who are not often seen in your
+drawing-rooms or on your arms. In the various regiments you will
+belong to you will boast that you have won Lucienne Oberlé. It will
+even be a good mark for you in high quarters? Will it not?"
+
+"Perhaps," said Farnow with a sneer.
+
+"Go on then, break, or finish breaking, three of us!"
+
+They were getting more and more irritated, each trying to control
+himself.
+
+The officer rose, threw away his cigar, and said haughtily:
+
+"We are civilised barbarians--that is understood, less burdened than
+you with prejudices and pretensions to justice. That is why we shall
+conquer the world. But in the meantime, Oberlé, I am going to join
+your mother and talk to her, as amiably as an enemy possibly can.
+Will you accompany me?"
+
+Jean Oberlé shook his head in the negative.
+
+Farnow crossed the smoking-room, leaving Oberlé there.
+
+Lucienne was anxiously awaiting him in the drawing-room. She saw him
+direct his steps towards Madame Oberlé, and, forcing himself to
+smile, place a chair near the arm-chair in which the fragile
+Alsatian lady in black was sitting. At the same time the Geheimrath
+called out, "Oberlé! You have smoked a cigar without even drinking
+one glass of beer. But that is a crime! Come. Professor Knäpple is
+explaining the measures the Government is taking to prevent the
+Russianising of the eastern provinces of Germany."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Late that night, a landau bore away to Alsheim three travellers; it
+had fetched them from the station at Molsheim.
+
+The way there was a long one, and Lucienne soon went to sleep in the
+carriage. Her mother, who had hardly said anything up to then, bent
+towards her son, and, pointing to the beautiful creature sound
+asleep, asked him:
+
+"You knew?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I guessed it. There was no need to tell me much. I have seen her
+look at him. Oh, Jean, this trial that I hoped to escape!--the fear
+of which has made me accept so many, many things! I have only you
+left, my Jean! But you remain to me!"
+
+She kissed him fervently.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+IN SUSPENSE
+
+
+As things do not usually happen as we foresee, the visit of Herr von
+Kassewitz to Alsheim did not take place on the date Farnow said it
+would. Towards the end of June--at the moment when the prefect,
+returned from taking the waters, was getting ready to go to ask for
+Lucienne's hand, a telegram had asked him to put off the visit. The
+condition of M. Philippe Oberlé had suddenly become worse.
+
+The old man, whom it was necessary to inform of what was going on in
+the house, had just learned the truth. His son had gone up one
+morning to the sick man's room. "With circumlocution and in ways
+that he took out of respect and consideration for him, he let it be
+seen that Lucienne was not indifferent to the advances of a cavalry
+officer belonging to a high German family; he had said that the
+liking was spontaneous; that he, Joseph Oberlé, in spite of certain
+regrets, did not believe that he had the right to thwart the freedom
+of his children, and that he hoped that his father, in the interests
+of peace, would be resigned.
+
+"My father," he said, "you are not ignorant of the fact that your
+opposition would be useless and purely vexatious. You have a chance
+to give Lucienne a great proof of your affection, as we ourselves
+have given; do not repulse her."
+
+The old man had asked in signs:
+
+"And Monica; has she consented?"
+
+M. Joseph Oberlé had been able to answer yes, without telling a lie,
+for the poor woman, threatened with a separation, had yielded once
+more. Then the sick man put an end to his son's long monologue by
+writing two words, which were his answer:
+
+"Not I!"
+
+The same evening, fever declared itself. It continued the following
+day, and soon became so persistent and weakening that the condition
+of the sick man troubled the Oberlés.
+
+From this day on, the health of M. Philippe Oberlé became the topic
+of anxious inquiries, evening and morning. They questioned Madame
+Monica or Jean, whom he received whilst excluding the others.
+
+"How is he? Is his strength returning? Has he still all his wits
+about him--the full use of his mental faculties?"
+
+Each one was wondering what was happening up above in the room where
+the old fighter, who had half disappeared from the world of the
+living, still governed his divided family, holding them all
+dependent on him. They spoke of their uneasiness, and under this
+name, which they rightly used, what projects were hid, what
+different thoughts!
+
+Jean himself awaited the issue of this crisis with an impatience in
+which his affection for his grandfather was not the only interest
+involved. Since the explanation he had had with Lucienne, especially
+since the party at the Geheimrath's, all intimacy between brother
+and sister had ceased. Lucienne was as amiable and just as
+officiously kind as she could be, but Jean no longer responded to
+her advances. When work kept him no longer at the factories he fled
+from the house: sometimes to the country, where the first hay
+harvest attracted all the life from the Alsatian farms. Sometimes he
+would go and talk to his neighbours the Ramspachers, already his
+friends, when at nightfall they came back from the plain; and there
+he was led on by the hope that he should see the daughter of M.
+Bastian walking along the path. But more often still he went up to
+Heidenbruch. M. Ulrich had received his nephew's confidences and a
+mission at the same time. Jean had said to him:
+
+"I have now no hope of winning Odile. My sister's marriage will
+prevent mine. But in spite of that I am bound to ask for the hand of
+her to whom I have confessed my love. I wish to be certain of what
+is already breaking my heart, although I am only afraid of it. When
+M. Bastian has heard that Lucienne is betrothed to Lieutenant von
+Farnow or that she is going to be--and that will not be delayed if
+grandfather gets better--you will go to M. Bastian. You will speak
+to him on my behalf. He will answer you, knowing fully all the
+facts; you will tell me if he refuses, once for all, his daughter to
+the brother-in-law of von Farnow; or if he insists on some time of
+probation--I will accept it, no matter how long it may be; or if he
+has the courage--in which I do not believe--to pay no attention to
+the scandal which my sister's marriage will cause."
+
+M. Ulrich had promised.
+
+Towards the middle of August the fever which was wearing out M.
+Philippe Oberlé disappeared. Contrary to the expectation of the
+doctor, his strength returned very quickly. It was soon certain that
+the robust constitution of the invalid had got the better of the
+crisis. And the truce accorded by M. Joseph Oberlé to his father had
+come to an end. The old man, having recovered to that sad condition
+of a sick man whom death does not desire, was going to be treated
+like the others, and would not be spared. There was no fresh scene
+between the sick man and his son. All went on quietly. On the 22nd
+of August, after dinner in the drawing-room, where Victor had just
+brought the coffee, the factory owner said to Madame Oberlé:
+
+"My father is now convalescent. There is no longer any reason to put
+off the visit of Herr von Kassewitz. I give you notice, Monica, that
+it will take place during the next few days. You would do well to
+tell my father, since you alone go to him. And it is necessary that
+everything should be done in order, without anything like surprise
+or deception. Is that your opinion?"
+
+"You do not wish to put off this visit any longer?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Then I will tell him!"
+
+Jean wrote the same evening to Heidenbruch, where he was not able to
+go.
+
+"My uncle, the visit is settled. My father makes no mystery about
+it; not even before the servants. He evidently wishes that the
+report of the marriage should be spread abroad. As soon as you hear
+some one from Alsheim get indignant or sad about us, go and see, I
+implore you, if the dream that I dreamed can still live on. You will
+tell M. Bastian that it is the grandson of M. Philippe Oberlé who
+loves Odile."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE HOP-PICKING
+
+
+At the foot of Sainte Odile, a little below the vineyards in the
+deep earth formed by gravel and leaves fallen from the mountain, M.
+Bastian and other land-owners or farmers of Alsheim had planted
+hop-fields. Now the time was come when the flower produces its
+maximum of odorous pollen--a quickly passing hour difficult to
+seize.
+
+The hop-planters appeared frequently in the hopfields. The brokers
+went through the villages. One heard buyers and sellers discussing
+the various merits of Wurtemburg hops and the Grand Duchy of Baden
+hops, and of Bohemian and Alsatian hops. The newspapers began to
+publish the first prices of the most famous home-grown: Hallertan,
+Spalt, and Wolnzach.
+
+A Munich Jew had come to see M. Bastian on Sunday August 26, and had
+said to him:
+
+"Wurtemburg is promising: Baden will have fine harvests: our own
+country of Spalt, in Bavaria, has hops which are paying us one
+hundred and sixty francs the fifty kilos, because they are rich
+hops--they are as full of the yellow aromatic powder as a grape of
+juice. Here you have been injured by the drought. But I can offer
+you one hundred and twenty francs on condition that you pick them at
+once. They are ripe."
+
+M. Bastian had given in, and had called together his daily
+hop-pickers for August 28. That was also the day when the Count von
+Kassewitz was to pay his visit to M. Joseph Oberlé.
+
+From dawn of a day already warmed by wafts of hot air, women had set
+themselves to walk up what is called "the heights of Alsheim," the
+region where the cultivated land, hollowed like a bow, will bear
+hops. Some hundreds of yards from the border of the forest high
+poles in battle array bore up the green tendrils. They looked like
+very pointed tents of foliage, or belfries--for the millions of
+little cones, formed of green scales sprinkled with pollen, swung
+themselves from the extreme top to the ground like bells whose
+ringer is the wind. All the inhabitants know the event of the
+day--one picks hops for M. Bastian. The master, up before dawn, was
+already in the hop-field, examining each foot, calculating the value
+of his crop, pressing and crushing in his fingers one of the little
+muslin-like pine cones whose perfume attracts the bees. At the back
+on the stubble furrows are two narrow wagons, harnessed to a horse,
+waiting for the harvest, and near them was Ramspacher the farmer,
+his two sons Augustin and François, and a farm servant. The women,
+on the direct road leading up there, came up in irregular bands,
+three in file, then five abreast, then one following the others, the
+only one who was old. Each one had put on a working dress of some
+thin stuff, discoloured and the worse for wear, except, however, the
+grocer's daughter, Ida, who wore a nearly new dress, blue with white
+spots, and another elegant girl from Alsheim, Juliette, a brunette,
+the daughter of the sacristan, and she had a fashionable bodice and
+a checked apron, pink and white. The greater number were without
+hats, and had only the shade of their hair, of every tint of
+fairness, to preserve their complexions. They walked along quietly
+and heavily. They were young and fresh. They laughed. The farm boy
+mounted on a farm horse, going to the fields, the reapers, encamped
+in a corner, and the motionless man with the scythe in the soft
+lucerne turned their heads, and their eyes followed these women
+workers, whom one did not generally see in the country: needlewomen,
+dressmakers, apprentices, all going as if to a fęte towards the
+hop-field of M. Bastian. The vibration of words they could not hear
+flew to them on the wind that dried the dew. The weather was fair.
+Some old people, the pickers of fallen fruit beneath the scattered
+apple- and walnut-trees, rose from their stooping posture, and
+blinked their eyes to see the happy band of girls coming up the
+forest road. These girls without baskets such as the bilberry and
+whortleberry pickers, and raspberry gatherers had to carry.
+
+They went into the hop-field, which contained eight rows of hops and
+disappeared as if in a gigantic vineyard. M. Bastian directed the
+work, and pointed out that they must begin with the part touching
+the road. Then the old farmer, his two sons and farm servant, seized
+each of them one of the poles, heavy with the weight of harvest, the
+tendrils, the little scaly bells, the leaves all trembled; and after
+the women had knelt down and had cut the stalks even with the
+ground, the loosened poles came out of the earth and were lowered
+and despoiled of the climbing plants they had carried.
+
+Stalks, leaves, and flowers were thrown down and placed in heaps--to
+be carried away by the wagons. The workers did not wait to pick the
+hops which they would gather at Alsheim in the farmyard in the
+afternoon. But, already covered with yellow powder and pieces of
+leaves, the men and women were hurrying to strip the lowered poles.
+The hops exhaled their bitter, healthy odour, and the humming of
+the band of workers, like the noise of early vintage, spread out
+over the immense stretch of country, striped with meadows, stubble,
+and lucerne, and the open and fertile Alsatian land which the sun
+was beginning to warm.
+
+This light, the repose of the night still neighbouring the day, the
+full liberty which they did not enjoy every day of the week, the
+instinctive coquetry evoked by the presence of the men, even the
+desire of being pleasant to M. Bastian, whom they knew to be of a
+gay disposition, made these girls and children who picked the hops
+joyful with a boisterous joy. And one of the farm servants having
+called out while his horses stopped to take breath: "Is no one
+singing then?" the daughter of the sacristan, Juliette, with the
+regular features and the beautiful deep eyes under her well combed
+and nicely dressed hair, answered:
+
+"I know a lovely song."
+
+As she answered she looked at the owner of the property, who was
+smoking, seated on the first row of stubble above the hop-field, and
+who was contemplating with tenderness now his hops and now his
+Alsace, where his mind always dwelt.
+
+"If it is pretty; sing it," said the master. "Is it a song that the
+police may hear?"
+
+"Part of it."
+
+"Then turn round to the forest side: the police do not often go that
+way because they find nothing to drink there."
+
+The workers who were stooping and those who were standing upright
+laughed silently because of the detestation in which they held the
+gendarmes. And the beautiful Juliette began to sing--of course in
+Alsatian--one of those songs which poets compose who do not care to
+sign their works, and who rhyme in contraband.
+
+The full, pure voice sang:
+
+"I have cut the hops of Alsace--they have grown on the soil we
+tilled--the green hops are certainly ours--the red earth is also
+ours."
+
+"Bravo!" said gravely M. Bastian's farmer. He took his pipe from his
+mouth in order to hear better.
+
+"They have grown in the valley--in the valley where every one has
+passed along, many sorts of people, and the wind, and also
+anguish--we have chosen our own friends.
+
+"We will drink beer to the health of those who please us. We will
+have no words on our lips--but we will have words in our
+hearts--where no one can efface them."
+
+The heavy, solid heads, young and old, remained motionless for a
+moment when Juliette had finished. They waited for the remainder.
+The young girls smiled because of the voice and because of life. The
+eyes of M. Bastian and the Ramspachers shone because of bygone days.
+The two sons had grown grave. Juliette did not begin to sing again:
+there was no more to follow.
+
+"I think I know the miller who composed that song," said M. Bastian.
+"Come, my friends, hurry yourselves; there is the first cart
+starting for Alsheim. All must be gathered and put in the
+drying-house before night."
+
+Everybody except that big young François, who had to do his military
+service in November, and who was driving the wagon, bent again over
+the hop roots. But at the same moment, from the copse on the border
+of the great forest, from among the shrubs and the clematis, which
+made a silky fringe to the mountain forests, a man's voice answered.
+
+What was happening? Who had heard them? They thought they knew the
+voice, which was strong and unequal, worn, but with touches of a
+youthful quality; and whisperings arose.
+
+"It is he. He is not afraid!"
+
+The voice answered, in the same rugged tongue:
+
+"The black bow of the daughters of Alsace--has bound my heart with
+sorrow--has bound my heart with joy. It is a knot of love.
+
+"The black bow of the daughters of Alsace--is a bird with great
+wings. It can fly across the mountains--and look over them.
+
+"The black bow of the daughters of Alsace is a cross of mourning
+which we carry in memory of all those--whose soul was like our own
+soul."
+
+The voice had been recognised. When it had finished singing, the
+hop-pickers, men and women, began to talk to M. Ulrich, who, barely
+tolerated in Alsace, had nevertheless more freedom of language than
+the Alsatians who were German subjects. The noise of laughter and
+words exchanged grew louder and louder in the hop-field, so the
+master withdrew.
+
+M. Bastian, with his heavy, sure step, mounted to the edge of the
+forest whence came the voice, and plunged under the beeches. Some
+one had seen him coming and waited for him. M. Ulrich Biehler,
+seated on a rock starred with moss--bare headed, weary with having
+walked in the sun--had hoped, by singing, to make his old friend
+Xavier Bastian climb up to him. He was not mistaken.
+
+"I have a place for you here, hop-picker!" he cried from afar,
+pointing to a large block of stone which had rolled to the foot of
+the mountain, between two trees, and on which he was seated.
+
+Although they were friends, M. Ulrich and the Mayor of Alsheim saw
+each other but seldom. There was between them less intimacy than a
+community of opinions and of aspirations and of memories. They were
+chosen friends, and old Alsace counted them among her faithful ones.
+That was enough to make them feel the meeting was a happy one, and
+to make the signal understood. M. Ulrich had said to himself that
+M. Bastian having set the workers to work would not be sorry to have
+a diversion. He had sung in answer to Juliette's song, and M.
+Bastian had come. Now the pale, fine face of the hermit of
+Heidenbruch reflected a mixture of pleasure in welcoming his friend
+and an anxiety difficult to conceal.
+
+"You still sing?" said M. Bastian, pressing M. Ulrich's hand. "You
+hunt, you run about the hills!"
+
+He sat down breathless on a stone, his feet in the ferns, and
+looking towards the descending slopes wooded with oaks and beeches
+and bushes.
+
+"That only in appearance. I am a walker, a forester, a wanderer.
+You, on the contrary, are the least travelled of men. I visit--you
+cultivate: these are at bottom two kinds of fidelities. Tell me,
+Xavier, may I speak to you of something which I have very much at
+heart?"
+
+The heavy face trembled, the thick lips moved, and one could see by
+the great change which took place in M. Bastian's face how sensitive
+he was. As he was of just as reticent a nature, he did not make any
+reply. He waited.
+
+"I am going to tell you about something which touches me as nearly
+as if it were a personal matter. He who begged me to see you is my
+dearest relative. I take the direct method with you, Xavier. Have
+you guessed that my nephew loves your daughter Odile?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well?"
+
+Suddenly these two, who had been gazing into the distance for a
+while, looked at each other eye to eye, and they were afraid, one
+because of the refusal he read there--and the other because of the
+pain he was going to give.
+
+"No!" said the voice, grown harsh in order to dominate its emotion,
+which would have made it tremble. "I will not!"
+
+"I expected that; but if I tell you that they love each other?"
+
+"That may be. I cannot!"
+
+"You have some very serious reason then?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+M. Bastian pointed through the trees to the house of the Oberlés.
+
+"To-day, in that house, they are expecting the visit of the Prefect
+of Strasburg."
+
+"I could not tell you, and I had to wait before speaking about it
+till every one knew it."
+
+"It is public property now. All the town of Alsheim has been told by
+the servants. They even say that M. von Kassewitz is coming to ask
+for the hand of Lucienne for his nephew, Lieutenant von Farnow."
+
+"I know it!"
+
+"And you would have it so?"
+
+"Yes!"
+
+"That I should give my daughter to Jean Oberlé so that she should
+have a father-in-law who will be a governmental candidate in the
+coming elections and a brother-in-law who is a Prussian officer?"
+
+M. Ulrich kept calm under the indignant gaze of M. Bastian and
+answered:
+
+"Yes; these are terrible things for him, but it is not Jean's fault.
+Where will you find a man more worthy of you and of your daughter?"
+
+"What is he doing to oppose this marriage? He is here--his silence
+gives consent. He is weak."
+
+M. Ulrich stopped him with a movement.
+
+"No; he is strong!"
+
+"Not like you--you who knew how to close your house."
+
+"My house belongs to me."
+
+"And I have the right to say 'Not like me!' All these young people
+accept things too easily, my friend. I do not mix myself up with
+politics. I keep silent. I plough my land. I am looked on with
+suspicion by the peasants, who no doubt like me, but who begin to
+find me 'compromising.' I am hated by Germans of every kind and
+colour. But, as God hears me, that only makes me drive my roots
+deeper in, and I do not change. I will die with all my old hatreds
+intact--do you understand--intact?"
+
+His eyes had a gleam in them such as a sharpshooter has when, with
+gun in hand, and sure that his hand will not tremble, he covers his
+enemy.
+
+"You stand for something in this generation, Xavier; but you must
+not be unjust. This man you refuse, because he is not like us, is
+not the less valiant for that."
+
+"That has to be seen."
+
+"Has he not declared that he will not enter the Government employ?"
+
+"Because the country pleases him better--and my daughter pleases him
+also!"
+
+"No; firstly because he is Alsatian."
+
+"Not like us, I will answer for that!"
+
+"In a new way. They are obliged to live in the midst of Germans.
+Their education is carried out in German schools, and their way of
+loving France leaves room for more honour and more strength of mind
+than was necessary in our time. Think, it is thirty years ago!"
+
+"Alas!"
+
+"They saw nothing of those times, they have only a traditional love,
+or a love which is of the imagination, or of family, and examples of
+forgetfulness are frequent around them!"
+
+"Jean has had, in truth, examples of that sort."
+
+"That is why you ought to be more just to him. Think that your
+daughter in marrying him will found here an Alsatian family--very
+powerful, very wealthy. The officer will not live in Alsheim, nor
+even long in Alsace. He will soon be only a name."
+
+M. Bastian placed his heavy hand on M. Ulrich's shoulder, and spoke
+in a tone which did not allow the discussion to be continued.
+
+"Listen, my friend, I have only one word. It cannot be, because I
+will not have that marriage: because all those of my generation,
+dead and living, would reproach me. And then, even if I yielded,
+Ulrich, there is a will near me stronger than mine, who will never
+say yes, do you understand, never!"
+
+M. Bastian slipped down among the ferns, and shrugging his
+shoulders, and shaking his head--like some one who will hear no
+more--went downwards to his day workers. When he had passed between
+the rows of the cut hops and reprimanded each of the workers, there
+was no more laughing, and the girls of Alsheim, and the farmer's
+sons, and the farmer himself, stooping under the burning sun, went
+on in silence with their work, which had been so joyously begun.
+
+Already M. Ulrich was going up to his hermitage on Sainte Odile,
+distressed, asking himself what serious effect the refusal of M.
+Bastian was going to have on Jean's destiny, and anxious to tell his
+nephew the news. Without hoping, without believing that there was
+any chance of it, he would try to make Odile's father give way, and
+plans hummed round him, like the gadflies in the pine woods, drunk
+with the sun, and following the traveller in his lonely climb. The
+streams were singing. There were flocks of thrushes, harbingers
+crossing the ravines, darting through the blue air to get to the
+vines and fruits of the plain. It was in vain--he was utterly
+downcast. He could think of nothing but of his nephew, so badly
+rewarded for his return to Alsheim. Between the trees and round the
+branches he gazed at the house of the Oberlés.
+
+Any one going into that house just then would have found it
+extraordinarily quiet. Every one there was suffering. M. Philippe
+Oberlé, as usual had lunched in his room. Madame Oberlé, at the
+express wish of her husband, had consented to come out of her room
+when M. von Kassewitz should be announced.
+
+"All the same, I repeat," she said, "that I shall not go out of my
+way to entertain him. I will be there because by your orders I am
+bound to receive this person. But I shall not go beyond what is
+strictly necessary."
+
+"Right," said M. Oberlé, "Lucienne, Jean, and I will talk to him.
+That will suffice."
+
+And after his meal he had gone at once to his workroom, at the end
+of the park. Jean, who had shown no enthusiasm, had gone out, for
+his part, promising to return before three o'clock. Lucienne was
+alone in the big yellow drawing-room. Very well dressed in a grey
+princess dress, which had for its only ornament a belt buckle of two
+shades of gold, like the decorations in the dining-room; she was
+placing roses in crystal glasses and slender vases of transparent
+porcelain, which contrasted well with the hard, definite colour of
+the velvet furniture. Lucienne had the collectedness of a gambler
+who sees a game coming to an end, and knows she has won. She had
+herself, in two recent soirées at Strasburg carried the business
+through, which now wanted only the signatures of the contracting
+parties; the official candidature promised to M. Joseph Oberlé in
+the first vacant district.
+
+The visit of M. von Kassewitz was equivalent to the signing of the
+treaty. The opposing parties held their tongues, as Madame Oberlé
+held hers, or stood aside in silent sulkiness, like the grandfather.
+The young girl went from the mantelpiece to the gilt console,
+surmounted by a mirror, in which she saw herself reflected, and she
+thought the movement of her lips very pretty when she made them say
+"Monsieur the Prefect!" One thing irritated her, and checked the
+pride she felt in her victory: the absolute emptiness which was
+making itself felt around her.
+
+Even the servants seemed to have made up their minds not to be there
+when they were wanted. They did not answer the bell. After lunch M.
+Joseph Oberlé had been obliged to go into the servants' hall to find
+his father's valet, that good-tempered big Alsatian who looked upon
+himself as being at the beck and call of every one.
+
+"Victor, you will put on your livery to receive the gentleman who
+will come about three o'clock!"
+
+Victor had grown red and answered with difficulty:
+
+"Yes, sir!"
+
+"You must be careful to watch for the carriage, and to be at the
+bottom of the steps----"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+Since this promise had been given, which no doubt went very much
+against Victor's feelings--he had hid himself, and only came at the
+third or fourth call, quite flustered and pretending that he had not
+heard.
+
+The Prefect of Strasburg is coming. These words which Lucienne had
+spoken, Madame Oberlé thought over shut up in her room. They
+weighed, like a storm cloud, on the mind of the old protesting
+representative of Alsace--that old forester, Philippe Oberlé, who
+had given orders that he was to be left alone; they agitated the
+nervous fingers of M. Joseph Oberlé, who was writing in his room at
+the saw mills, and he left off writing in order to listen; they rang
+sadly, like the passing bell of something noble in Jean's heart
+taking refuge with the Bastians' farmer. They were the theme--the
+_leitmotiv_ which recurred in twenty different ways, in the animated
+and sarcastic conversation of the hop-pickers.
+
+For these women and girls of the farm, and the day labourers who had
+worked in the morning in the hop-field, had assembled, since the
+mid-day meal in the narrow, long yard of the Ramspachers' farm.
+Seated on chairs or stools, each one having on their right a hamper
+or a basket and on their left a heap of hops, they picked off the
+flowers and threw away the stripped stalks. They formed two
+lines--one along the stable walls and the other the length of the
+house. This made an avenue of fair heads and bodies in movement
+among the piles of leaves, which stretched from one woman to another
+and bound them together as it were with a garland. At the end, the
+cart door opened wide on to the square of the town of Alsheim, and
+allowed the gables of several houses situated opposite to be
+seen--with their wooden balconies and the flat tiles of their
+roofings. By this road every half hour fresh loads of hops arrived
+drawn by one of the farm horses. Old Ramspacher, the farmer, was at
+his post, in the enormous barn in front of the dwelling-house, and
+before which sat the first pickers, at work on the little hop cones.
+
+In this building, whose vast roof was supported by a wall on one
+side, on the other by Vosges pines, the greater part of the work of
+the farm was done, and much wealth was stored here. Here they trod
+the grapes; in the autumn and winter months they threshed corn. They
+kept all the implements of labour in the corner--the covered carts,
+planks and building materials, empty barrels, and a little hay.
+There were also many great wooden cases piled up, tiers of screens,
+on which they put the hops to dry every year. The farmer never
+allowed others to do this delicate work. So he was at his place, in
+front of the drying-room, where the first shelves were already full,
+and standing on a ladder he spread equal layers of the gathered
+hops, which his sons brought him in hampers.
+
+The heat of the afternoon, at the end of August, the odour of
+crushed leaves and flowers, which clung to their hands intoxicated
+the women slightly. The laughter rose louder than in the hop-fields
+in the morning, and questions were asked and remarks made which
+called forth twenty answers. Sometimes it was the work which
+furnished a pretext for this fusillade of words. Sometimes it was a
+neighbour passing across the square all white with dust and
+sunshine; but mostly the talk was about two things: the visit of the
+Prefect and the probable marriage of Lucienne.
+
+The beautiful Juliette, the sacristan's daughter, had begun the
+conversation saying:
+
+"I tell you Victor told it to the mason's son: the Prefect is to
+arrive in half an hour. Do you think I shall move when he comes?"
+
+"He would see a very pretty girl," said Augustine Ramspacher,
+lifting up two hampers of hops. "It is only the ugly ones who will
+let themselves be seen."
+
+Ida, who had lifted up her blue-and-white-spotted dress, and then
+Octavie the cow-woman, who wore her hair plaited and rolled like a
+golden halo round her head, and Reine the daughter of the poor
+tailor, and others answered together laughing:
+
+"I shall not be seen then. Nor I, nor I!"
+
+And an old woman's voice, the only old woman among them, muttered:
+
+"I know I am as poor as Peter and Paul, but I would rather that he
+went to other folk's houses than to mine--the Prefect!"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+They were all speaking freely. Words re-echoed from the walls and
+were lost amid bursts of laughter and the rustling of the broken and
+crushed leaves. In the barn in the half light, seated on a pile of
+beams, his chin in his hands, there was a witness who heard, and
+that witness was Jean Oberlé. But the inhabitants of Alsheim began
+to know the young man, who had lived among them for five months.
+They knew he was a good Alsatian. On the present occasion they
+guessed that Jean had taken refuge there with the Bastians' tenant
+farmer because he disapproved the ambition to which his father was
+sacrificing so many things and so many persons. He had come in,
+under the pretext of resting and taking shelter from the sun; in
+reality because the triumphant presence of Lucienne was torture to
+him. And yet he knew nothing of the conversation which his uncle had
+had in the morning with M. Bastian. The thought of Odile returned to
+his unhappy mind and he drove it out that he might remain master of
+himself, for soon he would require all his powers of judgment and
+all his strength. At other moments he gazed vaguely at the
+hop-pickers and tried to interest himself in their work and their
+talk; often he thought he heard the sound of a carriage, and half
+rising, he remembered the promise he had made, to be at home when M.
+von Kassewitz arrived.
+
+Juliette's voice rose in decidedly spirited tones.
+
+"What does this Prefect of Strasburg want to come to Alsheim for? We
+get on so well without the Germans."
+
+"They have sworn to make themselves hated," quickly added the
+farmer's elder son, who was giving out the hops to the women who had
+no more. "It seems that they are prohibiting the speaking of French
+as much as they possibly can."
+
+"A proof--my cousin, François Joseph Steiger," said little Reine,
+the tailor's daughter. "A gendarme said he had heard him shout 'Vive
+la France!' in the inn. Those were, I believe, the only French words
+my cousin knew. That was enough--my cousin got two months in
+prison."
+
+"Your cousin called out more! But at Alberschweiler they have
+forbidden a singing society to execute anything in the French
+tongue."
+
+"And the French conjurer who came the other day to Strasburg? Do you
+know? It was in the newspaper. They let him pay the tax, hire the
+hall, print his advertisements, and then they said: 'You will do it
+in German, my good friend--or you will go!'"
+
+"What happened to M. Haas, the house-painter, is much worse."
+
+"What then?"
+
+"He knew that he could not paint an inscription in French on a shop
+any more. M. Haas would never--I know it--have painted a stroke of a
+brush in contravention of the law. But he thought he could at least
+put a coat of varnish on the sign he was painting, where he had
+painted a long time ago the word '_Chemiserie_.' They made him
+appear and threatened to take proceedings against him, because he
+was preserving the inscription with his varnish. Why, that was last
+October!"
+
+"Oh, oh, would not M. Hamm be pleased if the rain, the wind, and the
+thunder threw down the sign of the inn here, which is called: 'Le
+Pigeon blanc' as happened to 'La Cigogne.'"
+
+It was old Josephine the bilberry-picker who said to the farmer's
+wife, who at this moment appeared on the threshold of her house:
+
+"Sad Alsace! How gay she was when we were young! Wasn't she, Madame
+Ramspacher?"
+
+"Yes. Now--for nothing--evictions, lawsuits, and prison! The police
+everywhere."
+
+"You had better keep silence!" said Ramspacher in a reproachful
+tone.
+
+The younger son Francis took his mother's side.
+
+"There are no traitors here. And then, how can one keep silence?
+They are too hard. That is why so many young men emigrate!"
+
+From his corner in the shadow, Jean looked at these young girls who
+were listening--with flashing eyes, some motionless and erect,
+others continuing to bend and rise over their work of stripping the
+hop-plants.
+
+"Work then--instead of so much chattering!" said the master's voice.
+
+"One hundred and seventy unsubdued, and condemned by the tribunal at
+Saverne, in a single day, last January," said Juliette with a laugh
+that shook her hair. "One hundred and seventy!"
+
+Francis, the great careless boy, who was close by Jean Oberlé at
+this moment, turned a basketful of hops on the shelf, and bending
+towards him said:
+
+"It is at Grand Fontaine that one can easily get over the frontier,"
+he said in low tones. "The best crossing, Monsieur Oberlé, is
+between Grande Fontaine and Les Miničres. The frontier is opposite,
+like a spur. That is the nearest part, but one has to take care of
+the Forest Guard and the Custom officials. Often they stop people to
+ask where they are going."
+
+Jean trembled. What did that mean? He began:
+
+"Why do you speak to...?"
+
+But the young peasant had turned away, and was going on with his
+work. Doubtless he had spoken for himself. He had trusted his plan
+to his melancholy and silent countryman, whom he would amuse,
+astonish, or sympathise with.
+
+But Jean had been touched by this confidence.
+
+A clear voice called out:
+
+"There is the carriage coming into the town. It is going to pass M.
+Bastian's avenue!"
+
+All the hop-pickers raised their heads. Little Franzele was standing
+up near the pillar which kept the door open--leaning the top of her
+body over the wall, her curly hair blown by the wind. She was
+looking to the right, whence came the sound of wheels. In the yard
+the women had stopped working. She murmured:
+
+"The Prefect, there he is--he is going to pass."
+
+The farmer, drawn from his work by the women's sudden silence as
+much as by the child's voice, turned towards the yard where the
+hop-pickers were listening motionless to the noise of the wheels and
+the horses coming nearer. He commanded:
+
+"Shut the cart-door, Franzele!"
+
+He added, muttering:
+
+"I will not let him see how it is done here--in my place!"
+
+The little girl pushed-to one of the sides of the door, then
+curious, having stuck her head out again:
+
+"Oh, how funny. Well, he cannot say that he saw many people. They
+have not disturbed themselves much on his account! There are only
+the German women of course. They are all there near 'la Cigogne.'"
+
+"Will you shut that door?" replied the farmer angrily.
+
+This time he was obeyed. The second side of the door shut quickly
+against the first. The twenty persons present heard the noise of the
+carriage rolling in the silence of the town of Alsheim. There were
+eyes in all the shadowy corners behind the windows--but no one went
+outside their doors, and in the gardens the men who were digging the
+borders seemed so entirely absorbed in their work as to have heard
+nothing.
+
+When the carriage was about fifty yards past the farm, their
+imaginations were full of what it would be like at the Oberlés'
+farther on at the other end of the village, and taking up a handful
+of hop-stalks, the women and girls asked each other curiously what
+the son of M. Oberlé was going to do--and they looked stealthily
+towards the barn. He was no longer there.
+
+He had risen, that he might not break his word, and having run all
+the way, and pale in spite of his having run, he arrived at the gate
+of the kitchen garden at the very moment when the Prefect's
+carriage, on the other side of the demesne, was passing through the
+park gates.
+
+All the household was ready. Lucienne and Madame Oberlé were seated
+near the mantelpiece. They did not speak to each other. The factory
+owner, who had returned from his office half-an-hour ago, had put on
+the coat he wore to go to Strasburg, and a white waistcoat--with his
+arms behind his back he watched the carriage coming round the lawn.
+
+The programme was carried out according to the plans arranged by
+him. The official personage who was just entering the grounds was
+bringing to M. Oberlé the assurance of German favour. For a moment
+of inflated pride which thrilled him M. Oberlé saw in imagination
+the palace of the Reichstag.
+
+"Monica," he said, turning round as breathless as after a long walk,
+"has your son returned?"
+
+Seated before him in the yellow chair near the fireplace, looking
+very thin, her features drawn with emotion, Madame Oberlé answered:
+
+"He will be here because he said so!"
+
+"The fact that he is not here is more certain still. And Count
+Kassewitz is coming--and Victor? I suppose he is at the steps to
+show him in, as I told him?"
+
+"I suppose so."
+
+M. Joseph Oberlé, furious at the constraint of his wife--at her
+disapproval, which he encountered even in this submission, crossed
+the room and pulled the old bell rope violently, and opening the
+door which led to the hall saw that Victor was not in his place.
+
+He had to draw back, for the sound of footsteps coming up were
+mingled with the sound of the bell.
+
+M. Joseph Oberlé placed himself near the fireplace facing the
+door--near his wife. Footsteps sounded on the gravel, on the granite
+of the steps. However, some one had come in answer to the bell. The
+door was pushed open the next moment and the Oberlés perceived at
+the same time that the old cook Salomé, white as wax, her mouth set,
+was opening the door without saying a word, and M. von Kassewitz
+close behind her was coming in.
+
+He was very tall, very broad shouldered, and clad in a tight-fitting
+frock-coat. His face was composed of two incongruous elements, a
+round bulging forehead, round cheeks, a round nose, then standing
+straight out from the skin in stiff locks, eyebrows, moustache, and
+short, pointed beard. This face of a German soldier composed of
+points and arches was animated by two piercing lively eyes, which
+ought to have been blue--for his hair was yellow--but which never
+showed clearly through the shadow of the spreading eyebrows, and
+because of the man's habit of screwing up his eyelids. His hair,
+sparse on the top, was brushed up well from the occiput to just
+above the ears.
+
+M. Joseph Oberlé met him and spoke in German.
+
+"M. Prefect, we are very greatly honoured by this visit. Really to
+have taken this trouble!"
+
+The official took the hand that M. Oberlé held out, and pressed it.
+But he did not look at him and he did not stop. His steps sounded
+heavily on the thick drawing-room carpet. He was looking at the thin
+apparition in mourning near the fireplace. And the enormous man
+bowed several times very stiffly.
+
+"The Count von Kassewitz," said M. Oberlé--for the Prefect had never
+been introduced to the mistress of the house.
+
+She made a slight movement of the head and said nothing. M. von
+Kassewitz drew himself up, waited a second, then playing his part
+and affecting good humour, which perhaps he did not feel, he greeted
+Lucienne, who had blushed, and was smiling.
+
+"I remember having seen Mademoiselle at His Excellency the
+Statthalter's," he said. "And truly Strasburg is some distance from
+Alsheim. But I am of the opinion that there are some wonders which
+are better worth the journey than the ruins in the Vosges, M.
+Oberlé."
+
+He laughed with a satisfied air, and sat on the yellow couch with
+his back to the light, facing the fireplace. Then turning to the
+factory owner, who was seated near him he asked:
+
+"Is your son away?"
+
+M. Oberlé had been listening anxiously for a minute. He was able to
+say:
+
+"Here he is."
+
+The young man came in. The first person he saw was his mother. That
+made him hesitate. His eyes, young and impressionable, gave a
+nervous twitch as if they were hurt. Quickly he turned to the sofa,
+took the hand which the visitor offered him, and gravely but less
+embarrassed than his father, and with greater coolness he said in
+French:
+
+"I have just been for a walk. I had to run not to be late, for I
+promised my father I would be here when you came."
+
+"You are too kind," said the official, laughing. "We speak German
+with your father, but I am able to carry on a conversation in
+another tongue besides our national language."
+
+He went on in French, laying stress on the first syllables of the
+words.
+
+"I admired your park, Monsieur Oberlé, and even all the little
+country of Alsheim. It is very pretty. You are surrounded, I
+believe, by a refractory population--almost invisible; in any case,
+just now as I came through the village I hardly saw a living soul."
+
+"They are in the fields," said Madame Oberlé.
+
+"Who is the Mayor, then?"
+
+"M. Bastian."
+
+"I remember them: a family very much behind the times."
+
+His look was questioning, and he moved his heavy head towards the
+two women and Jean. Three answers came at once.
+
+"Behind the times, yes," said Lucienne--"they are, but such good
+people."
+
+"They are simply old-fashioned folk," said Madame Oberlé.
+
+Jean said:
+
+"Above all very worthy."
+
+"Yes, I know what that means."
+
+The Prefect made an evasive gesture.
+
+"Well, provided they go straight."
+
+The father saved the situation.
+
+"We have but few interesting things to show you, but perhaps you
+would like to see my works? They are full and animated, I assure
+you. There are one hundred workmen, and machines at work--pines
+sixty feet long under the branches, are reduced in three minutes to
+planks, or cut up as rafters. Would you care to see them?"
+
+"Yes, certainly."
+
+The conversation, thus turned in another direction at once became
+less constrained. The origin of the Oberlés' works, the Vosges
+woods, the comparison between the German manner of felling, by the
+Government, and the French system, by which the owners of a portion
+of a forest may fell the trees themselves under the supervision of
+the foresters--all these questions gave each a chance to speak.
+Lucienne became lively, Madame Oberlé, questioned by her husband,
+answered. Jean also spoke. The functionary congratulated himself on
+having come.
+
+When her father made a sign, Lucienne rose, to ring for the footman
+and to ask that some refreshment might be served. But she had not
+time to make a single step.
+
+The door opened, and Victor, the servant who had not been at his
+post a short time ago, appeared, very red, very embarrassed, and
+lowering his eyes. On his left arm, holding himself as erect as
+possible, was the grandfather, M. Philippe Oberlé.
+
+The five persons talking were all standing. The servant stopped at
+the door and withdrew. The old man came in alone, leaning on his
+stick. M. Philippe Oberlé had put on his best clothes belonging to
+the time when he was in good health. He wore, unbuttoned, the
+frock-coat which was still decorated by the ribbon of the Legion of
+Honour. Intense feeling had transfigured him. One would have said
+that he was twenty years younger. He came forward taking short
+steps--his body bent a little forward, but his head held stiffly
+erect, and he looked at one man only, the German official standing
+by the side of the couch. His heavy jaw trembled and moved
+convulsively as if he were articulating words they could not hear.
+
+Was M. Joseph Oberlé mistaken, or did he wish to put him on the
+wrong scent? He turned to where M. von Kassewitz was standing,
+astonished and on his guard, and said:
+
+"My father has surprised us by coming down. I never expected he
+would take part in this."
+
+The eyes of the old deputy, rigid under their heavy lids, did not
+cease looking at the German, who kept his countenance and remained
+silent. When M. Philippe Oberlé was three feet from M. von Kassewitz
+he stopped. With his left hand, which was free, he then drew his
+slate from the pocket of his frock-coat, and held it out to the
+Count von Kassewitz: on it two lines were written. The Count bent
+forward and then drew himself up haughtily.
+
+"Sir!"
+
+Already M. Joseph Oberlé had seized the thin sheet of slate, and
+read these words, traced with remarkable decision:
+
+"I am in my own house, sir!"
+
+The eyes of the old Alsatian added:
+
+"Leave my house!" and they were no longer looking down, nor did they
+leave the enemy.
+
+"This is too much!" said M. Joseph Oberlé. "Father, how could you
+come downstairs to insult my guests? You will excuse him, sir; my
+father is old, over-excited, a little touched by age."
+
+"If you were younger, sir," said M. von Kassewitz in his turn, "we
+should not stop at this. You will do well to remember that you are
+also in my home, in Germany, on German territory, and that it is not
+well even at your age to insult authority."
+
+"Father," said Madame Oberlé, hastening to the old man to support
+him, "I beg of you--you are doing harm to yourself--this emotion is
+too much for you."
+
+An extraordinary thing happened. M. Philippe Oberlé, in his violent
+anger, had found strength to stand upright. He appeared gigantic. He
+was as tall as M. von Kassewitz. The veins on his temples
+swelled--the blood was in his cheeks, and his eyes were living once
+more. And at the same time the half-dead body was trembling and
+using up in involuntary movements its fragile and factitious life.
+He signed to Madame Oberlé to stand aside, and not to hold him up.
+
+Lucienne, grown pale, shrugged her shoulders and went towards M. von
+Kassewitz.
+
+"It is only an act in one of our family tragedies, monsieur. Do not
+take any notice of it and come to the works with us. Let me pass,
+grandfather."
+
+The Count took no notice, and she passed out between M. Philippe
+Oberlé and the functionary who said:
+
+"You are not responsible, mademoiselle, for the insult that has been
+offered to me. I understand the situation--I understand."
+
+His voice came with difficulty from his contracted throat.
+Furious--half a head taller than any one there except M. Philippe
+Oberlé--M. von Kassewitz turned on his heel and went towards the
+door.
+
+"Come, I pray you," said M. Joseph Oberlé, standing aside to let the
+Prefect pass.
+
+Lucienne was already outside. Madame Oberlé, as ill from emotion as
+the old man, who refused her assistance, feeling her tears choke
+her, ran into the hall and up to her room, where she burst into
+sobs.
+
+In the drawing-room Jean was alone with the old chief, who had just
+driven out the stranger. He drew near and said:
+
+"Grandfather, what have you done?"
+
+He wanted to say: It is a terrible insult. My father will never
+forgive it. The family is completely broken up. He would have said
+all that. But he raised his eyes to the old fighter, so near the
+end, still showing fight. He saw now that the grandfather was gazing
+fixedly at him; that his anger had reached its height; that his
+chest was moving violently; that the face grimaced and twisted. And
+suddenly, in the yellow drawing-room, an extraordinary voice, a
+hoarse voice, powerful and husky, cried out in a kind of nervous
+gallop:
+
+"Go away! Go away! Go away! Go away!"
+
+The voice rose to a piercing note. Then it broke, and with his mouth
+still open, the old man reeled and fell on the floor. The voice had
+sounded to the inmost recesses of the house. This voice that no one
+ever heard now, Madame Oberlé had recognised it, and through the
+open door of her room she had been able to catch the words. It was
+only a cry of rage and suffering, or the contrary to M. Joseph
+Oberlé, when the terrible sound of the words, which could not be
+distinguished or guessed at, reached him down two-thirds of the
+garden path. He had turned for a moment, with a frown--while the
+foremen and German workmen of the factory greeted M. von Kassewitz
+with their cheers--then he went on towards them.
+
+Madame Oberlé was the first to run to the drawing-room, then Victor,
+then old Salome, as white as a sheet, crying with uplifted hands:
+
+"Was not that M. Philippe I heard?"
+
+Then the coachman and the gardener ran in, hesitating to come
+forward but curious to see this distressing scene. They found Jean
+and his mother kneeling near M. Philippe Oberlé, who was breathing
+with difficulty, and was in a state of complete prostration. His
+effort, his emotion, and his indignation had used up the strength of
+the old man. They raised him up, and sat him in a chair, and each
+one tried to revive him. For a quarter of an hour there was going
+and coming between the first floor and the dining-room. They fetched
+vinegar, salts, and ether.
+
+"I was afraid that master would have an attack; he has been beside
+himself all the morning. Ah, there he is moving his eyes a little.
+His hands are not so cold.
+
+Across the park there came a cry of "Long live the Prefect!" It
+entered the drawing-room wafted on the warm breeze, where such words
+had never been heard before. M. Philippe Oberlé did not seem to hear
+them. But after some minutes he made a sign that he wished to be
+taken to his room.
+
+Some one came up the steps quickly, and before coming in asked:
+
+"What, again! What are those cries? Ah! my father!"
+
+He changed his tone and said:
+
+"I thought it was you, Monica--that you had a nervous attack. But
+then who screamed like that?"
+
+"He!"
+
+"He?" said M. Oberlé; "that is not possible!"
+
+He did not dare to ask the question again. His father, now standing,
+supported by Jean and by his servant, trembling and wavering, moved
+across the room.
+
+"Jean," said Madame Oberlé, "see to everything. Do not leave your
+grandfather; I am coming up."
+
+Her husband had kept her back. She wished to get Jean away from
+this. As soon as she was alone with M. Oberlé on the staircase they
+heard the noise of footsteps and the rustling of materials, and
+voices saying:
+
+"Hold him up--take care in turning."
+
+"What did he call out?" asked M. Oberlé.
+
+"He called out: 'Go away! Go away!' Those are words that he often
+uses, you know."
+
+"The only ones he had at his disposal to show his hatred. Did he say
+nothing else?"
+
+"No. I came down at once and I found him on the floor. Jean was near
+him."
+
+"Happily M. von Kassewitz did not witness this second act. The first
+was enough. In truth, the whole household was leagued together to
+make this visit--such an honour for us--an occasion of offence and
+scandal: my father; Victor, who was not ashamed to be an accomplice
+of the delirious old man; Jean, who was impertinent; you----"
+
+"I did not think you could have had to complain of me!"
+
+"Of you the very first! It is you who are the soul of this
+resistance, which I _will_ overcome. I shall overcome it! I answer
+for that."
+
+"My poor friend," she said, clasping her hands; "you are still set
+on that!"
+
+"Exactly."
+
+"You cannot overcome everything, alas!"
+
+"That is what we are going to see."
+
+Madame Oberlé did not answer and went upstairs quickly. A new
+anxiety, stronger than the fear of her husband's threats, tortured
+her now.
+
+"What did my father-in-law wish to say?" she asked herself. "The
+old man is not delirious. He remembers; he foresees; he watches over
+the house; he always thinks things out carefully. If only Jean did
+not understand it as I understand it!"
+
+At the top of the stairs she met her son, who was coming out of the
+grandfather's room.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Nothing serious, I hope--he is better--he wishes to be alone."
+
+"And you?" questioned the mother, taking her son's hand, and leading
+him towards the room he used. "And you?"
+
+"How? I?"
+
+When he had shut the door behind her, she placed herself before him,
+and her face quite white in the light of the window, her eyes fixed
+on the eyes of her child:
+
+"You quite understood--did you not--what grandfather wished to say?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+She tried to smile, and it was heart-breaking to see this effort of
+a tortured soul.
+
+"Yes. He cried: 'Go away!' It is a word he often used to say to
+strangers. He was addressing M. von Kassewitz. You do not think so?"
+
+Jean shook his head.
+
+"But, my darling, he could not 'address others so!'"
+
+"Pardon; he meant it for me."
+
+"You are mad! You are the best friends in the world, you and your
+grandfather."
+
+"Just so."
+
+"He did not wish to turn you out of the room?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Then?"
+
+"He was ordering me to leave the house."
+
+"Jean!"
+
+"And for all that, the poor man was delighted to see me come back to
+it."
+
+Jean would not look at his mother now, because tears had gushed from
+Madame Oberlé's eyes, because she had come close to him, because she
+had taken his hands.
+
+"No, Jean, no; he could not have meant that, I assure you; you do
+not understand. In any case, you will not do it! Say that you will
+never do it."
+
+She waited for the answer, which did not come.
+
+"Jean, for pity's sake answer me! Promise me that you will not leave
+us! Oh! what would the house be without my son now? I have only
+you--you do not think I am miserable enough then? Jean, look at me!"
+
+He could not wholly resist her. She saw the eyes of her son looking
+at her tenderly.
+
+"I love you with all my heart," said Jean.
+
+"I know it; but do not go away!"
+
+"I pity you and respect you."
+
+"Do not go away!"
+
+And as he said no more she moved away.
+
+"You will promise nothing. You are hard--you also are like----"
+
+She was going to say "Like your father."
+
+Jean thought: "I can give her some weeks of peace; I owe them to
+her." And trying to smile in his turn said:
+
+"I promise you, mamma, to be at St. Nicholas's Barracks on October
+1st--I promise you. Are you pleased?"
+
+She shook her head. But he, kissing her on the brow, not wishing to
+say anything more, left her in haste.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The town of Alsheim was occupying itself with the scene which had
+taken place at M. Oberlé's. Through the torrid evening heat, amidst
+the fertile dust of the cut wheat, of the pollen of flowers, of
+dried moss which was blown from one field to another, the men came
+home on foot; the children and young people came on horseback, and
+the tails of the horses were gold, or silver, or black, or
+fire-coloured in the burning light which the setting sun cast over
+the shoulder of the Vosges. Women were waiting for their husbands on
+the thresholds, and when they drew near, went to meet them in their
+haste to spread such important news.
+
+"You do not know what has happened at the works. They will speak
+about it for a long time! It seems that old M. Philippe found his
+voice in his anger, and that he drove the Prussian out!"
+
+Many of the peasants said:
+
+"You will speak of that at home, wife, when the door is shut!"
+
+Many remarked with anxiety the agitation of their neighbours, and
+said:
+
+"This will end in a visit from the gendarmes!"
+
+At M. Bastian's farm the women and young girls were finishing their
+hop-picking. They were chattering, still laughing, or anxious,
+according to their age. The farmer had forbidden them to reopen the
+door looking on to the village street. He went on, always prudent in
+spite of his seeming joviality, to spread out the baskets of hop
+flowers, shining with fresh pollen. The oxen and the horses, passing
+near the yard, breathed in the air and stretched their necks.
+
+And one at a time the women got up, shook their aprons, and weary,
+stretched their youthful arms, yawning at the freshness of the cool
+puffs of air which came over the roof, then started on their more or
+less distant way to home and supper.
+
+At the Oberlés' house the dinner-bell rang. The meal was the
+shortest and the least gay that the wainscoting and delicately
+tinted paintings had ever witnessed.
+
+Very few words were exchanged.
+
+Lucienne was thinking of the new difficulty in the way of her
+projected marriage and of the violent irritation of M. von
+Kassewitz; Jean, of the hell that this house of the family had
+become; M. Oberlé, of his ambitions probably ruined; Madame Monica,
+of the possible departure of her son. Towards the end of dinner, at
+the moment when the servant was about to withdraw, M. Oberlé began
+to say, as if he were continuing a conversation:
+
+"I am not accustomed, you know, my dear, to give in to violence: it
+exasperates me, that is all. I am then resolved to do two
+things--first to build another house in the timber-yard, where I
+shall be in my own home, then to hasten on Lucienne's marriage with
+Lieutenant von Farnow. Neither you nor my father nor any one can
+stop me. And I have just written to him about it."
+
+M. Oberlé looked at each of them--his wife, son, and daughter--with
+the same expression of defiance. He added:
+
+"These young people must be allowed to see each other and to talk to
+each other freely, betrothed as they are."
+
+"Oh," said Madame Oberlé, "such things----"
+
+"They are so!" he answered, "by my will, and dating from this
+evening. Nothing will alter it, nothing. I cannot let them meet
+here, unfortunately. My father would plan some fresh scandal--or
+you," and he pointed to his son; "or you," and he pointed to his
+wife.
+
+"You are mistaken," said Madame Oberlé. "I suffer cruelly on account
+of this arrangement, but I shall make no scandal which will nullify
+what you have decided upon."
+
+"Then," said M. Oberlé, "you have the chance to prove your words. I
+was not going to ask you to do anything, and I had decided to take
+Lucienne to Strasburg to the house of a third person, who would
+have let them meet in her drawing-room."
+
+"I have never deserved that."
+
+"Will you then agree to accompany your daughter?"
+
+She thought for a moment, shut her eyes, and said:
+
+"Certainly."
+
+There was a look of surprise in her husband's eyes, and in Jean's,
+and also in Lucienne's.
+
+"I shall be delighted; for my arrangement did not quite suit my
+fancy. It is more natural that you should take your daughter. But
+what rendezvous do you intend to choose?"
+
+Madame Monica answered:
+
+"My house at Obernai."
+
+A movement of stupefaction made the father and son both straighten
+themselves. The house at Obernai? The home of the Biehlers? The son
+at least understood the sacrifice which the mother was making, and
+he rose and kissed her tenderly.
+
+M. Oberlé himself said:
+
+"That is right, Monica--very right. And when will it be convenient
+to you?"
+
+"Just the time to let M. de Farnow know about it. You will fix the
+day and the hour--write to him when he answers you."
+
+Lucienne, in spite of her want of tenderness, drew closer to her
+mother that evening. In the little drawing-room, where she worked at
+crochet for two hours, she sat near Madame Oberlé, and with her
+watchful eyes she followed, or tried to follow, the thoughts on the
+lined face so mobile and still so expressive. But often one can only
+partly read what is passing in a mind. Neither Lucienne nor Jean
+guessed the reason which had so quickly prompted Madame Oberlé's act
+of self-sacrifice.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE RAMPARTS OF OBERNAI
+
+
+Ten days later, Lucienne and her mother had just entered the family
+house where Madame Oberlé had spent all her childhood, the home of
+the Biehlers, which lifted its three stories of windows with little
+green panes, and its fortified gable above the ramparts of Obernai,
+between two houses of the sixteenth century--just like it.
+
+Madame Oberlé had gone upstairs, saying to the caretaker:
+
+"You will receive a gentleman presently who will ask for me."
+
+In the large room on the first floor which she entered, one of the
+few rooms which were still furnished, she had seen her parents live
+and die; the walnut-wood bed, the brown porcelain stove, the chairs
+covered with woollen velvet which repeated on every seat and every
+back the same basket of flowers, the crucifix framed under raised
+glass, the two views of Italy brought back from a journey in 1837,
+all remained in the same places and in the same order as in the old
+days. Instinctively in crossing the threshold she sought the holy
+water stoup hanging near the lintel, where the old people, when they
+went into the room, moistened their fingers as on the threshold of a
+holy abode.
+
+The two women went towards the window. Madame Oberlé wore the same
+black dress she had put on to receive the Prefect of Strasburg.
+Lucienne had put on a large brimmed hat of grey straw, trimmed with
+feathers of the same shade, as if to cover her fair hair with a veil
+of shadow. Her mother thought her beautiful--and did not say so. She
+would have hastened to say so if the betrothed had not been he whom
+they expected, and if the sight of the house, and the memory of the
+good Alsatian folk who had lived in it, had not made the pain she
+already felt greater.
+
+She leant against the windows and looked down into the garden full
+of box-trees clipped into rounded shapes, and flower borders
+outlined by box, and the winding, narrow paths where she had played,
+grown up, and dreamed. Beyond the garden there was a walk made on
+the town ramparts, and between the chestnuts planted there one could
+see the blue plain.
+
+Lucienne, who had not spoken since the arrival at Obernai, guessing
+that she would have disturbed a being who was asking herself whether
+she could continue and complete her sacrifice, came quite close to
+her mother, and with that intelligence which always took everyone's
+fancy the first time they heard it, but less the second time:
+
+"You must suffer, mamma," she said. "With your ideas, what you are
+doing is almost heroic!"
+
+The mother did not look up, but her eyelids fluttered more, and
+quickly.
+
+"You are doing it as a wifely duty, and because of that I admire
+you. I do not believe I could do what you are doing--give up my
+individuality to such an extent."
+
+She did not think she was being cruel.
+
+"And you wish to be married?" asked the mother, raising her head
+quickly.
+
+"Why, yes; but we do not now look upon marriage quite as you do."
+
+The mother saw from Lucienne's smile that she would be contending
+with a fixed idea, and she felt that the hour for discussion was
+badly chosen. She kept silence.
+
+"I am grateful to you," continued the young girl. Then after a
+moment of hesitation:
+
+"Nevertheless, you had another reason besides obeying my father when
+you agreed to come here--here to receive M. von Farnow."
+
+She let her eyes wander round the room, and brought them back to the
+woman with smooth hair--that worn-out and suffering woman--who was
+her mother. There was no hesitation.
+
+"Yes," she said.
+
+"I was sure of it. Can you tell me what it is?"
+
+"Presently."
+
+"Before M. von Farnow?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Keen annoyance changed the expression of Lucienne's face; it grew
+hard.
+
+"Although we do not agree with each other very well, surely you are
+not capable of trying to turn my betrothed against me?"
+
+Tears appeared in the corners of Madame Oberlé's eyelids.
+
+"Oh Lucienne!"
+
+"No, I do not believe it. It is something important?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Does it concern me?"
+
+"No; not you."
+
+The young girl opened her mouth to continue, then listened, became a
+little pale, and turned completely towards the door, while her
+mother turned only half-round in the same direction. Some one was
+coming upstairs. Wilhelm von Farnow, preceded by the caretaker, who
+accompanied him only as far as the landing, saw Madame Oberlé
+through the opening of the door, and as if on a military parade, he
+drew himself up and crossed the room quickly, and bowed his haughty
+head first to the mother, then to the young girl.
+
+He was extremely well dressed in civilian clothes. His face was
+drawn and pallid with emotion. He said gravely in French:
+
+"I thank you, madame!"
+
+Then he looked at Lucienne, and in his unsmiling blue eyes there was
+a gleam of proud joy.
+
+The young girl smiled.
+
+Madame Oberlé felt a shudder of aversion, which she tried to
+repress. She looked straight into the steel-blue eyes of Wilhelm von
+Farnow, who stood motionless in the same attitude he would have
+taken under arms and before some great chief.
+
+"You must not thank me. I play no part in what is happening. My
+husband and my daughter have decided everything."
+
+He bowed again.
+
+"If I were free I should refuse your race, your religion, your
+army--which are not mine. You see I speak to you frankly. I am
+determined to tell you that you owe me nothing, but also that I
+harbour no unjust animosity against you. I even believe that you are
+a very good soldier and an estimable man. I am so convinced of it
+that I am going to confide to you an anxiety which tortures me."
+
+She hesitated a moment and continued:
+
+"We had at Alsheim a terrible scene when Count Kassewitz came to the
+house."
+
+"Count Kassewitz told me about it, madame. He even advised me to
+give up the idea of marrying your daughter. But I shall not do that.
+To make me give her up nothing short of----"
+
+He began to laugh--
+
+"Nothing short of an order from the Emperor would make me! I am a
+good German, as you say. I do not easily give up what I have won.
+And Count Kassewitz is only my uncle."
+
+"What you do not know is that my father-in-law, for the first time
+for many, many years, in his exasperation, in the excess of his
+grief, has spoken. He cried out to Jean: 'Go away! Go away!' I heard
+the words. I ran quickly. Well, sir, what moved me most was not
+seeing M. Philippe Oberlé senseless, stretched upon the floor; it
+was my son's expression, and it is my conviction that at that moment
+he resolved to obey and to leave Alsace."
+
+"Oh," said Farnow, "that would be bad."
+
+He cast a glance at the fair Lucienne, and saw that she was shaking
+her blond head in sign of denial.
+
+"Yes, bad," continued the mother without understanding in what sense
+Farnow used the word. "What an old age for me in my divided
+house--without my daughter, whom you are going to take away; without
+my son, who will have gone away. You are astonished, perhaps, that I
+should tell you an anxiety of this sort?"
+
+He made a gesture which might mean anything.
+
+"It is because," the mother continued more quickly, "I have no one
+to advise me; no help to hope for--under the circumstances.
+Understand clearly. To whom shall I go? To my husband? He would be
+furious? He would start to work and we should find that by his
+influence Jean would be incorporated in a German regiment in a
+week's time--away in the north or the east. My brother? He would
+rather insist on my son leaving Alsace. You see, monsieur, you are
+the only one who can do anything."
+
+"What exactly?"
+
+"But much. Jean has promised me that he will join the regiment. You
+can arrange that he shall be received and welcomed, and not
+discouraged. You can assure him protection, society, comrades--you
+have known him a long time. You can prevent his giving way to
+melancholy ideas, and stop him if he were again tempted to carry out
+such a plan."
+
+The lieutenant, much disturbed, frowned, and the expression of his
+face changed at the last words. Then he said:
+
+"Up to the first of October you have your son's promise--after that
+I will look after him."
+
+Then speaking to himself, and again occupied with an idea, which he
+did not express entirely:
+
+"Yes," he said, "very bad--it must not be."
+
+Lucienne heard it.
+
+"So much the worse," said she. "I betray my brother's secret, but he
+will forgive me when he knows that I betrayed him to calm mamma. You
+can be easy, mamma, Jean will not leave Alsace."
+
+"Because?"
+
+"He loves."
+
+"Where then?"
+
+"At Alsheim!"
+
+"Whom?"
+
+"Odile Bastian."
+
+Madame Oberlé asked absolutely amazed:
+
+"Is it true?"
+
+"As true as we are here. He told me everything."
+
+The mother closed her eyes, and, choking with halting breath:
+
+"God be praised. A little hope rises in my heart. Let me cry--indeed
+I must!"
+
+She pointed to the room, which was also open on the other side of
+the landing and was lighted by a large bay window, through which a
+tree could be seen.
+
+Farnow bowed, showing Lucienne that he was following her.
+
+And the girl moved on ahead, passing through the room where her
+ancestors had loved Alsace so much.
+
+Madame Oberlé turned away; sitting near the window she leaned her
+head against the panes where as a child she had seen the sleet and
+the ice form into ferns, and the sun, and the rain, and the
+vibrating airs of summer-time, and all the land of Alsace.
+
+"Odile Bastian! Odile!" repeated the poor woman. The bright face,
+the smile, the dresses of the young girl, the corner of Alsheim
+where she lived--a whole poem of beauty and moral health rose in the
+mother's mind; and with an effort she held to it jealously, in order
+to forget the other love-affair on account of which she had come
+here.
+
+"Why did not Jean confide in me?" she thought. "This is a kind of
+compensation for the other. It reassures me. Jean will not leave us,
+since the strongest of ties binds him to the country. Perhaps we
+shall succeed in overcoming my husband's obstinacy. I will make him
+see that the sacrifice we are making, Jean and I, in accepting this
+German----"
+
+Meanwhile laughter came from the next room, unfurnished except for
+the two chairs on which Lucienne and Farnow were sitting. Lucienne,
+with an elbow on the balustrade of the open window, the lieutenant a
+little behind gazing at her, and speaking with an extraordinary
+fervour; sometimes there was laughter. This laughter hurt Madame
+Oberlé, but she did not turn round. She still saw in the changing
+blue of the Alsatian fields the consoling image evoked by Lucienne.
+
+Wilhelm von Farnow was speaking during this time, and was using to
+the best advantage this hour, which he knew would be short, in which
+he was permitted to learn to know Lucienne. She was listening to him
+as if dreaming, looking out across the roofs, but really attentive,
+and accentuating her answers with a smile and a little grimace. The
+German said:
+
+"You are a glorious conquest. You will be a queen among the officers
+of my regiment, and already there is a woman of French family, but
+born in Austria, and she is ugly. There is an Italian, and some
+Germans, and some Englishwomen. You unite in yourself all their
+separate gifts--beauty, wit, brilliancy, German culture, and French
+spontaneity. As soon as we are married I shall present you in the
+highest German society. How did you develop in Alsheim?"
+
+Her nature was still proud rather than tender, and these flatteries
+pleased her.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At this hour, profiting by the absence of M. Joseph Oberlé at Barr,
+M. Ulrich had gone up to see his nephew Jean. The days were drawing
+near when the young man would go to the barracks. It was necessary
+to tell him about the unsuccessful meeting with Odile Bastian's
+father. M. Ulrich, after having hesitated a long time, finding it
+harder to destroy young love than to start for a war, went to see
+his nephew and told him everything.
+
+They talked for an hour, or rather the uncle talked in monologue,
+and tried to console Jean, who had let him see his grief, and had
+wept bitterly.
+
+"Weep, my dear boy," said the uncle. "At this moment your mother is
+assisting at the first interview between Lucienne and the other. I
+confess I do not understand her. Weep, but don't let yourself be
+cast down. To-morrow you must be brave. Think, in three weeks you
+will be in the barracks. They must not see you crying. Well, the
+year will soon pass, and you will come back to us--and who knows?"
+
+Jean passed his hand over his eyes and said resolutely:
+
+"No, uncle."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+At the same place where in the preceding winter the two men had
+talked so joyously of the future, they were once more seated at the
+two ends of the sofa.
+
+Outside, daylight was fading away and the air was warm. M. Ulrich
+found suddenly on Jean's sorrowful face the energetic expression
+which had so forcibly struck him on the former occasion, and had so
+delighted him. The Vosges-coloured eyes, with brows close together,
+were full of changing gleams of light, and yet the eyes were steady.
+
+"No," said Jean; "it is necessary that you should know--you and one
+other to whom I will tell it. I shall not do my military service
+here."
+
+"Where will you do it?"
+
+"In France."
+
+"How can you say that? Are you serious?"
+
+"As serious as it is possible to be."
+
+"And you go away at once?"
+
+"No; after I have joined the corps."
+
+M. Ulrich lifted his hands:
+
+"But you are mad. It will be the most difficult and most dangerous
+thing to do. You are mad!"
+
+He began to walk up and down the room--from the window to the wall.
+His emotion found vent in emphatic gestures, but he took care to
+speak gently for fear of being heard by the people of the house.
+
+"Why after? For, after all, that is the first thing that comes into
+my mind in face of such an idea, and why?"
+
+"I had intended to go away before joining the regiment," said the
+young man quietly. "But mamma guessed at something. She made me
+swear that I would join. So I shall join. Do not try to dissuade me.
+It is unreasonable, but I promised."
+
+M. Ulrich shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Yes; the question of time is a serious point, but it is not only
+that. The serious thing is the resolution. Who made you take it? Is
+it because your grandfather called out 'Go away!' that you have
+decided to go?"
+
+"No; he thought as I think, that is all."
+
+"Is it the refusal of my friend Bastian which decided you?"
+
+"Not more than the other. If he had said yes I should have had to
+tell him what I have told you this evening--I will live neither in
+Germany nor in Alsace."
+
+"Then your sister's marriage?"
+
+"Yes; that blow alone would have been enough to drive me away. What
+would my life be like at Alsheim now? Have you thought about that?"
+
+"Be careful, Jean. You forsake your post as an Alsatian!"
+
+"No; I can do nothing for Alsace! I could never gain the confidence
+of Alsatians now: with my father compromised, and my sister married
+to a Prussian."
+
+"They will say you deserted!"
+
+"Let them come to tell me so then, when I shall be serving with my
+regiment in France!"
+
+"And your mother--you are going to leave your mother alone here?"
+
+"That is the great objection, after all, the only great one, for the
+present, but my mother cannot ask me to let my life be sacrificed
+and made useless as hers has been. Her next feeling later on will be
+one of approval, because I have freed myself from the intolerable
+yoke which has lain so heavily on her. Yes, she will forgive me. And
+then----"
+
+Jean pointed to the jagged green mountains.
+
+"And then, there is dear France, as you say. It is she who attracts
+me. It is she who spoke to me first!"
+
+"You child!" cried M. Ulrich.
+
+He placed himself before the young man, who remained seated, and who
+was almost smiling.
+
+"A nation must be fine indeed who, after thirty years, can evoke
+such a love as yours! Where are the people one would regret in the
+same way? Oh! blessed race which speaks again in you!"
+
+He stopped a moment.
+
+"However, I cannot leave you in ignorance of the kind of
+difficulties and disillusions you are going to encounter. It is my
+duty. Jean, my Jean, when you have passed the frontier and claimed
+the qualification of Frenchman according to the law, and finished
+your year's military service.--What will you do?"
+
+"I shall always be able to earn my bread."
+
+"Do not count too much on that. Do not think that the French will
+welcome you with favour because you are Alsatian. They have perhaps
+forgotten that we----In any case, they are like those who owe a
+very old pension. Do not imagine that they will help you over there
+more than any one else."
+
+His nephew interrupted him:
+
+"My mind is made up--whatever happens. Do not speak to me about it
+any more, will you?"
+
+Then Uncle Ulrich--who was caressing his grey, pointed beard as if
+to get out his words spoken against the dear land, words that were
+coming out with such difficulty--was silent, and looked at his
+nephew a long time with his smile of complicity, which grew and
+spread. And he finished by saying:
+
+"Now that I have done my duty and have not succeeded, I have the
+right to acknowledge, Jean, that sometimes I had this same idea.
+What would you say if I followed you to France?"
+
+"You?"
+
+"Not immediately. The only interest I had in living here was in
+seeing you growing up and continuing the tradition. That is all
+shattered. Do you know what will be one of the best means of
+insuring yourself against a cold welcome?"
+
+Jean was too agitated by the gravity of the immediate resolution to
+take up time in talking about future plans.
+
+"Listen, Uncle Ulrich, in a few days I shall want you. I have told
+you about my decision precisely that you might help me."
+
+He rose, went towards the library, which was by the entrance-door,
+took a staff officer's map and came, unfolding it, towards the sofa.
+
+"Sit down again by me, uncle, and let us do some geography
+together!"
+
+He spread on his knees the map of the frontier of Lower Alsace.
+
+"I have made up my mind to go this way," he said. "There will be a
+few inquiries to be made."
+
+Uncle Ulrich nodded his head in sign of approval, interested as if
+it were some plan for a hunt, or an approaching battle.
+
+"Good place," he said, "Grande Fontaine, les Miničres. It seems to
+me that that is the nearest frontier line to Strasburg. Who told you
+this?"
+
+"François Ramspacher's second son."
+
+"You can rely on it. You will take the train."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Where to?"
+
+"As far as Schirmeck, I think."
+
+"No; that is too near the frontier, and it is too important a
+station. In your place I should get out at the station before that,
+at Russ Hersbach."
+
+"Good! There I take a carriage ordered beforehand--I go to Grande
+Fontaine--I dash into the forest."
+
+"We dash, you mean?"
+
+"Are you coming?"
+
+The two men looked at each other, proud of each other.
+
+"Really," said M. Ulrich, "this astonishes you? It is my trade.
+Pathfinder that I am, I am going first to reconnoitre the land, then
+when I shall have done the wood so thoroughly that I can find my way
+through it even by night, I will tell you if the plan is a good one,
+and at the hour agreed upon you will find me there. Be careful to
+dress like a tourist: soft hat, gaiters, not an ounce of baggage."
+
+"Quite so."
+
+M. Ulrich again scrutinised this handsome Jean who was leaving for
+ever the land of the Oberlés, the Biehlers, and all their ancestors.
+
+All the same, how sad it is, in spite of the joy of the danger.
+
+"Bah!" said Jean, trying to laugh, "I shall see the Rhine at both
+ends--there where it is free."
+
+M. Ulrich embraced him.
+
+"Courage, my boy, we shall meet soon. Take care not to let any one
+guess your plan. Who is it you are going to tell?"
+
+"M. Bastian."
+
+The uncle approved, and already on the threshold, pointing to the
+next room which M. Philippe Oberlé never left now:
+
+"The poor man! There is more honour in his half of a human
+personality than in all the others together. Good-bye, Jean!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Some hours passed and Jean went to the office of the works as usual.
+But his mind was so distracted that work was impossible. The
+employees who wished to speak to him noticed it. One of the foremen
+could not help saying to the clerks in the writing department,
+Germans like himself:
+
+"The German cavalry is making ravages here: the master looks half
+mad."
+
+The same patriotic feeling made them all laugh silently.
+
+Then the dinner bell rang. Jean dreaded meeting his mother and
+Lucienne. Lucienne held her brother back as she was entering the
+dining-room, and in the half-light tenderly embraced him, holding
+him closely to her. Like most engaged people, it was probably a
+little of the other she was embracing without knowing it. However,
+the thought at least was for Jean. She murmured:
+
+"I saw him at Obernai for a long time. He pleases me very much,
+because he is proud, like me. He has promised me to protect you in
+the regiment. But do not let us speak of him at dinner. It will be
+better not to. Mamma has been very kind--the poor thing touched me.
+She can do no more. Jean, I was obliged to reassure her by telling
+her your secret, and I told her that you will not leave Alsace,
+because you love Odile. Will you forgive me?"
+
+She took her brother's arm, and leaving the hall went into the
+dining-room, where M. and Madame Oberlé were seated already--silent.
+
+"My poor dear, in this house every joy is paid for by the sorrow of
+others. Look! I alone am happy!"
+
+The dinner was very short. M. Oberlé immediately after led his
+daughter into the billiard-room because he wanted to question her.
+The mother remained a moment at the table near her son, who was now
+her neighbour. As soon as she was alone with him, the constraint
+fell like a veil from her face. The mother turned towards her child,
+admired him, smiled at him, and said in the confidential tone she
+knew so well how to use:
+
+"I can do no more, my dear. I am completely done up and must go to
+bed. But I will confess that amidst my suffering a while ago I had
+one joy. Imagine that till just then I believed most firmly that you
+were going to leave us."
+
+Jean started.
+
+"I do not believe it now; do not be afraid! I am reassured. Your
+sister has told me in secret that I shall have some day a little
+Alsatian for a daughter-in-law. That will do me so much good. I
+understand that you could not tell me anything yet, while so much
+has been happening. And then it is still new--isn't it? Why are you
+trembling like that? I tell you, Jean, that I ask nothing from you
+now, and that I have entirely lost my fears--I love you so much."
+
+She also embraced Jean. She also pressed him to her breast. But she
+had no tenderness in her soul except that which she was expressing.
+
+She remembered the child in the cradle, nights and days of long ago,
+anxieties, dreams, precautions, and prayers of which he had been the
+object, and she thought:
+
+"All that is nothing compared with what I would always do for him!"
+
+"When she had disappeared, and he had heard the noise she made
+opening the invalid grandfather's door, to whom she never missed
+wishing good night, Jean rose and went out. He went through the
+fields to the trees which surrounded the Bastians' house, went into
+the park and, hidden there, remained some time watching the light
+which filtered through the shutters of the large drawing-room.
+Voices spoke, now one, now another. He recognised the tone but could
+not distinguish the words. There were pauses between the slowly
+spoken words, and Jean imagined that they were sad. The temptation
+came to him to go round those few yards of frontage and enter the
+drawing-room boldly. He thought: "Now that I have decided to live
+out of Alsace; now that they have refused me because of my father's
+attitude and because of Lucienne's marriage, I have no longer the
+right to question Odile. I shall go away without knowing if she also
+suffers as I suffer. But can I not see her in her own home for the
+last time, in the intimacy of the lamplight which brings the three
+of them together? I will not write to her. I will not try to speak
+to her, but I must see her; I shall carry away a last look of her--a
+last remembrance, and she will guess that at least I am deserving
+of pity."
+
+He hesitated however. This evening he felt too unhappy and too weak.
+From now to the first of October, would he not have the time to
+return? A step came from the garden side. Jean looked again at the
+thin blade of light which escaped from the room where Odile was
+sitting, and cut the night in two; and he withdrew.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THE LAST EVENING
+
+
+The last evening had come. Jean was to take at Obernai a night train
+for Strasburg, so as to be in the barracks of St. Nicholas the next
+morning at seven o'clock, the regulation hour. His uniform, ordered
+of a Strasburg tailor, as was usual for the one-year service men,
+was waiting for him, blue and yellow, folded on two chairs, in the
+room which a month ago Madame Oberlé had taken, facing the barracks
+of St. Nicholas, about the middle of the rue des Balayeurs. After
+dinner he said to his mother: "Let me go out alone, so that I can
+say good-bye to the Alsheim country I shall not see again for a long
+time."
+
+She smiled. M. Joseph Oberlé answered:
+
+"My dear fellow, you will not see me again; I have bills falling due
+to-morrow, and I must work in my office. And besides, I do not care
+about useless sentiment. Well, perhaps you will not find it easy to
+get leave before two months. I dare say not, but that will only make
+you the better pleased to come home. Come! Good-bye."
+
+More affectionately than he would have believed it possible he
+embraced him, and with a word from Lucienne in her clear, young
+voice, "Soon," he went out.
+
+The night air was laden with moisture to a remarkable degree: not a
+cloud. A crescent moon, stars in thousands; but between heaven and
+earth a veil of mist was spread which allowed the light to
+penetrate, but dispersed it in such a manner that there was no
+object really in shadow, and none which showed brightly. Everything
+was bathed in a pearly atmosphere. It was warm to breathe. "How
+sweet my Alsace is!" said Jean, when he had opened the door of the
+kitchen garden, and found himself behind the village houses, facing
+the plain, on which the moonlight was sleeping, blotted here and
+there with the shadows of an apple-tree or a walnut. An immense
+languor escaped from the soil, into which the first rains of autumn
+had sunk. The perfumes of stubble and ploughed land mixed with the
+odours from all kinds of vegetation come to their fullness of growth
+and aroma. The mountain was sending out gently to the valley the
+odour of pine pollen on the breeze, and the mint and the dying
+strawberries and bilberries, and its juniper berries crushed by the
+feet of passers-by and flocks. Jean breathed in the odour of Alsace;
+he thought he could recognise the exquisite perfume of that little
+mountain which is near Colmar, called Florimont, where the dittany
+grows, and he thought, "It is the last time. Never again! Never
+again!"
+
+There were no glittering points of light on the roofs; he followed
+the line of them on the left of the path: they seemed to have joined
+fraternal hands round the church, and under each Jean could picture
+a face known and friendly. Such were his thoughts for a while as he
+walked on. But as soon as he saw, grey in the middle of the fields,
+the big clump of trees which hid M. Bastian's house, every other
+thought fled. Arrived at the farm where the younger son had said to
+him, "It is by Grande Fontaine that you must cross the frontier," he
+went into the cherry avenue, and he still remembered and found the
+white gate. No one was passing. Besides, what did it matter? Jean
+opened the lattice gate, went in, and walked on the grass border,
+even with the great trees, to the window of the drawing-room, which
+was lighted, then going round the house, came to the door which
+opened on the side opposite the village of Alsheim.
+
+He waited an instant, went into the vestibule, and opened the door
+of the large room where the Bastian family sat every evening. They
+were all there in the light of the lamps, just as Jean had imagined.
+The father was reading the paper. The two women on the other side of
+the brown table laden with white linen unfolded, were embroidering
+with initials the towels which were going into the Bastian linen
+press. The door had opened with no other noise than that of the pad
+brushing against the parquet. However, all was so calm round the
+dwelling and in the room, that they turned their eyes to see who was
+coming in. There was a moment of uncertainty for M. Bastian, and
+hesitation for Jean. He had fixed his gaze first of all on Odile. He
+had seen how she also had suffered, and that she was the first, the
+only one who recognised him, and how she grew pale, and that in her
+anguish, her raised hand, her breath, her glance, were arrested. The
+linen Odile was sewing slipped from her hands without her being able
+to make the slightest movement to lift it up.
+
+It was perhaps by this sign that M. Bastian recognised the visitor.
+Emotion seized him immediately.
+
+"What?" he asked gently, "is it you, Jean? No one showed you in.
+What have you come for?"
+
+He slowly put his paper down on the table without ceasing to
+scrutinise the young man who was standing in the shadow, on the same
+spot, a step or two from the door.
+
+"I have come to say good-bye," said Jean.
+
+But his voice was so full of pain that M. Bastian understood
+something unknown, tragic, had entered his house. He rose, saying,
+"Why, yes, to-morrow will be the first of October. You are going to
+the barracks, my poor boy. No doubt you wish to speak to me?"
+
+Already M. Bastian had advanced, had held out his hand, and the
+young man, drawing him back into the darkest corner of the room, had
+answered in a very low voice, his eyes looking into the eyes of
+Odile's father. Madame Bastian gazed into the shadow, where they
+made an indistinct group.
+
+"I am leaving," Jean murmured, "and I shall never come back, M.
+Bastian; that is why I took the liberty of coming."
+
+He felt the rough hand of the Alsatian tremble. There was an
+exchange of secret and rapid dialogue between the men, while the two
+anxious women rose from their chairs, and with their hands leaning
+on the table, bent forward.
+
+"What do you say? You will come back in a year?"
+
+"No, I am going to join the regiment because I promised to. But I
+shall leave it."
+
+"You will leave it?"
+
+"The day after to-morrow."
+
+"Where are you going?"
+
+"To France!"
+
+"For ever?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+The old Alsatian turned aside for a moment. "Talk on, you women,
+talk on; we have business to discuss."
+
+They moved away, whilst he, breathless as though with running,
+cried: "Be careful what you do; be prudent; don't let yourself be
+caught."
+
+He placed both hands on Jean's shoulders. "I must stay: that's my
+way, you see, of loving Alsace; there is no better. I live here, and
+here I die. But for you, my boy, things are different, I
+understand--don't let the women guess; it's too serious. Does any
+one know at your home?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Keep your secret," and then, lowering his voice, "You wanted to see
+her once more. I don't blame you, since you will never meet again."
+
+Jean nodded as though to say "Yes, I had to see her once more."
+
+"Look at her a minute, and then go. Stay where you are--look over my
+shoulder."
+
+Over M. Bastian's shoulder Jean could see that the troubled look in
+Odile's eyes had grown to terror. She met his gaze fearlessly; she
+had no thought but for the dialogue which she could not hear, the
+mystery in which she felt she had some part, and her face betrayed
+her anguish.
+
+"What are they saying? Is it bad news again? Is it better? No; not
+better, they are not both looking my way."
+
+Her mother was still paler than her daughter.
+
+"Farewell, my boy," said M. Bastian in low tones. "I loved you.... I
+could not act differently ... but I think highly of you; I will
+remember you."
+
+Overcome by emotion, the old Alsatian silently pressed Jean's hand
+and let it fall. As to Jean, trembling and dazed, he walked to the
+door, looking back for the last time. He was going then--in one
+minute he would be gone, never to return to Alsheim.
+
+"Au revoir, madame," he said.
+
+He would have liked to say au revoir to Odile, but sobs prevented
+the words.
+
+He gained the shadow of the corridor; they heard him hurrying away.
+
+"What does it mean?" demanded Madame Bastian. "Xavier, you are
+hiding something from us."
+
+The old Alsatian sobbed aloud; he threw precaution to the winds--she
+had guessed.
+
+"Odile," she cried, "run and say good-bye to him."
+
+Odile was already across the room; she caught Jean up at the corner.
+
+"I beg of you to tell me why you are so miserable," she cried.
+
+He turned, determined to be silent, to keep his vow. She was quite
+close to him; he opened his arms; she threw herself into them.
+
+"Oh God," she cried, "you are leaving; I know it--you are going."
+
+He kissed her hair tenderly, a lifelong farewell, turned the corner,
+and fled from her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+JOINING THE REGIMENT
+
+
+At a quarter to seven, Jean Oberlé, wearing a jacket and round cap,
+walked by the stable of the old French barracks of St. Nicholas,
+built on the site of a convent, now called by the Germans "Nikolaus
+Kaserne." He reached the iron gate, saluted the officer, exchanged a
+few words with him, and advanced towards a group of about a dozen
+young men, volunteers for a year's service, who were standing at the
+end of the courtyard, under the clock. Cavalry men in undress--light
+blue tunic with yellow braid, black trousers, and flat caps--moved
+here and there over vast, level, dusty grounds. A detachment of
+cavalry, lance at shoulder, had taken up their station to the left
+by one of the stables, waiting their officer's command to take the
+road.
+
+"Herr Sergeant," said Jean, approaching the non-commissioned
+officer, carefully dressed, but of vulgar appearance, who, with a
+protecting and pretentious manner, was waiting for him by the group
+of volunteers. "I am one of the volunteers for the year."
+
+The sergeant, who had very long black moustaches, which he never
+ceased twirling between the thumb and first finger, asked his
+christian and surname, and compared them with the names and surnames
+on the list he held in his hand.
+
+Meanwhile, secretly intimidated by the supposed wealth of those he
+received, eager to please them, but anxious lest they should
+discover it, the sergeant looked the volunteer up and down, as
+though seeking some physical defect, anything in fact which might
+make this Alsatian civilian ridiculous in the eyes of a
+non-commissioned officer.
+
+"Join the others," he said, when his examination was finished.
+
+The others were for the most part Germans, who, judging by the
+different types, had come from all parts of the Empire. They had
+dressed carefully, so as to show their comrades, volunteers like
+themselves, and the soldiers in the barracks, that in civil life
+they were men who belonged to wealthy families.
+
+They wore patent leather shoes, kid gloves, yellow or tan, elegant
+ties, valuable neck-pins. Each man introduced himself to his future
+comrades. "Allow me to introduce myself: my name is Furbach, my name
+is Blossmann." Jean knew none of them. He merely bowed without
+giving his name. What did it matter to him who was to be their
+comrade for this one day only?
+
+He took his place to the left of the group, his mind far away from
+the St. Nicholas barrack, while the whispered question, "Who is
+he--an Alsatian?" went the round of his comrades.
+
+The easy-going smiled amiably, others put themselves on the
+defensive, and with the rivalry of racial instinct, drew themselves
+up and fixed their hard blue eyes upon the new-comer with an
+unflinching stare.
+
+Two other volunteers arrived, and the sergeant, as the clock struck,
+preceded the fifteen young men up the staircase, and marshalled them
+into a room on the second floor, where the medical examination was
+to take place. At eight o'clock the volunteers were again in the
+courtyard, no longer grouped as the fancy took them, but drawn up in
+two files, the sergeant in attendance. They were awaiting the
+colonel. Jean's neighbour was a tall, beardless youth, son of a
+manufacturer of Fribourg, with bright eyes, and smooth cheeks, which
+bore, however, two scars, one near the nose, and one under the right
+eye, souvenirs of his duels as a student. Seeing Jean Oberlé's
+dreamy, reserved look, he put it down to timidity caused by his new
+surroundings, and took upon himself the office of guide.
+
+Whilst the Alsatian, his arms behind his back, his pale, strong face
+turned to the gate, watched the people of Strasburg crossing the
+street in the October sun, his companion endeavoured to arouse his
+interest in the inhabitants of the barracks.
+
+"You were wrong not to do as I did: I got introductions to several
+officers, and even know several of the chief quartermasters. There,
+do you see the _wachtmeister_ coming out of the stable; that's
+Stubel, hard drinker, great eater, good sort; that other one who is
+watching us from the end of the courtyard, the man with a little red
+moustache, do you see? That's Gottfried Hamm--a bad sort."
+
+"You know him?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Attention!" called the sergeant. "Eyes right!", He himself marched
+ten quick steps forward, halted with head erect, his arms hanging
+straight at each side, his left hand gripping his sabre below the
+guard. He had caught sight of an officer advancing towards them with
+deliberate step, wrapped in his grey cloak, the mere sight of whom
+had scattered some twenty hussars, who had been leaning against the
+walls sunning themselves. The colonel stopped before the first file
+of young men, the hope of the German reserve army. He was sanguine,
+bustling, and energetic, a very good cavalry-man, broad-shouldered,
+with thin legs, hair almost black, and eyes fierce in the interests
+of the service.
+
+"These, Colonel," said the sergeant, "are the volunteers for a
+year's service."
+
+The colonel frowned immediately, and fixing his eyes on each of
+these young men in turn, said severely:
+
+"You are privileged. You are dispensed from more than a year's
+service. Be worthy of it. Be an example to the soldiers; remember
+that you will be their chiefs later. No breaking of rules, no
+larking, no wearing of civilian dress. I shall punish severely."
+
+He asked for the list of volunteers. Seeing Jean's name he mentally
+connected it with Lieutenant von Farnow's.
+
+"Volunteer Oberlé," he called out.
+
+Oberlé stepped out of the ranks. Without relaxing the severity of
+his expression, the colonel fixed his eyes for a few moments on the
+young man's face, thinking to himself that here was the brother of
+the Lucienne Oberlé whose hand he had allowed Lieutenant Farnow to
+ask in marriage.
+
+"That's right," he said; and saluting rapidly he walked away, his
+grey cloak swelling with the north wind.
+
+As he disappeared, a lieutenant in the 1st regiment, adjutant-major
+of the Rhenish Hussars, a well-made, distinguished-looking man,
+bearing himself in the correct military style, a perfect man of the
+world, came towards the group of volunteers, and read an order
+assigning to each one his appointed place in such and such a company
+and squadron. Jean was to join the 3rd company of the 2nd squadron.
+
+"No luck," murmured his neighbour: "that's Gottfried Hamm's
+company."
+
+Henceforward the fifteen volunteers were part of the army; each one
+had his allotted place in that well-disciplined multitude, their
+responsible chiefs, the right to demand a uniform from such and such
+a depot, a horse from such and such a stable. To this they now
+turned their attention. Jean and his chance companion, son of a
+librarian of Leipzig, made their way to the top floor of the
+barrack, entered the clothing-stores and received their uniforms,
+leaving behind various articles, such as cavalry cloaks and pairs of
+boots, which the _kammer-sergeant_ was pleased to accept for
+himself as a token of welcome, or undertook to remit to certain
+non-commissioned officers of the company. It was a long business,
+and did not finish till past ten. Then there was a visit to the
+principal brusher's room, where there was the little wardrobe of
+white wood, used henceforth in common by the volunteer and the
+soldier; and there was still the visit to the stable sergeant, whose
+duty it was to assign to each his horse and second brusher; then
+another to the regimental tailor; it was past midday when Jean was
+able to leave the barracks and lunch hastily.
+
+For this first day the volunteers were dispensed from returning to
+barracks at one o'clock. It was only after the horses had been
+groomed that they made their appearance simultaneously as arranged
+between themselves, radiant in their shining new uniforms, before
+the curious gaze of the cavalry, and the jealous scrutiny of the
+non-commissioned officers who examined, as they passed, the cut and
+quality of their uniforms, the style of their collars and braid, the
+lustre of their shining boots. Among the young men there was only
+one who remained a stranger to the self-complacency of the others.
+He was thinking of a telegram which he should have received by now,
+of which the terms of the pre-arranged code floated before his eyes
+all the afternoon. This was his only thought. Anxiety at not hearing
+news of his uncle Ulrich's departure, nervousness mixed with a
+certain defiance which, in anticipation of the morrow, he mentally
+hurled at the authority to which he at present bowed, prevented the
+young man from feeling fatigue. It was half-past eight before the
+exercises for man and horse were concluded, and then some of the
+volunteers were so tired that they sought their beds, supperless.
+Jean did likewise, but for a different reason. He went at once to
+the Rue des Balayeurs.
+
+The landlady met him at the door:
+
+"There is a telegram for you, M. Oberlé."
+
+Jean went to his room, lit a candle, and read the unsigned telegram
+awaiting him:
+
+"All is well."
+
+This meant that all was ready for next day, that M. Ulrich had made
+all necessary preparations. The dice were cast; on the 2nd October,
+in a few hours, Jean would leave the barracks of Alsace. Although he
+never hesitated for a moment, yet, upon reading the words which
+settled his fate, the young man was overcome by emotion. The reality
+of separation entered his soul more bitterly, and being physically
+weary, he wept.
+
+He had thrown himself on his bed fully dressed, his face buried in
+his pillow; he thought of all his friends who remained behind in
+Alsace, whilst he was an exile for ever; he could hear their
+exclamations of pity or indignation when the news reached Alsheim;
+he saw the girl he loved, the radiant Odile of Easter Eve, become
+the despairing woman who had clung to him in the moment of farewell,
+guessing all, yet begging for an answer he could not give. All this
+was necessary, irreparable. The night passed slowly. Silence reigned
+in the streets. Jean realised that he would soon need all his moral
+energy, and endeavoured to lay aside vain visions and regrets,
+repeating to himself over and over again the plans settled between
+himself and his uncle at their last interview, which he was to carry
+out in every detail to-day.
+
+Yes, to-day, for the neighbouring cocks were beginning to crow. It
+was not possible to leave by an early train. The rendezvous at the
+barracks was fixed for four o'clock, while the first train for
+Schirmeck left Strasburg at 5.48; he would not reach Russ-Hersbach
+until after seven, and to take it was a great risk. The absence of a
+volunteer would be noticed in less than three hours, and the alarm
+given. Uncle Ulrich and Jean had come to the conclusion that the
+most sure means of crossing the frontier without arousing suspicion
+was to take the train which left Strasburg at 12.10 a.m., that is to
+say, whilst the volunteers were at lunch.
+
+"I have been over the ground to make sure," said M. Ulrich: "I am
+sure of my calculations. You will reach Russ-Hersbach at twenty-one
+minutes past one, a trap will take us to Schirmeck in a quarter of
+an hour. We turn to the right and reach Grande Fontaine half an hour
+later. There we leave the trap, and, thanks to our good legs, we can
+reach French ground by two forty-five or fifty. There I leave you
+and return."
+
+It was important to catch the 12.10 train, which would be an easy
+matter, as the volunteers were usually free by eleven.
+
+Jean fell asleep at last, but not for long. Before four in the
+morning he was again at the barracks.
+
+The short repose he had taken had restored his strength of will.
+Like most energetic people, Jean was nervous beforehand, but when
+the moment of action came difficulties vanished. While the horses
+were being groomed, and during the exercises, which lasted till
+close on eleven, he was perfectly calm. His attitude was even less
+reserved and detached than on the previous day, and his Saxon
+comrade remarked upon it.
+
+"Already at home?" he inquired.
+
+Jean smiled. He looked upon buildings, officers, and soldiers, all
+the pomp of the German army, with the same feelings as a school-boy
+set at liberty looks on the professors and pupils of his college. He
+already felt detached from his surroundings, and observed with a
+certain amused curiosity the scenes he would never see again.
+
+About eleven he saw at the head of a detachment of Hussars,
+Lieutenant Farnow ride into the barracks, superb in his youth and
+military splendour. The horses were splashed with mud from their
+ride, and the men, tired out, only awaited the signal to halt, that
+they might curse the day's exercises. Not in the least weary, Farnow
+rode into the courtyard with as much pleasure as though he had been
+invited to a hunting party, and was expecting the signal to start.
+"There's my sister's future husband," thought Jean; "we shall never
+see one another again, and if war breaks out, he is my enemy."
+
+He saw the vision of a tall cavalry chief, charging across a dusty
+plain, rising in his stirrups, nostrils distended, shouting out
+orders. Farnow, not suspecting the distraction he was causing the
+young volunteer, just let his blue eyes linger a minute on the
+latter's face. He moved off, followed by his men, to the farther
+side of the courtyard. A brief word of command was heard, then the
+clashing of arms, and silence. The exercises were prolonged another
+half hour, to satisfy the instructor's zeal. At half-past eleven
+Jean was rushing up the staircase, knowing that there was barely
+time to catch the train, when one of the men of his company called
+out:
+
+"There's no time to go out; we have a review at midday: it's the
+captain's orders."
+
+Jean continued on up the stairs, not paying the slightest attention
+to this obstacle raised at the last minute. His mind was made up. He
+was going to leave. He would meet his uncle at Russ-Hersbach, who
+would be waiting there with a carriage. Jean's one thought was to
+reach the station. He changed hurriedly, and mixing with a group of
+men belonging to other companies, and who had no reason to remain in
+barracks, he had no difficulty in getting away. When he was in the
+street, some yards away from the guard-house, on the pavement of the
+rue des Balayeurs he began to run. The clock stood at seventeen
+minutes to twelve. Was there time to run the three hundred yards
+which lay between him and his apartments, change into civilian dress
+and catch the 12.10? It was some distance to the station. On the
+other hand there was great risk in attempting to cross the frontier
+in uniform. While he was running Jean thought it would be simple to
+change in the train or at Russ-Hersbach. Entering the hall, he
+called breathlessly to his landlady:
+
+"I am in a great hurry. Will you call a cab? I will be down in a
+minute."
+
+Three minutes later he ran down carrying a bag into which he had
+thrown his civilian clothes, which he had left ready on his bed. He
+jumped into the cab, giving as address, "Rue de la Mésange," but at
+the next corner he called out: "Drive with all speed to the station,
+coachman."
+
+He reached the station a minute before the time, got his ticket for
+Russ-Hersbach, and jumped into a first-class compartment, which
+contained two other passengers. A minute later the train had entered
+the tunnel under the fortifications, reappeared, and steamed away to
+the west, across the plains of Alsace.
+
+At the same moment the captain, who was holding the review in the
+courtyard, caught sight of one of the volunteers attached to his
+company, and turning to the _wachtmeister_ said: "Where is the
+other?"
+
+"I have not seen him, Captain," Hamm replied, and turning to the
+young Saxon, Oberlé's comrade: "Do you know where he is?"
+
+"He went out after the exercises, sir, and has not returned."
+
+"I won't punish him this time," growled the captain; "no doubt he
+misunderstood, but speak to him in my name when he returns, Hamm;
+don't forget."
+
+There was no immediate alarm, but when the men again assembled at
+one o'clock for the grooming of the horses, which went on every
+afternoon from one to two o'clock, Jean's absence could not fail to
+be noticed. The whole length of the wall outside the stables, horses
+tethered to iron rings were being brushed down by men, amongst whom
+were the volunteers receiving a lesson in the art. The sergeants
+looked on nonchalantly when the _wachtmeister_ of the 3rd Company
+came out of his office, and made his way to the south side of the
+court, where Oberlé should have been. He bit his red moustache as
+his eyes wandered up and down the ranks.
+
+"Oberlé has not come back?" he asked. The same man as before
+replied:
+
+"When he left the barracks he ran towards his apartments."
+
+"Did you see him in the mess-room?"
+
+"He did not lunch with us."
+
+"That'll do," said the _wachtmeister_.
+
+Hamm turned away briskly. The expression of his face and eyes showed
+that he considered the situation serious. Serious for Oberlé, but
+equally serious for himself. Neither the captain nor the lieutenant
+was in barracks at the moment. If there was trouble the captain
+would not fail to ask why he had not been warned. Hamm crossed the
+courtyard, thinking over what he ought to do, and recalling a remark
+of the brigadier of Obernai. When Gottfried was at Obernai a
+fortnight before, he had said to him: "You are going to have
+Oberlé's son in your regiment. Keep an eye on him. I shall be
+surprised if he does not create some disturbance. He is the
+counterpart of his grandfather, a madman who hates Germans, and who
+is quite capable of any folly."
+
+But before taking zealous action it was necessary to know some
+details. This was easy: the rue des Balayeurs faced the gateway.
+Hamm brushed his blue tunic with his hand, left the barracks, and
+made his way to a large house on the left with green shutters.
+
+"Left in a cab, before midday, carrying a bag," was the answer
+Jean's landlady gave him.
+
+"What address did he give?"
+
+"Rue de la Mésange."
+
+"Any number?"
+
+"I don't know; anyway I heard none."
+
+Hamm's suspicions became more definite. The _wachtmeister_ no longer
+hesitated. He hastened to the captain's quarters in the
+Herderstrasse.
+
+The captain was out.
+
+Disappointed and warm from his sharp walk, Hamm took a short cut to
+the barracks, through the University gardens. He suddenly remembered
+that close by in the rue Grandidier, lived Lieutenant Farnow. It is
+true the lieutenant did not belong to the 2nd squadron, but Hamm
+knew of his engagement. It had been talked of among the officers. He
+made his way to the superb stone house and mounted to the first
+floor.
+
+"The lieutenant is dressing," replied the orderly to his question.
+
+Von Farnow in shirt and trousers was dressing before paying certain
+calls, and going to the officers' casino. In trousers and shirt he
+was leaning over his toilet-table with its bevelled glass, washing
+his face. The room was perfumed with eau-de-cologne, brushes and
+manicure set were strewn round him. He turned as the door opened,
+his face all wet.
+
+"What is the matter, Hamm?" he cried, seizing a towel.
+
+"I took upon myself to call upon you, lieutenant, as the captain is
+not there, and Oberlé----"
+
+"Oberlé? What has he done?" Farnow interrupted nervously.
+
+"He has not put in an appearance since half-past eleven this
+morning."
+
+Farnow, who was drying his face, threw down the towel violently on
+the table, and approached the non-commissioned officer. He
+remembered Madame Oberlé's fears. "He thinks as I do," thought Hamm.
+
+"Has not come back? Have you been to the rue des Balayeurs?"
+
+"Yes, lieutenant; he left the house in a cab at ten minutes to
+twelve."
+
+The young lieutenant felt as though death's icy hand was on his
+heart. He closed his eyes for a moment, and with a violent effort
+regained his composure.
+
+"There is only one thing to do, Hamm," he said. He was deadly pale,
+but not a muscle of his face quivered. "You must warn your captain,
+and he will do what is prescribed in such cases."
+
+Farnow turned calmly, and looked at the ornamental clock on his
+desk.
+
+"One-forty--you must be quick."
+
+The _wachtmeister_ saluted and withdrew.
+
+The lieutenant ran to the adjoining study, and asked to be connected
+with the Strasburg station. Ten minutes later the telephone bell
+rang, and he learnt that a volunteer of the 9th Hussars, in uniform,
+had reached the station at the last moment with a valise portmanteau
+and taken a first-class ticket to Russ-Hersbach.
+
+"It's impossible," exclaimed Farnow, throwing himself on to the
+sofa; "there must be some mistake Russ-Hersbach is almost on the
+frontier. Jean would not desert--he is in love; he must be at
+Alsheim--he must at least have wanted to see Odile again. I must
+find out."
+
+"Hermann," he called, rapping with his knuckles on the mahogany
+table.
+
+The orderly, a stolid German, opened the door.
+
+"Saddle my horse and yours immediately."
+
+Farnow was soon ready; he hastened downstairs, found the horses
+waiting, crossed Strasburg, and once past the fortifications,
+spurred his horse to a sharp trot.
+
+As he neared Alsheim, Jean's desertion seemed to him more credible.
+Every detail of his conversation with Madame Oberlé came back to
+him, and other reasons as well for believing the calamity against
+which his imperious will was fighting desperately. "He does not
+understand Germany; he was glorying in it at Councillor Brausig's.
+And then his disunited family--a disunion increased by my
+engagement. But then he is himself engaged, or almost; and
+characters like his, French characters, must be dominated by love.
+No; I shall find him there--or have news of him."
+
+It was warm; the long dusty road stretched from village to village,
+without shade, a thin line between the fields, now bare of their
+crops. The sky hung over them like brass, on the horizon banks of
+motionless clouds rose above the Vosges, throwing out rays of light.
+The horses, covered with sweat, continued to gallop. Under the
+scattered walnut-trees, among the stubble, children raised their
+switches and shouted as the riders passed them.
+
+"Is the lieutenant crazy?" thought Hermann; "he is going faster and
+faster."
+
+Farnow's anguish increased as he drew nearer his destination. "If I
+do not find him," he murmured, "supposing he has----"
+
+Obernai was passed on the right. A sign-post at the cross roads
+pointed to Alsheim, and soon the blue roof of the Oberlés' house
+appeared among the green.
+
+"Lucienne, Lucienne, Lucienne!"
+
+The house seemed to slumber in the heavy heat of the autumn day, the
+silence being broken only by a feeble, monotonous voice. Seated near
+grandfather Oberlé's chair, in the room which the invalid could
+never hope to leave, Madame Oberlé was reading aloud the _Journal
+d'Alsace_, which the postman had just delivered.
+
+Through the open window her voice could be heard murmuring as though
+engaged in the rhythmic recital of the rosary. In the billiard-room
+above, that which was still called Jean's room, M. Joseph Oberlé was
+dozing behind the curtain, on his knees lay several letters, and a
+copy of the _Strasburger Post_. At the end of the room Lucienne
+could be seen writing at a Louis XVI. desk.
+
+"Monsieur? Monsieur Oberlé?"
+
+Joseph Oberlé jumped up and threw open the door, which was ajar,
+meeting the concierge running towards him.
+
+"Why do you call me; you know I don't like----"
+
+He remained speaking with the man for a minute, and returned
+smiling.
+
+"My Lucienne, Herr von Farnow is waiting for you at the park gate."
+
+She rose, blushing.
+
+"Why doesn't he come in?"
+
+"It appears that he is on horseback, and in a great hurry. Perhaps
+he dares not. Go and fetch him, my darling; tell him from me that
+there shall be no disturbance, that I will prevent any further
+scenes."
+
+With a gesture he implied that he would bolt all the doors sooner,
+especially that of the room whence came the monotonous voice reading
+the paper.
+
+She looked in the glass, arranging her hair. He repeated:
+
+"Run, my treasure; he is asking for you. If you don't return quickly
+I'll come for you."
+
+She nodded, and ran down the steps two at a time. She walked rapidly
+down the avenue, happy, yet troubled, her mouth slightly open, her
+eyes seeking Farnow.
+
+At the end of the avenue she caught sight of the two steaming horses
+on the road held by the orderly, and almost at the same moment the
+lieutenant came towards her.
+
+Farnow's usually pale face was flushed, his expression troubled; he
+hastened, but with no sign of joy, towards Lucienne, who came half
+running to meet him, trying to laugh.
+
+"How are you, Wilhelm? What a nice surprise!"
+
+The lieutenant raised his hat, but made no reply. He took her hand,
+and drew her aside; he did not raise it to his lips; no accustomed
+words of admiration came from him; his eyes were hard and feverish,
+and he drew her near the wood-yard close by.
+
+Lucienne continued to smile bravely, though her heart was heavy with
+painful dread.
+
+"Where are you taking me? Who is this churlish friend, who won't
+even say good day? You, so particular----"
+
+"Come, we shan't be seen here," he said; he drew her behind a pile
+of wood into a kind of retreat formed by three unequal piles of
+planks. Farnow dropped Lucienne's hand.
+
+"Is Jean here? Be careful; is he at Alsheim?"
+
+His eyes expressed his anguish, his manner an imperious will
+struggling against calamity.
+
+"No; he is not here," replied Lucienne simply.
+
+"You expect him, then?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Then we are lost, mademoiselle, lost!"
+
+"Mademoiselle?"
+
+"Yes; if he is not here he has deserted."
+
+"Ah!" The young girl recoiled, supporting herself against the wood,
+her eyes haggard, her arms outstretched.
+
+"Deserted? Lost? Can't you see that you are killing me with such
+words? Do you really mean Jean? Deserted! Are you sure?"
+
+"Since he is not here, I am convinced of it. He took a ticket for
+Russ-Hersbach--do you understand, Russ-Hersbach? He must be across
+the frontier. He left Strasburg more than three hours ago." He
+laughed harshly, angrily, beside himself with misery.
+
+"Don't you remember? He swore to your mother he would go to the
+barracks. He did go. To-day the time for his promise expired, and he
+deserted. And now...."
+
+"Yes ... now?"
+
+Lucienne asked no proof. She believed it. Her bosom heaved; she let
+go her hold on the wood, and joined her hands beseechingly. She was
+obliged to repeat her question; Farnow stood motionless,
+grief-stricken. "What shall you do now, Wilhelm?"
+
+Farnow drew himself up in his dusty uniform; his brow was
+contracted.
+
+"I must leave you," he said in a low voice."
+
+"Leave me, because my brother has deserted?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"But this is madness!"
+
+"It is my duty as a soldier."
+
+"Then you do not love me?"
+
+"Love you. Ah!... But honour forbids me to marry you. I cannot
+become the brother-in-law of a deserter. I am an officer, a von
+Farnow!"
+
+"Well, cease to be an officer and continue to love me," cried
+Lucienne, holding out her arms to the rigid figure in blue.
+"Wilhelm, true honour consists in loving me, Lucienne Oberlé, in
+keeping the promise you made me! Leave my brother to go his own
+way, but don't spoil our two lives."
+
+Farnow could scarcely speak; the veins of his neck were swollen with
+his efforts for self-control.
+
+"There is worse to come," he said at last, "you must know the truth,
+Lucienne. I must denounce him."
+
+"Denounce him? Jean? You cannot. I forbid you!" cried Lucienne with
+a gesture of horror.
+
+"I must do so. Military law compels me to do so."
+
+"It is not true!--it is too cruel."
+
+"I will prove it to you. Hermann!"
+
+Hermann came forward in amazement.
+
+"Listen. What is the article of the law relating to any person who
+has knowledge of a plan of desertion?"
+
+The soldier collected his thoughts, and recited:
+
+"Any one who shall have credible knowledge of a plan of desertion,
+when there is still time to frustrate it, and who does not give
+information thereof to his superiors, is liable to be imprisoned for
+ten months, and during war for three years."
+
+"Quick! To horse!" cried Farnow. "We must start.
+
+"Farewell, Lucienne."
+
+She ran forward and seized his arm.
+
+"No, no, you must not go; I shall not let you."
+
+He gazed a moment on her tear-stained face, where ardent love and
+sorrow were mingled.
+
+"You must not go! Do you hear?" she repeated.
+
+Farnow lifted her from the ground, pressed her against his breast
+and kissed her passionately. By the despairing violence of his kiss,
+Lucienne realised it was indeed farewell.
+
+He put her from him brusquely, ran to the gate, leapt to the saddle,
+and galloped away in the direction of Obernai.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+IN THE FOREST OF THE MINIČRES
+
+
+Night was falling, but Jean was still on German soil. He was
+sleeping, worn out with fatigue; he lay stretched upon a bed of moss
+and fir cones, while M. Ulrich watched, on the look out for fresh
+danger, still trembling from the danger he had just escaped. The two
+men had crept into a space between two stacks of branches left by
+the wood-cutters, who had been thinning the fir-tree plantation. The
+branches, still green, stretched from one stack to the other, making
+their hiding-place more secure. A storm of wind blew across the
+mountain, but otherwise no sound could be heard upon the heights.
+
+Two hours must have passed since Jean and his uncle had taken refuge
+in their hiding-place.
+
+When the train reached Russ-Hersbach, M. Ulrich had at once seen and
+said that the moment for Jean to change his uniform had passed. Even
+such a little thing as that would have excited too much attention in
+that frontier province, peopled by visible and invisible watchers,
+where the stones listen and the fir-trees are spies. He threw the
+valise to the coachman of the landau engaged three days previously
+at Schirmeck.
+
+"Here's some useless luggage," he cried, "fortunately it's not
+heavy. Drive quickly, coachman."
+
+The carriage crossed the poverty-stricken village, reached the town
+of Schirmeck, and quitting there the principal valley turned to the
+right into the narrow winding valley leading to Grande Fontaine. No
+suspicious glances followed the travellers, but witnesses of their
+passing increased. And this was serious. Although Jean was sitting
+with his back to the driver, partially hidden by the blinds and
+partially by the cloak which M. Ulrich had thrown over him, yet
+there was no doubt the uniform of the 9th Hussars had been seen by
+two gendarmes in the streets of Schirmeck, by workmen on the road,
+and by the douanier who was smoking and had continued to smoke his
+pipe so tranquilly, sitting under the trees on the left of the first
+bridge by which one entered Grande Fontaine.
+
+Every moment M. Ulrich thought, "Now the alarm will be given!
+Perhaps it has been already, and one of the state's innumerable
+agents will come up, question us, and insist upon our following them
+whatever we may say."
+
+He did not tell Jean of his anxiety, and the young man, excited by
+the spirit of adventure, was quite different to the Jean of
+yesterday.
+
+In spite of the steepness and stoniness of the path by the mountain
+stream, the horses made good headway, and soon the houses of Grande
+Fontaine came into sight. The beech-wood of Donon, all velvety and
+golden and crowned with firs, rose in front of them. At 2.15 the
+carriage stopped in the middle of the village, in a kind of sloping
+square, where a spring of water flows into a huge stone trough. The
+travellers got out, for here the carriage road ended.
+
+"Wait for us at the inn of Rémy Naeger," said M. Ulrich; "we will go
+for a walk, and return in an hour. Drink a bottle of Molsheim wine
+at my expense, and give the horse a double portion of oats."
+
+M. Ulrich and Jean, leaving on the right the path which mounts to
+Donon, immediately took the path to the left, a narrow road with
+houses, gardens, and hedges on either side, which connects Grande
+Fontaine with the last village of the upper valley, that of the
+Miničres.
+
+They had scarcely gone two hundred yards when they caught sight of
+the keeper of Mathiskop coming out of his house, in his green
+uniform and Tyrolese hat, descending towards them. Seeing that the
+man would be obliged to pass them on the road M. Ulrich was afraid.
+
+"There is a uniform, Jean, which I don't care to meet at present.
+Let us go by the forest."
+
+The forest was on the left. They were the fir woods of Mathiskop,
+and farther on those of the Corbeille, thickly wooded slopes rising
+higher and higher, where a hiding-place would be easy to discover.
+Jean and his uncle jumped the hedge, crossed some yards of meadow,
+and entered the shadow of the fir wood. It was none too soon; the
+military authorities had given the alarm; warning had been
+telephoned to all the different posts to keep a look out for the
+deserter Oberlé. The keeper they had seen had not yet received the
+warning, and passed out of sight, but M. Ulrich, by means of his old
+field-glass of Jena days, could see that there was excitement in the
+usually quiet valley, where a number of douaniers and gendarmes
+could be seen hurrying about. They also hurried to the Mathiskop
+forest, and the chase commenced.
+
+M. Ulrich and Jean were not captured, but they had been sighted;
+they were tracked from wood to wood for more than an hour, and were
+prevented from reaching the frontier, to do which they would have
+been compelled to cross the open valley. M. Ulrich had the happy
+idea of climbing to the top of a stack of wood and letting himself
+down into the opening between two stacks, Jean followed his
+example. This had been their salvation, the gendarmes beat about the
+wood for some time, and then made off in the direction of Glacimont.
+
+Night was falling, and Jean slept. Banks of clouds rose before the
+wind, and hastened the darkness. A flight of crows crossed their
+hiding-place, brushing the tree tops. The flapping of their wings
+woke M. Ulrich from the reverie into which he had fallen while
+contemplating his nephew dressed in the uniform of a German soldier,
+lying stretched on Alsatian soil. He rose and gingerly climbed to
+the top of the stack.
+
+"Well, uncle," asked Jean, waking up, "what do you see?"
+
+"Nothing, no gendarme's helmet, no douanier's cap," whispered M.
+Ulrich. "I think they have lost the scent; but with such persons one
+cannot be sure."
+
+"And the valley of the Miničres?"
+
+"Appears to be deserted, my friend. No one on the roads, no one in
+the fields. The keeper himself must have gone home to supper--there
+is smoke coming from his chimney. How do you feel, boy--valiant?"
+
+"If we are pursued, you'll soon see."
+
+"I don't think we shall be. But the hour has come, my boy."
+
+He added after a short interval, whilst he pretended to listen:
+"Come up whilst we lay some plan of campaign."
+
+"You see below the village of the Miničres?" asked M. Ulrich, as
+Jean's head appeared above the branches and turned towards the west.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"In spite of the mist and the darkness, can you make out that on the
+other side the mountain is covered partly with fir- and partly with
+beech-trees?"
+
+"I guess it."
+
+"We are going to make a half circle to avoid the gardens and fields
+of the Miničres, and when we are just opposite that spot, you will
+only have to descend two hundred yards and you will be in France."
+
+Jean made no answer.
+
+"That's the spot I marked out for you. See that you recognise it.
+Over there round Raon-sur-Plaine, the Germans have kept all the
+forests for themselves; the barren lands they have left to France.
+On the opposite side, facing us, there is an extensive strip of
+meadow land which is French territory. I even saw a deserted
+farmhouse, abandoned before the war, I suppose. I'll go first."
+
+"Excuse me, I'll go first."
+
+"No; I assure you, my boy, that the danger is equally great behind.
+I must be guide. I go first; we'll avoid the pathways, and I will
+lead you carefully to a point where you have only one thing to do:
+go straight ahead and cross a road, then a few yards of underwood,
+and beyond is French soil."
+
+M. Ulrich embraced Jean silently and quickly; he did not wish to
+lose control of himself, when all depended on calmness.
+
+"Come," he said.
+
+They commenced the descent under cover of the tall fir-trees which
+commenced just there. The slope was strewn with obstacles, against
+which Jean or his uncle frequently stumbled, moss-covered stones,
+fallen and rotten trunks, broken branches, like claws stretched out
+in the darkness to bar the way. Every moment M. Ulrich stopped to
+listen and would frequently look round, to make sure that Jean's
+tall form was close behind him--it was too dark to see his face.
+
+"They'll be checkmated, uncle," whispered Jean.
+
+"Not too fast, my Jean; we are not yet safe."
+
+Still under cover, the fugitives reached the meadows of the
+Miničres, and began to ascend the mountain opposite, but without
+quitting cover.
+
+When M. Ulrich reached the summit he stopped and sniffed the wind,
+which blew more freely through the young trees.
+
+"Do you smell the air of France?" he murmured, in spite of the
+danger of talking.
+
+A plain stretched in front of them, but was invisible; they could
+distinguish the trees, which seemed like stationary smoke below, and
+above were the scurrying clouds. M. Ulrich cautiously began the
+descent, listening eagerly. An owl flew by. They had to make their
+way a short distance through a prickly undergrowth which clung to
+their clothes.
+
+Suddenly a voice in the forest called:
+
+"Halt!"
+
+M. Ulrich stooped, his hand on Jean's shoulder.
+
+"Don't move," he whispered quickly. "I'll call them off, by turning
+towards the Miničres. As soon as they follow me, get up, run off,
+cross the road and then the little coppice--it's a straight line in
+front of you. Adieu."
+
+He rose up, took a few steps cautiously, and then made off quickly
+through the woods.
+
+"_Halt! Halt!_"
+
+A report rang out, and as the noise died away under the branches M.
+Ulrich's voice, already some distance off, called:
+
+"Missed."
+
+At the same moment Jean Oberlé made a rush for the frontier. Head
+lowered, seeing nothing, his elbows squared, his chest lashed by the
+branches, he ran with all his might. He passed within a few inches
+of a man lying in ambush. The branches were pushed aside, a whistle
+was blown, Jean redoubled his efforts. He reached the road unawares;
+another report rang out on the edge of the wood. Jean rolled over on
+the edge of the copse. Cries arose:
+
+"Here he is! Here he is! Come."
+
+Jean jumped up instantly and dived into the wood. He thought he had
+stumbled over a rut. He leapt into the copse. But his legs shook
+under him. He felt with anguish a growing faintness overcoming him.
+The cries of his pursuers rang in his ears, everything swam before
+his eyes. He came upon an open space, felt the fresh wind on his
+face and lost consciousness.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Late at night he came to his senses. A storm was raging over the
+forest; he saw that he was lying on a bed of green boughs, in an
+empty room of the disused farm, lit by a small lantern. A man was
+bending over him. Jean realised that it was a French keeper. His
+first sensation of fear was dissipated by the man's welcome smile.
+
+"Were other shots fired?" he inquired.
+
+"No, no others."
+
+"So much the better; then Uncle Ulrich is safe--he accompanied me to
+the frontier. I was in the army, but I have come to be a soldier in
+our own land."
+
+Jean saw that his tunic had been taken off and that there was blood
+on his shirt. It hurt him to breathe.
+
+"What's wrong with me?" he asked.
+
+"You were hit in the shoulder," said the man, who would have wept if
+he had not been too ashamed to do so. "It'll heal; fortunately, my
+comrade and I were making our rounds when you stumbled into the
+field. The doctor will be here at break of day--don't be alarmed, my
+comrade has gone to fetch him. Who are you?"
+
+Half conscious, Jean Oberlé replied: "Alsace----" but he could
+scarcely speak.
+
+Rain was falling heavily; it hammered upon roof and doors, upon the
+trees and rocks surrounding the house. The tops of the trees shook
+and twisted in the storm like seaweed tossed upon the bosom of the
+ocean. The murmur of a million voices rose in harmony over the
+mountains, and thundered upon the night.
+
+The wounded man listened--in his weakened state what did he hear? He
+smiled:
+
+"It is France," he murmured; "she sings to me," and he fell back
+with closed eyes awaiting the dawn.
+
+
+_Printed by Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury,
+England._
+
+
+
+
+List of corrections:
+
+Page 137: Bateliers instead of Bateliels (Quay des Bateliers).
+Page 145: Temperament instead of Temparament (all that his
+            temperament allowed him)
+Page 198; Alberschweiler instead of Albertchweiles (But at
+            Alberschweiler they have forbidden)
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Children of Alsace, by René Bazin
+
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+      The Project Gutenberg's eBook of The Children of Alsace, by René Bazin </title>
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Children of Alsace, by René Bazin
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Children of Alsace
+       Les Oberlés
+
+Author: René Bazin
+
+Release Date: January 14, 2011 [EBook #34957]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CHILDREN OF ALSACE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Hélčne de Mink and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<div class="box">
+<p>Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have
+been preserved. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
+Further transcriber's notes are indicated by dotted lines under the text.
+Scroll the mouse over the word and the original text will <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'apprear'">appear</ins>.</p></div>
+
+<p class="p4"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1"></a></p>
+
+<h3>THE CHILDREN OF ALSACE</h3>
+<p><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2"></a></p>
+
+<p class="p4"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3"></a></p>
+
+<h1>THE CHILDREN OF ALSACE</h1>
+<p class="center"><big><b>(<i>LES OBERLÉS</i>)</b></big></p>
+
+<p class="center"><small><b>BY</b></small></p>
+
+<h2>RENÉ BAZIN</h2>
+
+<p class="p2 center"><small><b>AUTHOR OF "THE NUN," "REDEMPTION," ETC.</b></small></p>
+
+<p class="p4 center"><small><b><i>WITH A PREFACE</i></b></small><br />
+<small><b>BY</b></small><br />
+<big><b>DR. ANGELO S. RAPPOPORT</b></big></p>
+
+<p class="p2 center"><small><b>NEW YORK</b></small>
+<big><b>JOHN LANE COMPANY</b></big>
+<small><b>MCMXII</b></small></p>
+
+<p class="p4"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4"></a></p>
+
+<p class="center"><small><b>PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN</b></small></p>
+<p class="p4"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">5</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>PREFACE</h2>
+
+<p class="p2">René Bazin is already known to the English public
+as a writer of exquisite charm and wonderful sensibility.
+"The Nun," "Redemption," and "This My
+Son" have revealed his powers to appreciative
+readers. Bazin is not only an original writer, a
+charming story-teller, but also a deep thinker, a clear
+delineator of human character and life, a wonderful
+landscape-painter, and a bold realist. For it is real
+life, humble, poignant, palpitating, which we meet
+in his stories. Life, full of misery and suffering, but
+also of pity and charity, of self-sacrifice and heroic
+traits. Bazin is a passionate admirer of Nature, and
+this admiration and love manifest themselves in his
+preference for pastoral and rural scenes, and his
+description of nature and peasant life.</p>
+
+<p>Nature and climate, M. Bazin thinks, exercise a
+paramount influence upon the soul, and produce deep
+and permanent impressions.</p>
+
+<p>But in none of his books has he laid so much stress
+upon this mysterious influence of a country upon the
+soul of its inhabitants as in "Les Oberlés," which is
+now placed before English readers under the title
+of "The Children of Alsace." For it is the country
+of Alsace, with her woes and sorrows and sufferings,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">6</a></span>
+her aspirations and hopes and dreams, which speaks
+to us through the mouth of Jean Oberlé, the hero,
+who mysteriously feels the influence of soil upon his
+soul, and is drawn to France, since Alsace is sighing
+under the German yoke, and her weeping soul has
+fled to France there to wait the day of delivery
+and freedom!</p>
+
+<p>"Les Oberlés," or "The Children of Alsace,"
+possesses all the elements necessary for a real drama,
+for a great tragedy, namely, the clash of conflicting
+passions, emotions, and duties. And these conflicting
+passions arise where one has a right to expect
+peace and goodwill. The author introduces us to
+a divided family, and we see the husband rise against
+his wife, the son against his father, and the brother
+against the sister. Their different modes of thinking
+and of feeling, their ambitions and dreams, turn these
+beings, united by the ties of blood, into enemies.
+But "Les Oberlés" is not only a family drama,
+tragic, irreparable, but also depicts the love of the
+native soil, a love almost physical, in conflict with
+the love for the Greater Fatherland. It also shows
+the clash of two civilisations, the Latin and the
+Teuton, which for forty years have now been waging
+war on the soil of conquered Alsace.</p>
+
+<p>All these elements make "Les Oberlés" a really
+tragic novel&mdash;a novel full of dramatic incidents, of
+poignant scenes, but also full of life and love.</p>
+
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">A. S. Rappoport.</span></p>
+
+<p class="left5"><span class="smcap">London</span>,<br />
+<i>November 1911</i>.</p>
+
+<p class="p4"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">7</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="2" summary="toc">
+<tr>
+   <td>&nbsp;</td>
+   <td>&nbsp;</td>
+   <td class="tdr"><span class="smcap">PAGE</span></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+   <td colspan="3" align="center"><b>CHAPTER I</b></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+   <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">A February Night in Alsace</span></td>
+   <td>&nbsp;</td>
+   <td class="tdr">9</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+   <td colspan="3" class="tdc"><b>CHAPTER II</b></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+   <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Examination</span></td>
+   <td>&nbsp;</td>
+   <td class="tdr">36</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+    <td colspan="3" class="tdc"><b>CHAPTER III</b></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+   <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The First Family Meeting</span></td>
+   <td>&nbsp;</td>
+   <td class="tdr">55</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+   <td colspan="3" class="tdc"><b>CHAPTER IV</b></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+   <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Guardians of the Hearth</span></td>
+   <td>&nbsp;</td>
+   <td class="tdr">75</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+   <td colspan="3" class="tdc"><b>CHAPTER V</b></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+   <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Companions of the Road</span></td>
+   <td>&nbsp;</td>
+   <td class="tdr">88</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+   <td colspan="3" class="tdc"><b>CHAPTER VI</b></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+   <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Frontier</span></td>
+   <td>&nbsp;</td>
+   <td class="tdr">102</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+   <td colspan="3" class="tdc"><b>CHAPTER VII</b></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+   <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Easter Vigil</span></td>
+   <td>&nbsp;</td>
+   <td class="tdr">112</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+   <td colspan="3" class="tdc"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">8</a></span>
+   <b>CHAPTER VIII</b></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+   <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">At Carolis</span></td>
+   <td>&nbsp;</td>
+   <td class="tdr">137</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+   <td colspan="3" class="tdc"><b>CHAPTER IX</b></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+   <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Meeting</span></td>
+   <td>&nbsp;</td>
+   <td class="tdr">150</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+   <td colspan="3" class="tdc"><b>CHAPTER X</b></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+   <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Dinner at the Brausigs'</span></td>
+   <td>&nbsp;</td>
+   <td class="tdr">163</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+   <td colspan="3" class="tdc"><b>CHAPTER XI</b></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+   <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">In Suspense</span></td>
+   <td>&nbsp;</td>
+   <td class="tdr">180</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+   <td colspan="3" class="tdc"><b>CHAPTER XII</b></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+   <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Hop-picking</span></td>
+   <td>&nbsp;</td>
+   <td class="tdr">184</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+   <td colspan="3" class="tdc"><b>CHAPTER XIII</b></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+   <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Ramparts of Obernai</span></td>
+   <td>&nbsp;</td>
+   <td class="tdr">216</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+   <td colspan="3" class="tdc"><b>CHAPTER XIV</b></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+   <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Last Evening</span></td>
+   <td>&nbsp;</td>
+   <td class="tdr">232</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+   <td colspan="3" class="tdc"><b>CHAPTER XV</b></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+   <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Joining the Regiment</span></td>
+   <td>&nbsp;</td>
+   <td class="tdr">238</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+   <td colspan="3" class="tdc"><b>CHAPTER XVI</b></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+   <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">In the Forest of the Miničres</span></td>
+   <td>&nbsp;</td>
+   <td class="tdr">255</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p class="p4"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">9</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>THE CHILDREN OF ALSACE</h2>
+
+<h3 class="p4">CHAPTER I</h3>
+
+<p class="center font95"><b>A FEBRUARY NIGHT IN ALSACE</b></p>
+
+<p class="p2">The moon was rising above the mists of the Rhine.
+A man who was coming down from the Vosges by a
+path&mdash;a good sportsman and great walker whom
+nothing escaped&mdash;had just caught sight of her through
+the slope of forest trees. Then he at once stepped
+into the shadow of the plantations. But this single
+glance through the opening, at the night growing
+more and more luminous, was sufficient to make him
+realise afresh the natural beauty amidst which he
+lived. The man trembled with delight. The weather
+was cold and calm&mdash;a slight mist rose from the
+hollows. It did not bring with it yet the scent of
+jonquils and wild strawberries, but only that other
+perfume which has no name and no season&mdash;the
+perfume of rosin, of dead leaves, of grass once again
+grown green, of bark raised on the fresh skin of the
+trees, and the breath of that everlasting flower which
+is the forest moss. The traveller breathed in this
+smell which he loved; he drank it in great draughts,
+with open mouth, for more than ten strides, and
+although accustomed to this nocturnal festival of the
+forest, to these lights of heaven, to these perfumes of
+earth, to these rustlings of silent life, he said aloud:
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">10</a></span>
+"Bravo, Winter! Bravo, the Vosges! They have
+not been able to spoil you." And he put his stick
+under his arm in order to make still less noise on the
+sand and pine-needles of the winding path. Then
+turning his head:</p>
+
+<p>"Carefully, Fidčle, good friend. It is too beautiful."</p>
+
+<p>Three steps behind him trotted a spaniel, long-limbed
+and lean, with a nose like a greyhound, who
+seemed quite grey, but who by daylight was a
+mixture of fire-and-coffee-and-milk colour, with fringes
+of soft hair marking the outline of his paws, belly,
+and tail. The beast seemed to understand his master,
+for he followed him without making any more noise
+than the moon made in passing over the tops of the
+pine-trees.</p>
+
+<p>Soon the moonlight pierced through the branches;
+breaking up the shade or sweeping it away from the
+open spaces, it spread out across the slopes, enveloped
+the trunks of trees, or studded them with stars, and
+quite cold, formless, and blue, created out of these
+same trees a new forest, which daylight never knew.
+It was an immense creation&mdash;quick and enchanting.
+It took but ten minutes. Not a tremor foretold it.
+M. Ulrich Biehler continued his downward path, a
+prey to growing emotion, stooping sometimes to get
+a better view of the undergrowth, sometimes bending
+over the ravines with beating heart, but watching
+with head erect, like the roebucks when about to
+leave the valleys for the upland pastures.</p>
+
+<p>This enthusiastic traveller, still young in mind,
+was, however, not a young man. M. Ulrich Biehler,
+called M. Ulrich throughout the countryside, was
+sixty years old, and his hair and beard, almost white,
+proclaimed his age; but there had been more of the
+sap of youth in him than in most, just as some possess
+more bravery or more beauty, and something of this
+youthfulness he had retained. He lived in the middle
+of the mountain of Sainte Odile, exactly twelve
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">11</a></span>
+hundred feet in the air, in a forest-house without any
+pretension to architecture, and without lands of any
+sort except the sloping meadow on which it stood,
+and at the back was a very small orchard, ravaged
+periodically by hard winters. He had remained
+faithful to this house, inherited from his father, who
+had bought it for a holiday residence only, and here
+he spent the whole year alone, although his friends,
+like his lands, were plentiful in the plains. He was not
+shy of men, but he did not like to give up his own
+way of living, consequently there were some fanciful
+stories told about him. They said that in 1870 he
+had gone through the whole campaign wearing a
+silver helmet, from the crest of which hung, instead
+of horsehair, the hair of a woman. No one could say
+if this legend were history. But twenty good people
+from the plains of Alsace could affirm that there was
+not among the French Dragoons a more indefatigable
+horseman, a bolder scout, a more tender companion
+in misery, or one more forgetful of his own suffering,
+than M. Ulrich, proprietor of Heidenbruch, in the
+mountain of Sainte Odile.</p>
+
+<p>He had remained French under German rule. That
+was at once his joy and the cause of the many difficulties
+which he tried to surmount or to endure as a
+set-off for the favour they showed him in allowing
+him to breathe the air of Alsace. He knew how to
+make himself respected in the rôle of a man vanquished,
+tolerated, and watched. There must be no concession
+which would show forgetfulness of the dear French
+country, but there must be no provocation; he had
+no taste for useless demonstration. M. Ulrich
+travelled much in the Vosges, where he possessed
+forests here and there, which he looked after himself.
+His woods had the reputation of being among the
+best managed in Lower Alsace. His house, shut up
+for thirty years because of mourning, had, however,
+a reputation for comfort and refinement. The few
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">12</a></span>
+persons, French or Alsatians, who had crossed the
+threshold spoke of the graciousness of the host and
+the art with which he made his guests welcome.
+Above all, the peasants loved him, those who had
+gone through the war with him, and even their sons,
+who took off their hats when M. Ulrich appeared at
+the corner of their vineyard or of their lucerne-field.</p>
+
+<p>They recognised him a long way off because of his
+slim, tall figure and his habit of wearing only light
+clothes, which he bought in Paris, and invariably
+chose in shades of brown, varying from the dark
+brown of the walnut to the light brown of the oak.
+His pointed beard, very well kept, added length to a
+face which had but little colour and few wrinkles;
+his mouth smiled readily under his moustaches, and
+his prominent nose, with its fine outline, showed
+purity of race; his kind, intelligent grey eyes would
+quickly become haughty and defiant if one spoke of
+Alsace; and the wide brow, which imparted a touch
+of dreaminess to this face of a fighting man, seemed
+larger still because of two bare patches extending
+into the thick growth of stiff short hairs.</p>
+
+<p>Now, on this particular evening M. Ulrich had
+returned from visiting the wood-cutting going on
+in the mountains of the Valley of the Bruche, and
+his servants were not expecting him to go out again,
+when after dinner he said to his servant, the old Lisa,
+who was waiting at table:</p>
+
+<p>"My nephew, Jean, arrives to-night at Alsheim,
+and no doubt if I waited till to-morrow I should see
+him here, but I prefer to see him down there, and
+to-night. So I am starting. Leave the key under
+the door, and go to bed."</p>
+
+<p>He had immediately whistled for Fidčle, taken his
+stick and gone down the path, which entered the
+wood at some fifty paces below Heidenbruch. M.
+Ulrich was clad, according to his custom, in a loose
+coat and trousers of dead-leaf colour and a velvet
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">13</a></span>
+shooting-cap. He walked quickly, and in less than
+half an hour he found himself at a place where the
+path joined a wider alley, made for pedestrians and
+for the pilgrims of Sainte Odile. The place was
+mentioned in the guide-books, because for a hundred
+yards one could look down on the course of a swift
+stream which lower down the plain flowed through
+the village of Alsheim; and especially because in an
+opening of the ravine in the angle formed by two
+slopes of the mountains, one could see, in daylight, a
+corner of Alsace&mdash;villages, fields, meadows&mdash;and very
+far away a vague streak of silver, which was the
+Rhine, and beyond that the mountains of the Black
+Forest&mdash;blue as flax and rounded as the loops of a
+garland. In spite of the night, which limited his
+vision, M. Ulrich, on arriving in the alley, looked in
+front of him, through force of habit, but saw only a
+triangle of steel-coloured darkness in the upper part
+of which real stars shone, and lower down gleamed
+luminous points the same size as the stars, lightly
+veiled and surrounded with a halo&mdash;the lamps and
+candles of the village of Alsheim. The traveller
+thought of his nephew, whom he was presently to
+embrace, and asked himself: "Whom am I going to
+find? What has he become after three years' absence,
+and three years in Germany?"</p>
+
+<p>It was only a momentary pause. M. Ulrich crossed
+the alley, and wishing to go the shortest way, passed
+under the branches of a forest of great beech-trees,
+which sloped steeply down towards a fir plantation,
+where he could regain the road. Some dead leaves still
+trembled at the ends of the lower branches, but the
+greater number had fallen on those of the preceding
+year. They had not left an inch of the soil uncovered,
+and as thin as silk themselves, and quite pale, they
+looked like a pavement of extremely smooth light-coloured
+flagstones: the trunks, marbled with moss,
+regular as columns, rose to a great height at the top,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">14</a></span>
+very high up, the tips leant towards each other, and
+their tenuous branches touched each other, outlined
+the arch, and let the light pass through. A few
+bushes broke the harmony of the lines. About a
+hundred yards lower down, the barrier of green
+trees seemed to form the solid wall of this ruined
+cathedral.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly M. Ulrich heard a slight noise, which
+another man would probably not have noticed: it
+was in front of him, among the green firs towards
+which he was advancing. It was the sound of a stone
+rolling down the slopes, faster and faster, striking
+against obstacles and rebounding. The noise grew
+fainter and fainter and ended with a detonation,
+sharply distinct, which proved that the stone had
+reached the pebbly bottom of the hollow and split.
+The forest had again become silent, when a second
+stone, much smaller still, to judge by the sound it
+called forth, also began to roll along in the shadow.
+At the same time the dog's hair stood up, and he
+came back growling to his master.</p>
+
+<p>"Be quiet, Fidčle," he said. "They must not see
+me!"</p>
+
+<p>M. Ulrich thrust himself behind the trunk of a tree,
+understanding that a living being was coming up
+across the wood, and guessing who was going to
+appear. Indeed, making a hole in the black curtain
+of pine-trees, he now saw the head, the two forelegs,
+and soon the whole body of a horse. A white, hurried
+breath escaped from its nostrils and smoked in the
+darkness. The animal was making immense efforts
+to climb the steep slope. With straining muscles its
+forefeet doubled up like hooks, its belly all but on
+the ground, it advanced by jerks, but almost noiselessly,
+sinking into the moss and the thick mass of
+vegetation heaped on the soil, and hardly displacing
+anything but the leaves, which slipped one over the
+other with a murmur as of dropping water. It carried
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">15</a></span>
+a pale-blue horseman bending over the animal's neck
+and shoulders, and holding his lance almost horizontally,
+as if an enemy were near. The breath of the
+man mingled with the breath of the horse in the cold
+night air. They advanced, showing by their bearing
+the difficulty of the upward struggle. Soon the
+traveller distinguished the yellow cord on the rider's
+tunic, the black boots beneath the dark breeches, the
+straight sword hanging at the saddle-bow, and he
+recognised a horseman of the regiment of Rhenish
+Hussars garrisoned at Strasburg; then nearer still
+he was able to distinguish on the black-and-white flag
+of the lance a yellow eagle, indicating a non-commissioned
+officer; he saw under the flat cap a beardless
+face, ruddy and perspiring, with red-brown, fierce and
+restless eyes, a face buffeted by the horse's mane in
+motion, and frequently turning to the right, and he
+named under his breath Gottfried Hamm, quartermaster
+in the Rhenish Hussars, and son of Hamm
+the police-constable of Obernai. The man passed by,
+brushing against the tree behind which M. Ulrich was
+hiding; the shadow of his body and of his horse
+stretched across the feet of the Alsatian and on to
+the neighbouring moss: they left in their wake an
+odour of harness and of perspiration.</p>
+
+<p>At the moment when he passed the tree he turned
+his head again towards the right. M. Ulrich looked
+in the same direction, which was where the greatest
+length of the beech-wood could be seen. Thirty yards
+farther on he discovered a second horseman coming
+up the same track, then a third, who had become no
+more than a grey silhouette between the columns of
+beech-trees and then, judging by the shadowy movements,
+farther on still, he divined that there were other
+soldiers and other horses climbing the mountain.
+Suddenly there was a flash in the depths of the wood,
+as if a glowworm were flying by. It was an order.
+All the men took one step to the right, and, forming
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">16</a></span>
+in single file, silently, without uttering a word,
+continued their mysterious man&oelig;uvre. The shadows
+moved for an instant in the depths of the forest; the
+murmur of crushed and falling leaves became more
+and more indistinct, then ceased, and the night seemed
+once more to be empty of life.</p>
+
+<p>"A formidable enemy," said M. Ulrich half aloud,
+"who is kept in training day and night! There was
+certainly an officer down there on the path. It was
+in his direction they were all looking. He raised his
+sword, bright in the moonlight, and those nearest saw
+it. They all turned. How little noise they made!
+All the same, I could have finished off two of them&mdash;if
+we had been at war."</p>
+
+<p>Then, noticing that his dog was now quietly looking
+at him with nose in air and tail wagging, he added:</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes, they are gone. You don't like them any
+more than I do."</p>
+
+<p>Before continuing his way, he waited to make sure
+that the Hussars would not return in his direction.
+He did not like meeting German soldiers. These
+encountered hurt the sore and suspicious pride of the
+conquered man; they hurt him through his fidelity to
+France&mdash;through his love, which always dreaded a new
+war&mdash;a war, the date of which he saw with astonishment
+recede and recede. He would sometimes go a
+long way round in order to avoid a troop on the march
+on the high roads. Why had those Hussars come to
+disturb his descent to Alsheim? Always these
+man&oelig;uvres, always this thought of the West away
+down there, to which they clung with such tenacity;
+always this beast of prey who prowls supple and agile
+on the summit of the Vosges, and who watches the
+moment for descending.</p>
+
+<p>M. Ulrich went down the beech-wood slopes, his
+head bent, his mind full of sad memories, which a
+word had been sufficient to call up&mdash;less than a word
+even&mdash;for alas! mingled with them, and ready to rise
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">17</a></span>
+again out of the past, was all the youth of the man.
+He was careful to make no noise, keeping his dog
+behind him, and not caressing him when the poor
+beast rubbed his nose against his master's hand as
+if to say, "What is the matter then? Are they not
+gone?"</p>
+
+<p>In a quarter of an hour, by the wider road which
+he re-entered at the end of the beech-wood, M. Ulrich
+gained the edge of the forest. A cooler, stronger
+breeze blew through the oak and hazel copses which
+bordered the plain. He stopped and listened towards
+the right, saying, with a displeased shrug of the
+shoulders:</p>
+
+<p>"That is how they will come back! Not a soul
+will have heard them! For the moment let us forget
+them and go and say 'How do you do?' to Jean
+Oberlé."</p>
+
+<p>M. Ulrich went down a last bit of short, steep path.
+A few more steps and the screens of undergrowth and
+brushwood which hid the view were passed. He
+saw the entire sky unveiled, and below him, in front,
+to the left and to the right, something of a softer,
+more misty blue, the land of Alsace. The smell of
+the fields and of plants wet with the dew, rose from
+the soil like a harvest of the night. The wind wafted
+it, the cold wind, the familiar passer-by on this plain,
+the vagabond companion of the Rhine. One could
+distinguish no detail in the shadow where Alsace
+slept, except at a distance of a few hundred yards,
+where lines of roofs clustered about a round grey
+belfry ending in a steeple. That was the village of
+Alsheim. M. Ulrich hastened on and soon found the
+course of the stream again, now more rapid than
+ever, the bank of which he had skirted in the
+mountain; walked along by it, and saw stand out,
+high and massive, in its park of trees despoiled by
+winter, the first house of Alsheim&mdash;the house of the
+Oberlés.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">18</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It was built on the right of the road, from which it
+was separated, first by a white wall, then by a brook
+which ran through the domain more than two hundred
+yards farther, providing the water necessary for the
+engines, and then flowing, enlarged and cunningly
+directed, among the trees, to its outlet. M. Ulrich
+went through the large gate of wrought iron which
+opened on to the road, and passing by the lodge-keeper's
+cottage, leaving to the right the timber-yard
+full of piled-up wood, of cris-crossed planks, of poles,
+and of sheds, he took the left avenue, which wound
+between clumps of trees and the lawn, and reached
+the flight of steps before a two-storied house, with
+dormer windows, built of the red stone of Saverne
+and dating from the middle of the century. It was
+half-past eight. He went eagerly up to the first floor
+and knocked at the door of a room.</p>
+
+<p>A young voice answered:</p>
+
+<p>"Come in!"</p>
+
+<p>M. Ulrich had not time to take off his shooting-cap.
+He was seized round the neck, drawn forward, and
+embraced by his nephew, Jean Oberlé, who said:</p>
+
+<p>"Good evening, Uncle Ulrich! Ah! How glad I
+am! What a good idea!"</p>
+
+<p>"Come, let go of me! Good evening, my Jean!
+You have just arrived?"</p>
+
+<p>"I got here at three o'clock this afternoon. I
+should have come to see you to-morrow, you know!"</p>
+
+<p>"I was certain of it! But I could not wait so long.
+I simply had to come down and see you. It is three
+years since I saw you, Jean! Let me look at you!"</p>
+
+<p>"At your leisure," said the young man, laughing.
+"Have I changed?"</p>
+
+<p>He had just pushed a leathern arm-chair up to his
+uncle, and sat down facing him, on a sofa covered
+with a rug and placed against the wall.</p>
+
+<p>Between them there was a table, on which burned a
+little oil lamp of chased metal. Near by through the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">19</a></span>
+window, whose curtains were drawn aside, the park
+could be seen all motionless and solitary in the moonlight.
+M. Ulrich scrutinised Jean with a curiosity at
+once affectionate and proud. He had grown&mdash;he was
+a little taller than his uncle. His solid Alsatian face
+had taken on a quiet firmness and more pleasing
+lines. His brown moustache was thicker, his easy
+gestures were now those of a man who has seen
+the world. He might have been mistaken for a
+Southerner because of the Italian paleness of his
+shaven cheeks, of his eyes encircled with shadow,
+because of his dark hair which he wore parted
+at the side, and because of his pale lips opening
+over fine healthy teeth, which he showed when
+he spoke or smiled. But several signs marked him
+a Child of Alsace. The width of his face across
+the cheek-bones, his eyes green as the forests of
+the Vosges, and the square chin of the peasants of
+the valley.</p>
+
+<p>He had inherited some of their characteristics, for
+his great grandfather had guided the plough. He
+had their sturdy horseman's body. The uncle also
+guessed, by the youthfulness of the glance which met
+his, that Jean Oberlé, the man of twenty-four, whom
+he was now looking at once more, was not very
+different morally from him whom he had known
+formerly.</p>
+
+<p>"No," he said, after a long pause, "you are the
+same!&mdash;only you are a man&mdash;I was afraid of greater
+changes."</p>
+
+<p>"And why?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because, my boy, at your age especially there are
+certain journeys which are crucial tests. But first,
+where do you come from, exactly?"</p>
+
+<p>"From Berlin, where I passed my <i>Referendar</i>
+examination."</p>
+
+<p>The uncle laughed a jerky laugh, which he repressed
+quickly, and which was lost in his grey beard.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">20</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Let us call that the <i>Licence en droit</i> examination&mdash;if
+you kindly will."</p>
+
+<p>"Most willingly, uncle."</p>
+
+<p>"Then give me a fuller explanation and one more
+up-to-date, for you must have had your diploma in
+your pocket more than a year. What have you
+done with your time?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's very simple. The year before last I passed
+my examination, as you know, in Berlin, so finishing
+my law studies. Last year I worked with a lawyer
+till August. Then I travelled through Bohemia,
+Hungary, Croatia, and the Caucasus&mdash;with father's
+permission. I took six months over it. I returned to
+Berlin to get my student's luggage and to pay some
+farewell visits&mdash;and here I am."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, and your father? In my haste to see you
+again I have not asked after him. Is he well?"</p>
+
+<p>"He is not here."</p>
+
+<p>"What! Was he obliged to be absent on the very
+evening of your return?"</p>
+
+<p>Jean answered with a little bitterness:</p>
+
+<p>"He was obliged to be present at a great dinner at
+the Councillor von Boscher's. He has taken my
+sister. It is a very grand reception, it seems."</p>
+
+<p>There was a short silence. The two men smiled no
+longer. They felt between them&mdash;quite near&mdash;the
+supreme question, imposing itself upon them after a
+three minutes' conversation, that exasperating and
+fatal question which cannot be avoided, which unites
+and divides, which lurks beneath all social intercourse,
+honours, mortifications, and institutions, the
+question which has kept Europe under arms for
+thirty years.</p>
+
+<p>"I dined alone," said Jean, "that is to say, with my
+grandfather."</p>
+
+<p>"Not much of a companion, poor man. Is he not
+always so depressed, and so very infirm?"</p>
+
+<p>"But his mind is very much alive, I assure you!"
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">21</a></span></p>
+
+<p>There was a second silence, after which M. Ulrich
+asked, hesitatingly:</p>
+
+<p>"And my sister? Your mother? Is she with
+them?"</p>
+
+<p>The young man nodded an affirmative.</p>
+
+<p>The elder man's grief was so intense that he turned
+away his eyes so that Jean might not see all the
+suffering they expressed. He raised them by chance
+to a water-colour by that master of decorative art,
+Spindler, hanging on the wall, and which represented
+three beautiful Alsatian girls amusing themselves
+swinging. Quickly he looked his nephew straight in
+the face, and, his voice broken with emotion, said:</p>
+
+<p>"And you? You, too, could have dined with the
+Councillor von Boscher, considering how intimate
+you are with these Germans. Did you not wish to
+follow your parents?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>The word was said decidedly, simply. But M. Ulrich
+had not got the information he sought. Yes, Jean
+Oberlé had certainly become a man. He refused to
+blame his family, to voice any opinion which would
+be an accusation of the others. His uncle continued
+with the same ironical accent:</p>
+
+<p>"Nevertheless, my nephew, all the winter through
+your Berlin successes were dinned into my ears.
+They did not spare me. I knew you were dancing
+with our fair enemies. I knew their names."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I beg you," said Jean seriously, "do not let us
+joke about these questions&mdash;like people who dare not
+face them and give their opinion. I have had a
+different education from yours, it is true, uncle&mdash;a
+German education. But that does not diminish my
+love for this country; on the contrary...."</p>
+
+<p>M. Ulrich stretched his hand across the table and
+pressed that of Jean.</p>
+
+<p>"So much the better," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you doubt it?"
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">22</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I did not doubt it, my child&mdash;I did not know.
+I see so many things that pain me&mdash;and so many
+convictions surrendered."</p>
+
+<p>"The proof that I love our Alsace is shown by my
+intention to live in Alsheim."</p>
+
+<p>"What!" said M. Ulrich, stupefied. "You give up
+the idea of entering the German Administration&mdash;as
+your father desires you should do? It is grave&mdash;a
+serious thing, my friend, to rob him of his ambition.
+You were the subject of the future. Does
+he know?"</p>
+
+<p>"He suspects; but we have not yet had any
+explanations on the matter. I have not had time
+since my return."</p>
+
+<p>"And what will you do?"</p>
+
+<p>The youthful smile reappeared on the lips of Jean
+Oberlé.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall cut wood, as he does, as my grandfather
+Phillipe does; I shall settle among you here. When
+I travelled in Germany and in Austria, after my
+examination, it was chiefly that I might study the
+forests, the saw-mills, and the factories like our own.
+You are weeping?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not quite."</p>
+
+<p>M. Ulrich was not weeping, but he was obliged to
+dry his wet eyelids with the tip of his finger.</p>
+
+<p>"It would be for joy, in any case, my dear boy.
+Oh, for a true and great joy. To see you faithful to
+what I love best in the world. To keep you with us&mdash;to
+see you determined not to accept appointments
+and honours from those who have violated your
+country.... Yes, it was the dream I dared no
+longer dream.... Only, quite frankly, I cannot
+understand it. I am surprised. Why are you not
+like your father, or like Lucienne, who have so
+openly rallied to the enemy? You studied law in
+Munich, in Bonn, in Heidelberg, in Berlin; you have
+just passed four years in Germany, without speaking
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">23</a></span>
+of your college years. How did you avoid becoming
+German?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am less so than you."</p>
+
+<p>"That is hardly possible."</p>
+
+<p>"Less than you, because I know them better.
+I have judged them by comparison. Well, they are
+our inferiors."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I <i>am</i> pleased. We hear nothing but the
+opposite of this. In France, above all, the praise
+of the conquerors of 1870 continues without intermission."</p>
+
+<p>The young man, touched by M. Ulrich's emotion,
+leaned no longer on the sofa, but bending forwards,
+his face lit up by the lamp, which made his green
+eyes appear more brilliant, said:</p>
+
+<p>"Do not mistake me, Uncle Ulrich. I do not hate
+the Germans, and in that I differ from you. I even
+admire them, for in some things they are admirable.
+Among them I have friends I esteem greatly. I shall
+have others. I belong to a generation which has
+not seen what you have seen, and which has lived
+differently&mdash;I have not been conquered!"</p>
+
+<p>"Happily, not!"</p>
+
+<p>"Only the more I know them, the more I feel myself
+different from them; I feel I am of another race,
+with another category of ideals into which they do
+not enter, which I find superior, and which, without
+knowing why, I call 'France.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Bravo, Jean, bravo!"</p>
+
+<p>The old dragoon officer bent forward&mdash;he also was
+quite pale&mdash;and the two men were only separated by
+the width of the table.</p>
+
+<p>"What I call France, uncle, what I have in my
+heart, like a dream, is a country where there is a
+greater facility for thought."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"For speech&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"That's it!"
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">24</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"For laughter."</p>
+
+<p>"How right you are!"</p>
+
+<p>"Where souls have infinite shades of colour! A
+country that has the charm of a woman one loves, as
+it were a still more beautiful Alsace."</p>
+
+<p>Both had risen, and M. Ulrich drew his nephew
+towards him, and pressed that fervent head against
+his breast.</p>
+
+<p>"Frenchman!" said he, "Frenchman to the marrow
+of your bones, and in every drop of blood in your
+veins! My poor boy!"</p>
+
+<p>The young man continued, his head still resting on
+the older man's shoulder:</p>
+
+<p>"That is why I cannot live over yonder&mdash;across
+the Rhine&mdash;and why I shall live here!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well might I say 'poor boy'!" answered M.
+Ulrich. "All is changed&mdash;alas! Even here in your
+home. You will suffer, Jean, with a nature like yours.
+I understand everything now&mdash;everything."</p>
+
+<p>Then letting his nephew go:</p>
+
+<p>"How glad I am I came to-night. Sit down there
+quite close to me. We have so much to say to each
+other&mdash;Jean, my Jean!"</p>
+
+<p>They sat down side by side, happy, on the sofa.
+M. Ulrich stroked his pointed beard into its habitual
+well-groomed neatness. He recovered from his
+emotion, and said:</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know that by speaking of France as we
+have spoken this evening, we have committed misdemeanours
+such as I delight in? It is not allowed.
+If we had been out of doors and Hamm had heard us,
+we should have been speedily dealt with&mdash;there would
+have been an official report!"</p>
+
+<p>"I met him this afternoon."</p>
+
+<p>"And I saw the son pass by in the depths of the
+wood just now. He is a non-commissioned officer in
+the Rhenish Hussars&mdash;the regiment which will soon
+be yours. Is that the carriage I hear?"
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">25</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"Listen, then!"</p>
+
+<p>They listened, gazing out of the window at the
+park, which was lit up by the full high moon; at the
+lawn in the shape of a lyre with its two white avenues,
+at the clumps of trees, and farther on the tile roofs of
+the saw-mill. Not a sound could be heard save the
+fall of the brook at the factory sluice, a monotonous
+sound which seemed now near, now far, according to
+the direction and strength of the freshening wind
+which was now blowing from the north-east, "from
+the Cathedral platform," as Uncle Ulrich said, thinking
+of Strasburg.</p>
+
+<p>"No; what you hear," said Jean Oberlé, after listening
+for a while, "is the noise of the sluice. Father
+told the coachman to go to Molsheim to wait for the
+eleven-thirty train. We have time to chat."</p>
+
+<p>They had time, and they made good use of it.
+They began to speak softly, without haste or difficulty,
+like those who have recognised that they agree on
+essentials and who can now safely open up all other
+questions, even the smallest. They spoke of the
+year's voluntary service Jean had been allowed to
+postpone until he was twenty-four, and of that new
+life he was going to begin at Strasburg&mdash;of the ease
+with which he could come nearly every Sunday to
+Alsheim. Then, this dear name having been repeated,
+uncle and nephew took pleasure in their recollections
+of the country, first of Alsheim, then of Sainte Odile,
+of the forest-dwelling of Heidenbruch, of Obernai, of
+Saverne, where the uncle had forests, of Guebwiller,
+where he had relations. It was Alsace they evoked.
+They thoroughly understood one another. They
+smoked, their legs crossed, seated one in each corner
+of the sofa, letting their words flow freely, and
+laughing often. Their conversation was so prolonged
+that the Black Forest cuckoo clock hanging over the
+door struck midnight.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">26</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Do you suppose we have disturbed your grandfather?"
+asked M. Ulrich, getting up, and pointing
+with his hand to the wall which separated the young
+man's room from that of the sick man.</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Jean; "he hardly sleeps at all now&mdash;I
+am sure it has pleased him to hear me laugh. As
+my family left me at five o'clock I spent a good deal
+of my time with him, and I watched him closely.
+He hears and understands everything. He recognised
+your voice, I am sure, and perhaps he has caught a
+word here and there."</p>
+
+<p>"That will have pleased him, my boy. He belongs
+to the very old Alsace, that country which seems
+almost fabulous to you, and to which I also belong,
+although I am much younger than M. Oberlé. It
+was wholly French, that Alsace, and not a man of
+that time has changed. Look at your grandfather&mdash;look
+at old Bastian. We are the generation who
+suffered. We represent grief&mdash;we others. Your
+father embodies resignation."</p>
+
+<p>"And I?"</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Ulrich looked at the young man, with his
+far-seeing eyes, and said:</p>
+
+<p>"You&mdash;oh, you are Romance."</p>
+
+<p>They would have smiled, both of them, but they
+could not, as if that word had been too perfectly
+accurate, which is not always the case with human
+judgments&mdash;as if they felt that Fate was there in this
+room, invisible, who repeated to them at the bottom
+of their hearts at the same time: "Yes, it is true&mdash;"this
+one is Romance." The grief which was oppressing
+them was only to be explained by the imminence
+of life's mystery. It faded away. M. Ulrich reached
+out his hand to his nephew, more gravely than he
+would have done if that word had not escaped him,
+which he did not regret, but which remained present
+with him.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-bye, dear Jean. I would rather not wait
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">27</a></span>
+for my brother-in-law. I do not know what attitude
+I should take up towards him. All you have told me
+would embarrass me. You will wish him good night
+for me. I will go home through the woods by moonlight.
+What a pity I have not my gun with me and
+the good luck to come across a brace of grouse in the
+fir wood."</p>
+
+<p>To reach the staircase he took some careful steps
+on the carpet in the passage.</p>
+
+<p>"Uncle," said Jean, in a low tone, "if you would
+go to my grandfather I am sure he would be pleased&mdash;I
+am sure he is not sleeping."</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Ulrich, who was walking in front, stopped
+and retraced his steps. Jean turned the handle of
+the door near which he was, and going first into the
+room, said, in a lowered voice:</p>
+
+<p>"Grandfather, I bring you a visitor&mdash;Uncle Ulrich&mdash;who
+wishes to see you."</p>
+
+<p>They were in the semi-darkness of a large room,
+the curtains of which had been drawn, and a nightlight,
+in transparent china, placed at the end of the
+room on the left between the closed window and a
+bed which occupied the corner, was the sole light.
+On the table beside the bed, in the little luminous
+halo which surrounded the nightlight, was a small
+crucifix of copper, and a gold watch, the only shining
+objects in the room. In the bed an old man was
+sitting rather than lying, his shoulders covered with
+a grey wool crossover, his back and head supported
+by pillows, his hands hidden under the sheets, which
+still kept the folds of the linen press. A tapestry
+riband, serving as bell-cord and finishing in a fringe,
+reached to the middle of the bed. The man who was
+sleeping or waking there was impotent. Life with
+him was withdrawing more and more within. He
+walked and moved with difficulty. He no longer
+spoke. Under his thick, pale cheeks his mouth moved
+only to eat and to say three words&mdash;three cries&mdash;always
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">28</a></span>
+the same: "Hunger, Thirst. Go away!" A
+sort of senile laziness allowed his jaw to hang, the
+jaw that had commanded many men. M. Ulrich and
+Jean went to the middle of the room without his
+giving the least sign that he was conscious of their
+presence. This poor human ruin was, however, the
+same man who had founded the factory at Alsheim,
+who had raised himself from the condition of a little
+country proprietor, who had been elected <i>protesting</i>
+deputy, who had been seen and heard in the Reichstag,
+claiming the unrecognised rights of Alsace and
+demanding justice of Prince Bismarck. Intelligence
+was watching, imprisoned, like the flame which lit up
+the room that night; but it expressed itself no longer.
+In this uninterrupted dream what men and things
+must pass before the mental vision of him who knew
+the whole of Alsace, who had gone through it in
+every direction, who had drunk of its white wines at
+all the tables of the rich and the poor; traveller,
+merchant, forester, and patriot! And it was he&mdash;this
+wrinkled bald head, this lowering face, these heavy
+eyelids, between which a slow, sad eye slipped to and
+fro like a billiard ball in the immovable slit of a bell.
+However, the two visitors had the impression that his
+gaze rested on them with an unusual pleasure.</p>
+
+<p>They kept silence so as to let the old man savour
+the sweetness of a thought they would never, never
+know. Then Uncle Ulrich went near the bed, and,
+placing his hand upon the arm of Philippe Oberlé,
+bending down slightly to be nearer his ear and to
+more easily meet his eyes, which were raised with
+difficulty:</p>
+
+<p>"We have talked a good deal, M. Oberlé, your
+grandson and myself. He is a good fellow&mdash;your
+Jean!"</p>
+
+<p>A movement of the whole upper part of the body
+slowly changed the position of the head of the old
+man, who was trying to see his grandson.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">29</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"A good fellow," continued the forester, "whose
+stay in Berlin has not spoiled him. He has remained
+worthy of you&mdash;an Alsatian, a patriot. He does you
+honour."</p>
+
+<p>Though there was only the tiny floating light in
+the room, Uncle Ulrich and Jean thought they perceived
+a smile on the face of the old man, the answer
+from a soul still young.</p>
+
+<p>They quietly withdrew, saying:</p>
+
+<p>"Good night, M. Oberlé. Good night, grandfather."</p>
+
+<p>The flame of the nightlight flickered, displacing
+lights and shadows; the door was shut, and the
+interrupted dream continued in the room, where
+hardly anything had entered since sunset save the
+hours struck in the belfry of the church of Alsheim.
+M. Ulrich and his nephew parted at the foot of the
+staircase. The night was cold, the grass all white
+with frost.</p>
+
+<p>"Good time for walking!" said M. Ulrich; "I shall
+expect you at Heidenbruch."</p>
+
+<p>He whistled for his dog, and stroking its red-brown
+head, said:</p>
+
+<p>"Take me home, for I am going to dream all the
+time of what that boy told me!"</p>
+
+<p>Scarcely had he gone some few hundreds of yards&mdash;the
+sound of his footstep could still be heard on the
+road going up towards the Wood of Urlosen&mdash;when
+in the calm of the night Jean caught the sound of the
+trotting horses coming from the Obernai district.
+The noise of their shoes striking the metalled road
+sounded like flails on a threshing-floor; it was a rural
+sound, and not disturbing; it broke no rest. Fidčle,
+who was barking furiously towards the edge of the
+forest, must have had other reasons to show her teeth
+and give tongue. Jean listened to the carriage
+coming nearer. Soon the noise grew less and less,
+then became deadened, and he knew that the carriage
+had passed between the walls of the village, or at
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">30</a></span>
+least had entered the circle of orchards which made
+Alsheim in the summer a nest of apple-trees, cherries,
+and walnuts. Then it swelled and sounded clear like
+a train coming out of a tunnel. The gravel scrunched
+at the end of the avenue. Two lamps turned and
+passed rapidly across the park; the grass, the shrubs,
+the lower trunks of trees, arose abruptly out of the
+darkness and as abruptly sank back into it again, and
+the brougham stopped before the house. Jean, who
+had remained at the top of the staircase, went down
+and opened the door. A young girl got out at once;
+her face was rosy, and she was wrapped all in white&mdash;white
+mantilla, coat of white wool, and white shoes.
+In passing, almost in the air, she bent to the right,
+just touched Jean's forehead with a kiss, and half
+opened two lips heavy with sleep.</p>
+
+<p>"Good night, little brother."</p>
+
+<p>And picking up her skirt with a loose grasp, with
+wavering movements, her head already on the pillow
+as it were, she went up the stairs and disappeared
+into the vestibule.</p>
+
+<p>"Good evening, my son," said the authoritative
+voice of a man. "You have waited for us; you were
+wrong. Come quickly, Monica, the horses are very
+hot. Auguste, you will give them twelve litres
+to-morrow. You would have done better to have
+gone with us, Jean. It was all very nice. M. von
+Boscher asked twice about you."</p>
+
+<p>The person who spoke thus, now to one and now
+to the other, had had time to get out of the carriage,
+to shake hands with Jean, to turn towards
+Madame Oberlé, still seated in the back of the
+carriage, to go half-way up the flight of steps, to
+inspect with the eye of a connoisseur the two black
+horses, whose wet backs looked as if they had been
+rubbed with soap. His grey whiskers framed a full
+and solid face; his overcoat was unbuttoned, showing
+the open waistcoat and the shirt, where three Rhine
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">31</a></span>
+stones shone; his oratorical hand only appeared a
+moment. After having given his opinion and his
+orders, Joseph Oberlé&mdash;vigilant master who forgot
+nothing&mdash;quickly raised his double chin and fixed his
+eyes on the end of the enclosure, where the pyramids
+of felled trees were resting, to see if there were any
+signs of fire visible, or if any shadow prowled round
+the saw-mill; then, nimbly mounting the second
+flight of steps two at a time, he entered the house.
+His son had answered nothing. He was helping
+Madame Oberlé out of the carriage, taking from her
+her gloves and fan, and asking:</p>
+
+<p>"You are not so very tired, are you, mother
+darling?"</p>
+
+<p>Her dear eyes smiled, her long mouth said:</p>
+
+<p>"Not too tired; but it is not for me, now, my dear.
+You have an old mother!"</p>
+
+<p>She leaned on the arm of her son&mdash;from a mother's
+pride more than from necessity. There was infinite
+sadness in her smile, and she seemed to ask Jean, at
+whom she looked while going up the steps, "You
+forgive me for having gone there? I have suffered."</p>
+
+<p>She was wearing a black satin dress. She had
+diamonds in her hair, still black, and a collar of blue
+fox on her shoulders. Jean thought she looked like
+an unhappy queen, and he admired the elegance of
+her head, of her walk, and her fine carriage. She
+was of an old Alsatian family, and he felt himself the
+son of this woman with a pride he showed only to
+her.</p>
+
+<p>He accompanied her, giving her his arm all the
+time so as to have the joy of being nearer to her,
+and to stop her on nearly every step of the staircase.</p>
+
+<p>"Mamma, I have spent an excellent evening. It
+would have been delicious if only you had been
+there! Imagine, Uncle Ulrich came at half-past
+eight, and he only set out for home at midnight, just
+now."
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">32</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Madame Oberlé smiled a melancholy smile and said:</p>
+
+<p>"He never stops as long as that for us. He keeps
+away."</p>
+
+<p>"You mean to say that he keeps away! I will
+bring him back to you."</p>
+
+<p>She stopped in her turn, looked at this son, whom
+she had not seen since the afternoon, and smiled
+more gaily.</p>
+
+<p>"You love my brother?"</p>
+
+<p>"Better than I used to. I seem to have just
+discovered him."</p>
+
+<p>"You were too young before."</p>
+
+<p>"And how we have talked! We agree on all
+points."</p>
+
+<p>The gentle maternal eyes sought those of her child
+in the twilight of the staircase.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, all?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, mamma, on all!"</p>
+
+<p>They had arrived at the top of the stairs. She
+placed her gloved finger on her mouth. She withdrew
+her arm which she had placed in that of her
+son. She was at the door of her room, facing M.
+Philippe Oberlé's room. Jean kissed her, withdrew a
+little, returned to her, and pressed her once again to
+his heart silently.</p>
+
+<p>Then he took a few steps down the passage,
+looked again at this woman dressed in black, and
+whom mourning suited so well&mdash;so simple with her
+drooping white hands and her erect head, so firm of
+feature, so gentle in expression.</p>
+
+<p>He murmured gaily:</p>
+
+<p>"Saint Monica Oberlé, pray for us!"</p>
+
+<p>She did not seem to hear him, but she remained,
+her hand on the door-handle without entering, as
+long as Jean could see her, Jean, who was going
+backwards step by step, farther away, into the shadows
+of the passage.</p>
+
+<p>He entered his room, his heart joyful, his mind full
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">33</a></span>
+of thoughts, all those thoughts of the past evening
+coming back now with swift flight in the solitude of
+the present. Feeling that he would not sleep at once,
+he opened the window. The cold air blew steadily
+from the north-east. The mist had fled. From his
+room Jean could see, beyond the wide strip of
+cultivated hilly ground, the forests where Shadow
+all night long wound and unwound her folds, away to
+the heights crowned here and there by a spiked cluster
+of ancient woods, which broke the line of hills and
+wreathed itself about in stars. He tried to find the
+house of M. Ulrich. And in thought he saw again
+him who ought to be arriving home, when voices
+began to sing on the edge of the forest. A shiver
+of pleasure seized the nerves of the young man, who
+was a passionate musician. The voices were beautiful,
+young, and in tune. There were more than
+twenty of them certainly, perhaps thirty or fifty.
+He missed the words because of the distance. It
+was like the sound of an organ in the night. They
+flung out to the wind of Alsace a song of a spirited
+rhythm. Then three distinct words reached Jean's
+ears. He shrugged his shoulders, irritated with
+himself for not having understood at once. It was
+a chorus of German soldiers coming back from the
+man&oelig;uvre of those Rhenish Hussars M. Ulrich had
+met coming down the mountain. According to
+custom, they sang to keep themselves awake, and
+because there was in their songs the power of the
+word Fatherland. The horses' hoofs accompanied
+the melody like muffled cymbals. The words escaped
+and vibrated:</p>
+
+<p class="left35">Stimmt an mit hellem hohen Klang,<br />
+<span class="i1">Stimmt an das Lied der Lieder.</span><br />
+Des Faterlandes Hochgesang,<br />
+<span class="i1">Das Waldthal hall es wieder."</span></p>
+
+<p>Jean would have been glad to stop the song.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">34</a></span>
+How many times, however, and in all the German
+Provinces, had he not heard the soldiers sing? Why
+should he feel sad at the song of these men?
+Why did the words enter into his soul so painfully,
+although he knew them and could repeat them from
+memory? When some two hundred yards from the
+village they became silent. Only the clatter of hoofs
+continued drawing nearer to Alsheim and echoing
+above it. Jean leaned forward to see the horsemen
+pass in the little market town. He could see them
+through a large opening in the wall surrounding the
+park, secured by an iron gate just in front of the
+house&mdash;a moving mass in a brown dust that the wind
+blew back, leaning like barley beards in the ear. The
+men were not to be distinguished from each other,
+nor the horses. Jean thought, with a secret and
+increasing pain, "How many there are!"</p>
+
+<p>At Berlin, at Munich, at Heidelberg, they only
+aroused an idea of strength without any immediate
+aim or object. The enemy had not been specially
+singled out; it was everything opposed to the greatness
+of the German Empire. Jean Oberlé had more
+than once admired the march of regiments and the
+wonderful power of the man who commanded so many
+men. But here on the frontier, on the ground still
+bloody with the last war, there were memories
+which showed only too well who was aimed at and
+threatened. The sight&mdash;the noise&mdash;of the soldiers
+made him dream of butcheries, of death, and of the
+fearful mourning which remains. They were passing
+between the houses. The noise of the squadrons, of
+men and beasts shook the windows. The little town
+seemed asleep. Neither the soldiers nor their leaders
+noticed anything; but in many of the houses a
+mother woke and sat up in her bed, shivering; a
+man stretched out his fist and cursed these conquerors
+of past days. God alone knew the drama.
+They passed by. When the last squadron had
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">35</a></span>
+finished throwing shadows across the road, between
+the two pillars of the gate, Jean thought he saw, in
+the dust that was settling, a horseman facing the
+house. Was the horse refusing to advance? No;
+he was at rest. The horseman must be an officer&mdash;something
+golden placed in several rows across his
+breast sparkled. He did not move, firm in his saddle,
+young certainly, he gazed in front of him. This
+lasted scarcely a minute. Then he lowered the sabre
+he held in his hand, and having saluted, put spurs to
+his horse, which rushed away. The scene had been
+so quick that Jean might have thought it an illusion,
+if the gallop of the beast had not sounded in the
+village street.</p>
+
+<p>"Some Teutonic joke," he thought&mdash;"a way this
+officer has found of saying that the house pleases
+him! Thanks!"</p>
+
+<p>The regiment had already left the village and
+ridden away to the wide plain. The houses had gone
+to sleep once more. The wind blew towards the
+green Vosges. In the opposite quarter, far away
+now, like a religious hymn, rose again the song of
+the German soldiers, who were celebrating the German
+Fatherland whilst marching towards Strasburg.</p>
+
+<p class="p4"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">36</a></span></p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER II</h3>
+
+<p class="center font95"><b>THE EXAMINATION</b></p>
+
+<p class="p2">On the following day the morning was far advanced
+when Jean left his room and appeared on the flight
+of steps built of the red stone of Saverne like the
+house, which opened on to the park in two flights
+of long steps. He was dressed in shooting clothes&mdash;of
+which he was fond&mdash;gaiters of black leather,
+breeches and coat of blue wool, with a hat of soft
+felt, in the ribbon of which he stuck a grouse feather.
+From the steps he asked:</p>
+
+<p>"Where is my father?"</p>
+
+<p>The man whom he addressed, the gardener, busy
+raking the avenue, answered:</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur is in the office at the saw-mill."</p>
+
+<p>The first thing that Jean Oberlé saw on raising his
+eyes was the Vosges mountains, clothed with forests
+of pines, with trails of snow in the hollows, and with
+low, rapid clouds hiding the peaks. He trembled with
+joy. Then having gazed at the lowest mountain
+slopes, at the vineyards, and then the meadows, as if
+to impress on his memory all the details of these
+places found again after a long absence, and above
+all with the added satisfaction of remaining among
+them, his eyes fastened on the red roofs of the saw-mill,
+which made a barrier at the end of the Oberlé
+property, on the chimneys, on the high building
+where the turbines were, to the right on the course of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">37</a></span>
+the mountain stream of Alsheim, and nearer on the
+timber-yard whence the factory got its supplies, on
+the heaps of wood from trees of all sorts&mdash;beams,
+planks, which rose in pyramids and enormous cubes,
+beyond the winding alleys and the clumps of trees,
+some two hundred yards from the house. Jets of
+white steam in many places escaped from the roof of
+the saw-mill, and rested on the north wind like the
+clouds up above.</p>
+
+<p>The young man went to the left, crossed the park,
+formerly planted and designed by M. Philippe Oberlé,
+and which was now beginning to be a freer and more
+harmonious corner of nature, and turning towards
+the piles of oak trunks, elms, and pines, went to
+knock at the door of the long building.</p>
+
+<p>He entered the glass pavilion which served the
+master for a workroom. He was engaged in reading
+the day's letters. Seeing his son appear, he put the
+papers on the table, made a sign with his hand which
+meant "I expected your visit&mdash;sit down"&mdash;and moving
+his arm-chair, he said:</p>
+
+<p>"Well, my boy! What have you to say to me?"</p>
+
+<p>M. Joseph Oberlé was a ruddy man, quick and
+authoritative. Because of his shaven lips, his short
+whiskers, the correctness of his clothes, the easiness
+of his words and manners, he had sometimes been
+taken for an old French magistrate. The mistake did
+not arise with those who thought thus. It had been
+made by circumstances which had taken M. Joseph
+Oberlé in spite of himself from the way wherein he
+had intended to go, and which should have led him to
+some public office in the magistrature or the administration.
+The father, the founder of the dynasty,
+Philippe Oberlé, son of a race of peasant proprietors,
+had founded at Alsheim in 1850 this mechanical saw-mill,
+which had rapidly prospered. He had become in
+a few years rich and powerful, very much beloved,
+because he neglected no means to that end; increasingly
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">38</a></span>
+influential, but without at all foreseeing
+the events which would one day induce him to put
+his influence at the service of Alsace.</p>
+
+<p>The son of this industrial workman could hardly
+escape the ambition of being a public functionary.
+That is what happened&mdash;his education had prepared
+him for it. Taken early from Alsace, pupil for eight
+years at the Lycée Louis le Grand, then law student,
+he was at twenty-two years old attached to the office
+of the Prefect of Charente, when the war broke out.
+Retained for some months by his chief, who thought
+it would please his friend the great manufacturer of
+Alsace if he sheltered the young man behind the
+walls of the prefecture of Angoulęme; then on his
+demand incorporated tardily in the Army of the Loire,
+Joseph Oberlé marched much, retired much, suffered
+much from cold, and fought well on rare occasions.
+When the war was finished he had to make his choice.</p>
+
+<p>If he had consulted his personal preferences only,
+he would have remained French, and he would have
+continued to follow an administrative career, having
+a taste for authority and few personal opinions on
+the quality of an order to be transmitted. But
+his father recalled him to Alsace. He implored him
+not to leave the work begun and prospering. He
+said: "My industry is become German by conquest;
+I cannot leave the instrument of my fortune and your
+future to perish. I detest the Prussians, but I take
+the only means which I have of continuing my life
+usefully. I was a Frenchman, I become an Alsatian.
+Do the same. I hope it will not be for long."</p>
+
+<p>Joseph Oberlé had obeyed with real repugnance&mdash;repugnance
+at submitting to the law of the conqueror,
+repugnance at living in the village of Alsheim, lost at
+the foot of the Vosges. He had even committed at
+this time imprudences of speech and attitude which he
+regretted now. For the conquest had lasted; the
+fortunes of Germany were strengthened, and the young
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">39</a></span>
+man, associated with his father and become the master
+of a factory, had felt the meshes of an administration
+similar to the French administration, but more harassing,
+stricter, and better obeyed, knotting itself and
+drawing closer round him. He saw that on every
+occasion, without any exception, the German
+authorities would put him in the wrong; the police,
+the magistrates, the functionaries established for
+public services which he used daily, the commission of
+public roads, the railways, the water supply, the
+forests, the customs. The malevolence which he met
+with on all sides and in all departments of German
+administration, although he had become a German
+subject, was aggravated and had become quite a
+danger to the prosperity of the house of Alsheim,
+when, in 1874, M. Philippe Oberlé, giving to his son
+the direction of the saw-mill, had yielded to the
+insistences of that poor forsaken country, which
+wanted to make of him, and did make him, the representative
+of her interests at the Reichstag, and
+one of the protesting deputies of Alsace.</p>
+
+<p>This experience, the weariness of waiting, the removal
+of M. Philippe Oberlé, who spent a part of the
+year at Berlin, modified sensibly the attitude of the
+young head of the industrial enterprise. His first
+fervour, and that of others, grew less. He saw the
+anti-German manifestations of Alsatian peasants becoming
+rarer and more prudent. He hardly did any
+business with France; he no longer received visits
+from French people, even those made from interested
+and commercial motives. France, so near by distance,
+became like a walled-in country, shut up, and whence
+nothing more came to Alsace, neither travellers nor
+merchandise. The newspapers he received left him
+in no doubt as to the slow abandonment which certain
+French politicians counselled under the name of wisdom
+and concentration.</p>
+
+<p>In ten years M. Joseph Oberlé had used up, till he
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">40</a></span>
+could no longer find a trace in himself, all that his
+<ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'temperamant'">temperament</ins> allowed him of resistance to oppose to
+an established power. He was rallied. His marriage
+with Monica Biehler, desired and arranged by the old
+and ardent patriot who voted in the Reichstag against
+Prince Bismarck, had had no influence on his new ideas
+and attitude, at first secret, soon suspected, then known,
+then affirmed, then scandalously published by M.
+Joseph Oberlé. He gave pledges to the Germans,
+then hostages. He overstepped the boundary. He
+went farther than obedience. The foremen of the
+factory, old soldiers of France, admirers of M. Philippe
+Oberlé, companions of his struggle against the Germanisation
+of Alsace, bore with difficulty the attitude of
+the new master and blamed him. One of them in a
+moment of impatience had said to him one day, "Do
+you think we are so particularly proud to work for a
+renegade like you?" He had been discharged. His
+comrades immediately had taken his part, interceded,
+talked, and threatened a strike. "Well, do it," the
+master had said; "I shall be delighted. You are all
+quarrelsome fellows; I shall replace you by Germans!"
+They did not believe in the threat, but when a fresh
+crisis arose M. Joseph Oberlé carried it into execution
+a little later, that he might not be accused of weakness,
+which he feared more than injustice, and because
+he thought he could gain some advantage by replacing
+the Alsatians, continual grumblers, by workmen from
+Baden and Wurtemburg who were better disciplined
+and more easily managed. A third of the employés
+at the saw-mill had thus been replaced. A little
+German colony had been established to the north of
+the village, in the houses built by the master, and the
+Alsatians who remained had to bend before the argument
+of daily bread. That happened in 1882. Some
+years later, they learned that M. Oberlé had sent his
+son Jean to be educated in Bavaria at the Munich
+gymnasium. In the same way he sent off his daughter
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">41</a></span>
+Lucienne, placing her in the charge of the mistress
+of the most German school in Baden-Baden, the
+Mündner boarding-school. This last measure roused
+public opinion most of all. They were furious at this
+repudiation of Alsatian education and influence. They
+pitied Madame Oberlé thus separated from her son
+and deprived, as if she had been unworthy, of the right
+of bringing up her own daughter. To all those who
+blamed him the father replied, "It is for their good.
+I have spoiled my life; I do not wish them to spoil
+theirs. They will choose their road later when they
+have been able to make comparisons. But I will not
+have them from their very youth catalogued, pointed
+at, and inscribed on the official list as Alsatian
+pariahs."</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes he added: "You do not understand, then,
+all the sacrifice that I am making! I am sparing my
+children these sacrifices; I am devoting myself to
+them. But that does not mean that I am not
+suffering."</p>
+
+<p>He did suffer in fact, and so much the more that
+the confidence of the German administration was
+hard to gain. The reward of so much effort did not
+seem enviable. True, those in office began to flatter,
+to draw nearer, to seek out M. Joseph Oberlé, a
+precious conquest, of which many district directors
+had boasted in high places. But they watched him,
+whilst loading him with invitations and kind
+attentions. He felt the hesitation, the mistrust,
+scarcely disguised, sometimes even emphasised by the
+new masters he wished to please. Was he safe?
+Had he taken the side of the Annexation without any
+mental reservation? Did he sufficiently admire the
+German genius, German civilisation, German commerce,
+the German future? One had to admire so
+much and so many things!</p>
+
+<p>The answer, however, became more and more
+affirmative. There was the acknowledged desire to
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">42</a></span>
+make his son, Jean, enter the German magistracy,
+and there was the systematic continuation of this
+kind of exile imposed on the young man. When his
+classical studies were finished and his final examination
+passed with success at the end of the scholastic
+year, 1895, Jean spent his first year of law studies at
+the University of Munich; he divided the next year
+between Bonn and Heidelberg; then took his
+licentiate's degree at Berlin, where he went through
+the Referendar Examination. At last, after a fourth
+year, when as a licentiate in law he entered the office
+of a lawyer at Berlin, after long travel in foreign
+countries, the young man came back to his home
+to rest before joining a regiment.</p>
+
+<p>Truly the plan had been thoroughly carried out.
+In the first years of his student life, in his holidays
+even, excepting some days given to his family, his
+time had been given to travelling. During the last
+years he had not even appeared in Alsheim.</p>
+
+<p>The end of it was that the administration no
+longer suspected him. Besides, one of the great
+obstacles to a public reconciliation between the
+functionaries of Alsace and M. Joseph Oberlé had
+disappeared. The old protesting deputy, seized by
+the illness which became chronic, retired from
+political life in 1890. From that moment dated, for
+the son, the smiles, the promises, the favours so long
+solicited. M. Joseph Oberlé recognised in the development
+his affairs had taken&mdash;in the Rhenish
+country and even beyond it&mdash;in the diminution of
+the official reports directed against his employés, or
+against himself in cases of contravention, in the signs
+of deference which the small officials showed him&mdash;formerly
+the most arrogant of all, in the ease with
+which he had ruled disputable points, obtained
+authorisations, altered the rules in divers points&mdash;in
+all these signs, as well as in others, he recognised that
+the governmental mind, present everywhere, incarnate
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">43</a></span>
+everywhere in a multitude of men of gold lace&mdash;was
+no longer against him.</p>
+
+<p>More definite advances were made to him. The
+preceding winter, while Lucienne, who had returned
+from the Mündner school, pretty, witty, charming,
+was dancing in the German salons of Strasburg, the
+father was talking with the representatives of the
+Empire. One of them, the prefect of Strasburg,
+Count Kassewitz, acting probably in accordance with
+superior orders, had let drop that the Government
+would see, without displeasure, M. Joseph Oberlé
+present himself as candidate for the deputyship in
+one of the districts of Alsace, and that the official
+support of the administration would be given to
+the son of the old protesting deputy.</p>
+
+<p>This prospect filled M. Oberlé with joy. It had
+revived the ambition of this man who found himself
+up to then repaid but badly for the sacrifices of self-respect,
+friendships, and memories, which he had had
+to make. It gave new energies and a definite object
+to this official temperament, depressed by circumstances.
+M. Oberlé saw his justification in it,
+without being able to reveal it. He said to himself
+that, thanks to his energy, to his contempt for Utopia,
+to his clear sight of what was possible and what
+was not, he could hope for a future for himself&mdash;a
+participation in public life&mdash;a part he had believed to
+be reserved for his son. And henceforward it would
+be the answer that he would make to himself; if
+ever a doubt entered his mind, it would be his
+revenge against the mute insults offered him by
+some backward peasants, who forgot to recognise
+him in the streets, and by certain citizens of Strasburg
+or Alsheim, who scarcely, or no longer, saluted
+him.</p>
+
+<p>He was therefore now going to receive his son in a
+frame of mind very different from that of the past.
+To-day, when he knew himself in full personal favour
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">44</a></span>
+with the Government of Alsace-Lorraine, he was
+less set on his son carrying out to the letter the plan
+that he had traced at first. Jean had already assisted
+his father, as Lucienne was assisting him. He had
+been an argument, and one of the causes of this long-expected
+change of the governmental attitude. His
+collaboration was still going to be useful, but not
+necessary; and the father, warned by certain allusions
+and a certain reticence in the last letters written
+from Berlin by his son, did not feel so irritated when
+he thought that perhaps he would not follow the
+career in the German magistracy so carefully prepared
+for him, and would give up his last three years
+of terms and his State examinations. Such were the
+reflections of this man, whose life had been guided by
+the most unadulterated egotism, at the moment when
+he was preparing to receive his son's visit. For he
+had seen Jean and had watched him coming across
+the park. M. Oberlé had built at the extreme end of
+the saw-mill a sort of cage or footbridge, from which
+he could survey everything at once. One window
+opened on to the timber yard, and allowed him
+to follow the movements of the men occupied in
+stowing away and transporting the wood. Another,
+composed of a double glazed framework, placed the
+book-keepers under the eye of their master, ranged
+along a wall in a room like the master's room; and
+by a third, that is to say by a glass partition, which
+separated him from the workshop, he took in at a
+glance the immense hall where machines of all kinds,
+great saws in leather bands, cogged wheels, drills,
+and planes, were cutting, boring, and polishing trunks
+of trees brought to them on sliding grooves. Round
+him the low woodwork painted water-green; electric
+lamps in the shape of violets, the call-buttons placed
+on a copper plaque which served as a pediment
+to his work bureau, a telephone, a typewriter, light
+chairs painted white, spoke of his taste for bright
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">45</a></span>
+colours, for convenient innovations, and for fragile-looking
+objects.</p>
+
+<p>Seeing his son enter, he had turned towards the
+window overlooking the park; he had crossed his legs,
+and placed his right elbow on the desk. He examined
+curiously this tall, thin, handsome man, his son, who
+sat down facing him, and he smiled. To see him
+thus, leaning back in his arm-chair, and smiling his
+own mechanical and irrelevant smile, by only
+judging from the full face framed by two grey
+whiskers, and the gesture of his raised right hand,
+touching his head and playing with the cord of his
+eyeglass, it would be easy to understand the mistake
+of those who took M. Oberlé for a magistrate. But
+the eyes, a little closed on account of the bright
+light, were too quick and too hard to belong to any
+but a man of action. They gave the lie to the
+mechanical smile of his lips. They had no scientific
+curiosity, worldly or paternal; they sought simply a
+way, like those of a ship's captain&mdash;in order to pass
+on. Scarcely had M. Oberlé asked, "What have
+you to tell me?" than he added, "Have you spoken
+with your mother this morning?"</p>
+
+<p>"No!"</p>
+
+<p>"With Lucienne?"</p>
+
+<p>"Neither; I have just come from my room."</p>
+
+<p>"It is better so. It is better for us to make our
+plans together, we two, without any one interfering.
+I have allowed you to return and to stay here precisely
+that we may arrange your future. Firstly,
+your military service in the month of October, with
+the fixed determination&mdash;am I right?"&mdash;and he dwelt
+on the following words&mdash;"to become an officer of the
+reserve?"</p>
+
+<p>Jean, motionless, with head erect and straight look,
+and with the charming gravity of a young man who
+speaks of his future and who keeps a sort of quiet
+hold on himself which is not quite natural to him:
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">46</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Yes, father, that is my intention."</p>
+
+<p>"The first point is then settled&mdash;and afterwards?
+You have seen the world. You know the people
+among whom you are called to live. You know that
+with regard to the German magistracy the chances of
+succeeding increased some time ago, because my own
+position has been considerably bettered in Alsace?"</p>
+
+<p>"I know it."</p>
+
+<p>"You know equally well that I have never wavered
+in my desire to see you follow the career which would
+have been mine if circumstances had not been stronger
+than my will."</p>
+
+<p>As if this word had suddenly excited in him the
+strength to will, the eyes of M. Oberlé were fixed,
+imperious and masterful, on those of his son, like the
+claws of a bird of prey. He left off playing with his
+eyeglass, and said quickly:</p>
+
+<p>"Your last letters indicated, however, a certain
+hesitation. Answer me. Will you become a magistrate?"</p>
+
+<p>Jean became slightly pale, and answered:</p>
+
+<p>"No!"</p>
+
+<p>The father bent forward as if he were going to
+rise, and without taking his eyes off him whose moral
+energy he was weighing and judging at that moment:</p>
+
+<p>"Administrator?"</p>
+
+<p>"Neither. Nothing official."</p>
+
+<p>"Then your law studies?"</p>
+
+<p>"Useless."</p>
+
+<p>"Because?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because," said the young man, trying to steady
+his voice, "I have not the German spirit."</p>
+
+<p>M. Oberlé had not expected this answer. It was a
+disavowal. He started, and instinctively looked into
+the workshop to make sure that no one had heard or
+even guessed at such words. He met the raised eyes
+of many workmen, who thought he was supervising
+the work, and who turned away at once.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">47</a></span></p>
+
+<p>M. Oberlé turned again to his son. A violent
+irritation had seized him. But he understood that
+it was best not to let it be seen. For fear that his
+hands should show his agitation, he had seized the
+two arms of the arm-chair in which he was seated,
+bent forward as before, but now considering this
+young man from head to foot, considering his attitude,
+his clothes, his manner, this young man who was
+voicing ideas which seemed like a judgment on the
+conduct of his father. After a moment of silence,
+his voice broken, he asked:</p>
+
+<p>"Who has put you against me? Your mother?"</p>
+
+<p>"No one," said Jean Oberlé quickly. "I have
+nothing against you. Why do you take it like that?
+I say simply that I have not the German spirit. It
+is the result of a long comparison, and nothing else."</p>
+
+<p>M. Joseph Oberlé saw that he had shown his hand
+too much. He withdrew into himself, and putting on
+that expression of cold irony with which he was
+accustomed to disguise his true sentiments:</p>
+
+<p>"Then, since you refuse to follow the career which
+I destined for you, have you chosen another?"</p>
+
+<p>"Without doubt, with your consent."</p>
+
+<p>"Which?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yours. Do not be mistaken with regard to what
+I have just told you. I have lived without a quarrel
+for ten years in an exclusively German centre. I
+know what it has cost me. You ask me the result of
+my experience. Well, I do not believe that my
+character is supple enough, or easy-going enough if
+you like, to do more than that, or to become a
+German official. I am sure that I should not always
+understand, and that I should disobey sometimes.
+My decision is irrevocable. And, on the contrary,
+your work pleases me."</p>
+
+<p>"You imagine that a manufacturer is independent?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; but he is more independent than many are.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">48</a></span>
+I studied law so that I should not refuse to follow
+without reflection, without examination, the way you
+pointed out to me. But I have profited by the travels
+which you suggested, every year."</p>
+
+<p>"You may say which I imposed upon you; that is
+the truth, and I am going to explain my reasons."</p>
+
+<p>"I have profited by them to study the forest
+industry wherever I could&mdash;in Germany, in Austria,
+in the Caucasus. I have given more thought and
+consideration to those questions than you might
+suppose. And I wish to live in Alsheim. Will you
+allow me to?"</p>
+
+<p>The father did not answer at first. He was trying
+on his son an experiment to which he deliberately
+submitted other men who came to treat with him
+about some important affair. He was silent at the
+moment when decisive words were to be expected
+from him. If the questioner, disturbed, turned away
+to escape the look which seemed to be oppressive, or
+if he renewed the explanation already made, M. Joseph
+Oberlé classed him among weak men, his inferiors.
+Jean bore his father's look, and did not open his
+mouth. M. Oberlé was secretly flattered. He understood
+that he found himself in the presence of a man
+completely formed, of a very resolute, and probably
+inflexible spirit. He knew others like him in the
+neighbourhood. He secretly appreciated their independence
+of temper, and feared it. With the quickness
+of combination and organisation habitual to him,
+he perceived very clearly the industry of Alsheim
+directed by Jean, and the father of Jean, Joseph
+Oberlé, sitting in the Reichstag, admitted among the
+financiers, the administrators, and the powerful men
+of Germany. He was one of those who know how to
+turn his mistakes to some advantage, just as he
+managed to get something from the factory waste.
+This new vision softened him. Far from being angry,
+he let the ironical expression relax which he had
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">49</a></span>
+put on while speaking of his son's project. With a
+movement of his hand he pointed to the immense
+workshop, where, without ceasing, with a roar which
+slightly shook the double windows, the steel blades
+entered into the heart of the old trees of the Vosges,
+and said, in a tone of affectionate scolding:</p>
+
+<p>"So be it, my son. It will give joy to my father,
+to your mother, and to Ulrich. I agree that you put
+me in the wrong on one point with regard to them,
+but in one point only. Some years ago I should not
+have allowed you to refuse the career which seemed
+to me the best for you, and which would have saved
+us all from difficulties which you could not take the
+measure of. At that moment you were not able to
+judge for yourself. And further, I found my work,
+my position, too precarious and too dangerous to pass
+it on to you. That has changed. My business has
+increased. Life has become possible for me and for
+you all, thanks to the efforts, and perhaps to the
+sacrifices, for which those about me are not sufficiently
+grateful. To-day I admit that the business has a
+future. You wish to succeed me? I open the door
+for you immediately! You will go through the
+practical part of your apprenticeship in the seven
+months which remain before you join your regiment.
+Yes, I consent, but on one condition."</p>
+
+<p>"Which?"</p>
+
+<p>"You will not mix yourself up with politics."</p>
+
+<p>"I have no taste for politics."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, excuse me," continued M. Oberlé with animation;
+"we must understand one another, must we
+not? I do not think you have any political ambition
+for yourself; you are not old enough, and perhaps
+you are not of the right stuff. And that is not what
+I forbid&mdash;I forbid you to have anything to do with
+Alsatian chauvinism; to go about repeating, as
+others do, on every occasion&mdash;'France, France'; to
+wear under your waistcoat a tricolour belt; to
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">50</a></span>
+imitate the Alsatian students of Strasburg, who, to
+recognise and encourage one another, and for the fun
+of it, whistle in the ears of the police the six notes of
+the Marseillaise 'Form your battalions.' I won't
+have any of those little proceedings, of those little
+bravadoes, and of those great risks, my dear fellow!
+They are forbidden manifestations for us business
+men who work in a German country. They go
+against our efforts and interests, for it is not France
+who buys. France is very far away, my dear fellow;
+she is more than two hundred leagues from here, at
+least one would think so, considering the little noise,
+movement, or money which come to us from there.
+Do not forget that! You are by your own wish a
+German manufacturer; if you turn your back on the
+Germans you are lost. Think what you please about
+the history of your country, of its past, and of its
+present. I am ignorant of your opinions on that subject.
+I will not try to guess what they will be in a
+neighbourhood so behind the times as ours at Alsheim;
+but whatever you think, either try to hold your
+tongue, or make a career for yourself elsewhere."</p>
+
+<p>A smile stole round Jean's turned-up moustache,
+while the upper part of his face remained grave and
+firm.</p>
+
+<p>"You are asking yourself, I am sure, what I think
+about France?"</p>
+
+<p>"Let us hear."</p>
+
+<p>"I love her."</p>
+
+<p>"You do not know her!"</p>
+
+<p>"I have read her history and her literature carefully,
+and I have compared: that is all. When one is
+oneself of the nation, that enables one to divine
+much. I do not know it otherwise, it is true. You
+have taken your precautions."</p>
+
+<p>"What you say is true, though at the same time
+you intended to wound&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all."
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">51</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I have taken my precautions, in order to
+free your sister and you from that deadly spirit of
+opposition which would have made your lives barren
+from the beginning, which would have made you
+discontented people, powerless, poor; there are too
+many people of that sort in Alsace, who render no
+service to France or to Alsace, or to themselves, by
+perpetually furnishing Germany with reasons for
+anger. I do not regret that you make me explain
+myself as to the system of education which I desired
+for you, and which I alone desired. I wished to
+spare you the trial I have borne, of which I have
+just spoken to you: to fail in life. There is still
+another reason. Ah, I know well that credit will
+not be given me for that! I am obliged to praise
+myself in my own family. My child, it is not possible
+to have been brought up in France, to belong to
+France through all one's ancestry, and not to love
+French culture."</p>
+
+<p>He interrupted himself a moment to see the impression
+this phrase produced, and he could see
+nothing, not a movement on the impassible face of his
+son, who decidedly was a highly self-controlled man.
+The implacable desire for justification which governed
+M. Oberlé, made him go on:</p>
+
+<p>"You know that the French language is not
+favourably looked upon here, my dear Jean. In
+Bavaria you had a literary and historical education,
+better from that point of view than you would have
+had in Strasburg. I was able to desire, without
+prejudicing your masters against you, that you should
+have many extra French lessons. In Alsace, you and
+I would both have suffered for that. Those are the
+motives which guided me. Experience will show
+whether I was mistaken. I did it in any case in good
+faith, and for your good."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear father," said Jean, "I have no right to
+judge what you have done. What I can tell you is
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">52</a></span>
+that, thanks to that education I have received, if I
+have not an unbounded taste or admiration for
+German civilisation, I have at least the habit of living
+with the Germans. And I am persuaded that I could
+live with them in Alsace."</p>
+
+<p>The father raised his eyebrows as if he would say,
+"I am not so sure of that."</p>
+
+<p>"My ideas, up to now, have made me no enemy in
+Germany; and it seems to me that one can direct a
+saw-mill in an annexed country with the opinions I
+have just shown you."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope so," said M. Oberlé simply.</p>
+
+<p>"Then you accept me? I come to you?"</p>
+
+<p>For answer the master pressed his finger on an
+electric button.</p>
+
+<p>A man came up the steps which led from the
+machine hall to the observatory that M. Oberlé had
+had built, and opened the port-hole, and in the opening
+one saw a square blond beard, long hair, and two
+eyes like two blue gems.</p>
+
+<p>"Wilhelm," said the master in German, "you
+will make my son conversant with the works, and
+you will explain to him the purchases we have made
+for the past six months. From to-morrow he will
+accompany you in your round of visits to where the
+fellings and cuttings are being carried out in the
+interests of the firm."</p>
+
+<p>The door was shut again.</p>
+
+<p>That young enthusiast, the elegant Jean Oberlé,
+was standing in front of his father. He held out his
+hand to him and said, pale with joy:</p>
+
+<p>"Now I am again some one in Alsace! How I
+thank you!"</p>
+
+<p>The father took his son's hand with a somewhat
+studied effusion. He thought:</p>
+
+<p>"He is the image of his mother! In him I find
+again the spirit, the words, and the enthusiasm of
+Monica." Aloud he said:
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">53</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You see, my son, that I have only one aim in
+view, to make you happy. I have always had it. I
+agree to your adopting a career quite different from
+the one I chose for you. Try now to understand our
+position as your sister understands it."</p>
+
+<p>Jean went away, and his father, a few minutes
+later, went out also. But while M. Joseph Oberlé
+went towards the house, being in haste to see his
+daughter, the only confidante of his thoughts, and to
+report the conversation he had just had with Jean,
+the latter crossed the timber yard to the left, passed
+before the lodge, and took the road to the forest.
+But he did not go far, because the luncheon hour
+was approaching. By the road that wound upward
+he reached the region of the vineyards of Alsheim,
+beyond the hop-fields which were still bare, where
+the poles rose tied together, like a stack of arms.
+His soul was glad. When he came to the entrance
+of a vineyard which he had known since his earliest
+childhood, where he had gathered the grapes in the
+days of long ago, he climbed on to a hill which
+overlooked the road and the rows of vines at the
+bottom. In spite of the grey light, in spite of the
+clouds and the wind, he found his Alsace beautiful,
+divinely beautiful&mdash;Alsace, sloping down very gently
+in front of him, and becoming a smooth plain with
+strips of grass and strips of ploughed land, and
+whence the villages here and there lifted their tile
+roofs and the point of their belfries. Round, isolated
+trees&mdash;leafless because it was winter&mdash;resembled dry
+thistles; some crows were flying, helped by the
+north wind, and seeking a newly sown spot.</p>
+
+<p>Jean raised his hands, and spread them as if to
+embrace the expanse of land stretching out from
+Obernai, which he saw in the farthest undulations to
+the left, as far as Barr, half buried under the
+avalanche of pines down the mountain-side. "I
+love thee, Alsace, and I have come back to thee!"
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">54</a></span>
+he cried. He gazed at the village of Alsheim, at
+the house of red stone which rose a little below him,
+and which was his; then at the other extremity of
+the pile of houses, inhabited by the workmen and
+peasants, he marked a sort of forest promontory
+which pushed out into the smooth plain. It was
+an avenue ending in a great group of leafless trees,
+grey, between which one could see the slopes of a
+roof. Jean let his eyes rest a long time on this
+half-hidden dwelling, and said: "Good day, Alsatian
+woman! Perhaps I am going to find that I love
+you. It would be so good to live here with you!"</p>
+
+<p>The bell rang for luncheon, rang out from the
+Oberlés' house, and recalled him to himself. It had
+a thin, miserable sound, which gave some idea of the
+immensity of free space in which the noise vanished
+away, and the strength of the tide of the wind which
+carried it away over the lands of Alsace.</p>
+
+<p class="p4"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">55</a></span></p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER III</h3>
+
+<p class="center font95"><b>THE FIRST FAMILY MEETING</b></p>
+
+<p class="p2">Jean turned slowly towards this bell which was
+calling him. He was full of joy at this moment.
+He was taking possession of a world which, after
+some years, had just been opened to him and
+pointed out as his place of habitation, of work,
+and of happiness. These words played on his
+troubled mind deliciously. They pursued each other
+like a troop of porpoises, those travellers on the
+surface, and other words accompanied them. Family
+life, comfort, social authority, embellishments, enlargements.
+The house took to itself a name&mdash;"the
+paternal home." He looked at it with tenderness,
+following the alley near the stream; he went
+up the steps with a feeling of respect, remembering
+that they had been built by the grandfather to
+whom the house still belonged, as also all the
+grounds except the saw-mill and the timber yard.</p>
+
+<p>After having gone across the entrance hall, which
+extended from the front to the back of the house,
+he opened the last door on the left. The dining-room
+was the only room which had been "done up"
+according to the directions and the taste of M. Joseph
+Oberlé. Whilst one found elsewhere&mdash;in the drawing-room,
+the billiard-room, and the other rooms&mdash;the
+furniture bought by the grandfather, of yellow or
+green Utrecht velvet and mahogany, "My Creation,"
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">56</a></span>
+according to the expression of M. Joseph Oberlé,
+showed a complete absence of line. Colour took
+the place of style. The walls were covered with
+wainscoting of veined maple, blue-grey, purple in
+places, ash-grey, and pink-grey, covering half the
+height of the room. Above this, and reaching to
+the small beams, were four panels of stretched
+cloth, decorated with designs of smooth felt representing
+irises, hollyhocks, verbena, and gladioli.
+Everywhere, as far as possible, the straight line had
+been modified. The door mouldings described curves
+which rambled madly like stalks of tropical bindweed
+without any apparent reason. The framework of
+the large window was curved. The chairs of bent
+beechwood came from Vienna. The whole had
+no character, but a charm of softened light, and a
+remote resemblance to the vegetable kingdom. One
+would have taken it for the dining-room of a newly
+married couple.</p>
+
+<p>The four usual table companions Jean was going to
+meet there hardly corresponded to this joyous picture,
+and there was no harmony between them and the
+decorations of the room. They invariably sat in the
+same places, round the square table, according to
+the established order of deep affinities and antipathies.</p>
+
+<p>The first to the left of the window, the nearest to
+the glass, which shed on her the reflection of its
+levelled edges, was Madame Monica Oberlé, tall and
+slender, with a face that had been rounded and fresh,
+but was now pale, lined, and thin. She gave the
+impression of a being accustomed only to hear
+around her the words "You are wrong." Her short-sighted
+eyes, very gentle, glanced at the guests who
+were introduced to her with a smile always ready to
+withdraw and fade away. They only paused after
+they had looked about for a little time, when nothing
+had repulsed or misunderstood them. Then they
+revealed a clear intelligence, a very kind heart,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">57</a></span>
+become a little shy and sad, but still capable of illusions
+and outbursts of youth. No one could have had a
+more careless youth, nor one that seemed a less
+fitting preparation for the part she had to play later.
+She was then called Monica Biehler, of the ancient
+family Biehler of Obernai. From the top of her
+father's house, whose fortified gable-end rises on the
+ramparts of the little town, she saw the immense
+plain all round her. The garden full of trimmed box
+and pear-trees, and hawthorn, where she played, was
+only separated by an iron railing from the public
+promenade built on the old wall, so that the vision of
+Alsace was printed each day on this child's soul, and
+at the same time love of her country, so happy then&mdash;love
+of its beauty, its peace, and its liberty, of its
+villages, whose names she knew, whose rosy bunches
+of grapes she could have pointed out among the
+harvest fields. Monica Biehler knew nothing else.
+She only left Obernai to go with all the family to
+spend two summer months in the lodge at Heidenbruch,
+in the Forest of Sainte Odile. Only once did
+she happen to cross the Vosges, the year before
+her wedding, to make a pilgrimage to Domrémy in
+Lorraine. Those had been three days full of enthusiasm.
+Madame Oberlé remembered those three days
+as the purest joy of her life. She would say: "My
+journey in France." She had remained simple; she
+had kept, in her very retired life at Alsheim, the easy
+fears, but also the sincerity&mdash;the secret boldness of
+her youthful affection for the country and for the
+country people. She had therefore suffered more
+than another would have done in her place, in seeing
+her husband draw near to the German party in
+Alsace, and finally join it. She had suffered in her
+Alsatian pride, and still more in her maternal love.
+For the same cause which separated her morally from
+her husband, her children were taken from her. The
+lines on her face, faded before its time, could each
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">58</a></span>
+have borne a name, that of the grief which had
+scored them there: the line of despised goodness, the
+line of useless warnings, the line of her insulted
+country, of separation from Jean and Lucienne, of the
+uselessness of the treasure of love she had stored up
+for them during her single and married life.</p>
+
+<p>Her bitterness had been the greater because Madame
+Oberlé had no illusions as to the true motives which
+guided her husband. And this he had divined. He
+was humiliated by this witness whom he could not
+deceive, and whom he could not help esteeming. She
+personified for him the cause which he had abandoned.
+It was to her he spoke when he felt the need of
+justifying himself, and he did so whenever he had the
+chance. It was against her that his anger rose,
+against her mute disapproval. Never once in twenty
+years had he been able to get her to agree&mdash;not by
+one word&mdash;that Alsace was German. This timid
+woman yielded to force but she did not approve of it.
+She followed her husband into German society; there
+she bore herself with such dignity that one could
+neither deceive oneself as to her attitude, nor bear a
+grudge against her for it. There she safeguarded
+more than appearances. A mother, separated from
+her children, she had not separated herself from her
+husband. They still used the twin-bedsteads in the
+same room. They had continual scenes, sometimes
+on one side, sometimes acrimonious and violent on
+both sides. Nevertheless Madame Oberlé understood
+that her husband only hated her clear-sightedness
+and judgment. She hoped she would not always be
+in the wrong. Now that the children were grown up
+she believed that some very important decisions
+would have to be made with regard to them, and
+that by her long patience and by her numerous concessions
+she had perhaps gained the right to speak
+then and be heard.</p>
+
+<p>Near her, and at her right, the grandfather,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">59</a></span>
+M. Philippe Oberlé, had always sat. For some years,
+five minutes before the time of the meal the dining-room
+door would open, the old man would come in,
+leaning on the arm of his valet, trying to walk
+straight, clothed in an anomalous garment of dark
+wool, his red ribbon in his button-hole, his head
+weary and bent, his eyelids nearly closed, his face
+swollen and bloodless. They placed him in a large
+chair with arms upholstered in grey; they tied his
+table napkin round his neck, and he waited, his
+body leaning against the chair-back, his hands on
+the table&mdash;hands pale as wax, in which the knotted
+blue veins were distinctly visible. When the others
+arrived M. Joseph Oberlé shook him by the hand;
+Lucienne threw him a kiss and a number of words
+audibly spoken in her fresh young voice; Madame
+Oberlé bent down and pressed her faithful lips on the
+old man's forehead. He thanked her by watching
+her sit down. He did not look at the others. Then
+he made the sign of the cross, she and he alone, being
+a son of that old Alsace which still prayed. And
+served by this neighbour so silently charitable, who
+knew all his tastes, his shame of a certain clumsiness,
+and who forestalled his wishes, he began to eat,
+slowly, with difficulty moving his relaxed muscles.
+His dreamy head remained leaning against the chair.
+His head alone was watching in a body nearly
+destroyed. It was the theatre where, for the pleasure
+and pain of one alone, there passed before his mental
+vision the forebears of those whose names were
+mentioned before him. He did not speak, but he
+remembered. Sometimes he drew from his pocket a
+schoolboy's slate and pencil, and he wrote, with an
+uncertain writing, two or three words, which he
+made his neighbour read; some rectification, some
+forgotten date, his approval or disapproval to join in
+with the words just spoken on the other side of the
+table. Generally they knew when he was interested
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">60</a></span>
+by the movement of his heavy eyelids. It was only
+for a moment. Life sank again to the depth of the
+prison whose bars she had tried to shake. Night
+closed in once more round those thoughts of his,
+unable to make themselves intelligible. And in spite
+of being accustomed to it, the sight of this suffering
+and of this ruin weighed on each of the members of
+the assembled family. It was less painful to strangers
+who sat for one evening at the Alsheim table, for the
+grandfather on those days did not try to break the
+circle of darkness and death which oppressed him.
+Until these last years M. Joseph Oberlé had always
+continued to present his guests to his father, up to
+the day when he wrote on his slate: "Do not present
+any one to me, above all, no Germans. Let them
+acknowledge my presence: that will be enough."
+The son had kept the habit&mdash;and it was a touching
+thought on the part of this selfish man&mdash;to give
+every evening an account of the business of the
+factory to the old chief. After dinner, smoking in
+the dining-room, while the two women went into
+the drawing-room, he told him all about the day's
+mail, the consignments, and the purchases of wood.
+Although M. Philippe Oberlé was now only the
+sleeping partner of the business he had founded, he
+was under the illusion that he was advising and
+directing still. He heard talk of the maples, pines
+and firs, oaks and beeches among which he had
+breathed for fifty years. He thought much of the
+"conference," as he called it, as the only moment in
+the day in which he appeared himself, to himself, and
+as some one of importance in the lives of others.
+Except for that he was only a shadow, a dumb soul
+present, who judged his house, but rarely gave voice
+to his decision.</p>
+
+<p>His son on some important question disagreed
+with him. Seated at table just opposite his father,
+M. Joseph Oberlé could make a show of addressing
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">61</a></span>
+himself to his wife and daughter only; during the
+whole of the meal he could avoid seeing the fingers
+which moved impatiently or which wrote to Madame
+Oberlé, but he was not the man to keep off painful
+subjects. Like all those who have had to make a
+great decision in their lives, and who have not taken
+it without a profound disturbance of their conscience,
+he was always reverting to the German
+Question. Everything gave him a pretext to begin
+it, praise or blame&mdash;various facts, political events
+announced in the morning's newspaper, a visiting
+card brought by the postman, an order for planks
+received from Hanover or Dresden, the wish expressed
+by Lucienne to accept an invitation to some
+ball. He felt the need of applauding himself for
+what he had done, like defeated generals who want
+to explain the battle, and to demonstrate how the
+force of circumstances had compelled them to act in
+such or such a manner. All the resources of his
+fertile mind were brought to bear on this case of
+conscience, on which he declared himself a long time
+resolute, and which aroused no more discussion, either
+on the part of the sick grandfather or on that of
+the depressed wife, who had decided to keep silence.</p>
+
+<p>Lucienne alone approved and supported her father.</p>
+
+<p>She did it with the decision of youth, which judges
+without consideration the grief of old people, the
+memories and all the charm of the past, without
+understanding, and as if they were dead things to
+be dealt with by reason only. She was only twenty,
+at once very proud and very sincere; she had an
+artless confidence in herself, an impetuous nature,
+and a reputation for beauty only partly justified.
+Tall, like her mother, and, like her, well made, she
+had her father's larger features more conformed to
+the usual Alsatian type&mdash;with a tendency to thicken.
+All the lines of her body were already formed and
+fully developed. To those who saw her for the first
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">62</a></span>
+time, Lucienne Oberlé gave the impression of being
+a young woman rather than a young girl. Her face
+was extremely open and mobile. When she listened,
+her eyes&mdash;not so large as, and of a lighter green than,
+her brother's, her eyes and her mouth equally sharp
+when she smiled&mdash;followed the conversation and told
+her thoughts. She dreamed little. Another charm
+besides the vivacity of her mind explained her social
+success: the incomparable brightness of her complexion,
+of her red lips, the splendour of her fair
+hair, with its shining tresses of blonde and auburn
+intermingled, so abundant and so heavy that it broke
+tortoise-shell combs, escaped from hairpins, and
+hung down behind in a heavy mass and obliged her
+to raise her brow, which was enhaloed by the light
+from it, and gave to Lucienne Oberlé the carriage of
+a proud young goddess.</p>
+
+<p>Her Uncle Ulrich said to her, laughing: "When I
+kiss you, I think I am kissing a peach growing in the
+open air." She walked well; she played tennis well;
+she swam to perfection, and more than once the
+papers of Baden-Baden had printed the initials of
+her name in articles in which they spoke of "our
+best skaters."</p>
+
+<p>This physical education had already alienated her
+from her mother, who had never been more than a
+good walker, and was now only a fair one. But
+other causes had been at work and had separated
+them more deeply and more irrevocably from each
+other. Doubtless it was the entirely German education
+of the Mündner school, more scientific, more
+solemn, more pedantic, more varied, and much less
+pious than that which her mother had received, who
+had been educated partly at Obernai, and partly
+with the nuns of Notre-Dame, in the convent of
+the rue des Mineurs in Strasburg. But above all
+it was owing to the acquaintances she made, and her
+surroundings. Lucienne, ambitious like her father,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">63</a></span>
+like him bent on success, entirely removed from
+maternal influence, entrusted to German mistresses
+for seven years, received in German families, living
+among pupils chiefly German, flattered a little by
+everybody&mdash;here because of the charm of her nature,
+there for political motives and unconscious proselytism,
+Lucienne had formed habits of mind very
+different from those of old Alsace. Once more at
+home, she no longer understood the past of her
+people or her family. For her, those who stood up
+for the old state of things or regretted it&mdash;her mother,
+her grandfather, her uncle Ulrich&mdash;were the representatives
+of an epoch ended, of an unreasonable
+and childish attitude of mind. At once she placed
+herself on her father's side against the others. And
+she suffered from it. It depressed her to be brought
+into such close contact with persons of this sort,
+whom the Mündner school and all her worldly
+acquaintances of Baden-Baden and Strasburg would
+look upon as behind the times. For two years she
+had lived in an atmosphere of contradiction. For
+her family she felt conflicting sentiments; for her
+mother, for example, she felt a true tenderness and
+a great pity because she belonged to a condemned
+society and to another century. She had no confidants.
+Would her brother Jean be one? Restless
+at his arrival, almost a stranger to him, desiring
+affection, worn out with family quarrels, and hoping
+that Jean would place himself on the side she had
+chosen, that he would be a support and a new
+argument, she at once desired and feared this
+meeting. Her father came to tell her of the conversation
+he had had with Jean. She had said&mdash;cried
+out rather&mdash;"Thank you for giving me my brother!"</p>
+
+<p>They were all four at table when the young man
+entered the dining-room. The two women who were
+facing each other and in the light of the window,
+turned their heads, one sweetly with a smile that
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">64</a></span>
+said, "How proud I am of my child!"; the other
+leaning back on her chair, her lips half open, her
+eyes as tender as if he had been her betrothed who
+entered, desirous to please and sure of pleasing him,
+saying aloud: "Come and sit here near me, at the
+end of the table. I have made myself fine in your
+honour! Look!" and kissing him, she said in a low
+tone, "Oh, how good it is to have some one young to
+say good morning to!" She knew she was pleasant
+to look upon in her bodice of mauve surah silk
+trimmed with lace insertion. It also gave her real
+pleasure to meet this brother whom she had only
+seen for a moment last night, before catching the
+train to Strasburg. Jean thanked her with a friendly
+glance and seated himself at the end of the table
+between Lucienne and his mother. He unfolded his
+table napkin, and the servant Victor, son of an Alsatian
+farmer, with his full-moon face and eyes like a little
+girl's, always afraid of doing something wrong, approached
+him, carrying a dish of <i>hors-d'&oelig;uvre</i>, when
+M. Joseph Oberlé, who had just finished writing a
+note in his pocket-book, stroked his whiskers and
+said:</p>
+
+<p>"You see Jean Oberlé here present, you my father,
+you Monica, and you Lucienne. Well, I have a piece
+of news to give you concerning him. I have agreed
+that he shall live definitely at Alsheim and become a
+manufacturer and a wood merchant."</p>
+
+<p>Three faces coloured at once; even Victor, shaking
+like a leaf, withdrew his <i>hors-d'&oelig;uvre</i> dish.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it possible?" said Lucienne, who did not wish
+to let her mother see that she had already been told
+of the arrangement. "Will he not finish his
+referendary course?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"After his year's service he will come back here
+for always?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; to stay with us always."
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">65</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The second moment of emotion is sometimes more
+unnerving than the first. Lucienne's eyelids fluttered
+quickly and became moist. She laughed at the same
+time, tender words trembling on her red lips.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," said she, "so much the better. I don't know
+if it is in your own interest, Jean, but for us, so much
+the better."</p>
+
+<p>She was really pretty at that moment, leaning
+towards her brother, vibrating with a joy which was
+not feigned.</p>
+
+<p>"I thank you," said Madame Oberlé, looking
+gravely at her husband to try to guess what reason
+he had obeyed; "I thank you, Joseph; I should not
+have dared to ask it of you."</p>
+
+<p>"But you see, my dear," answered the manufacturer,
+bending towards her, "you see, when proposals
+are reasonable I accept them. Besides, I am so little
+accustomed to be thanked that for once the word
+pleases me. Yes; we have just had a decisive conversation.
+Jean will accompany my buyer to-morrow
+and visit some of our cuttings in work. I never lose
+time&mdash;you know that."</p>
+
+<p>Madame Oberlé saw the awkward hand of the
+grandfather stretch towards her. She took the slate
+which he held and read this line:</p>
+
+<p>"That is the final joy of my life!"</p>
+
+<p>There was no sign of happiness on this face, expressionless
+as a mask, none, if not perhaps the
+fixedness with which M. Philippe Oberlé looked at
+his son, who had given back a child to Alsace and a
+successor to the family. He was astonished, and he
+rejoiced. He forgot to eat, and all at the table were
+like him. The servant also forgot to serve; he
+was thinking of the importance he would have in
+announcing in the kitchen and in the village:
+"M. Jean has decided to take the factory! He will
+never leave the country again!" For some minutes
+in the dining-room of grey maple each of the four
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">66</a></span>
+persons who met there every day had a different
+dream and passed a secret judgment; each had a
+vision, which was not divulged, of possible or probable
+consequences which the event would have
+relative to him or herself; each felt disturbed at
+the thought that to-morrow might be quite different
+from what had been imagined. Something was
+falling to pieces&mdash;habits, plans, a rule accepted or
+submitted to for years. It was like a disorder, or a
+defeat mixed with joy at the news.</p>
+
+<p>The youngest of all was the first to regain her
+freedom of mind. Lucienne said:</p>
+
+<p>"Are we not going to have lunch because Jean
+lunches with us? My dear, we are just like what we
+were before you came, not every day, but sometimes&mdash;mute
+beings who think only for themselves. That
+is quite contrary to the charms of meeting again.
+We are not going to begin again. Tell me?"</p>
+
+<p>She began to laugh, as if from henceforward misunderstandings
+had disappeared. She joked wittily
+about silent meals, about the parties at Alsheim that
+finished at nine o'clock, the rare visits, and the
+importance of an invitation received from Strasburg.
+And everybody tacitly encouraged her to speak ill of
+the past, abolished by the resolution of this man,
+thoroughly happy, master of himself, who was
+watching and studying his sister with astonished
+admiration.</p>
+
+<p>"Now," she said, "all is going to change. From
+now to October we shall be five instead of four under
+the roof of Alsheim. Then you will do your service;
+but that only lasts a year&mdash;and besides, you will have
+leave?"</p>
+
+<p>"Every Sunday."</p>
+
+<p>"You will sleep here?" asked Madame Oberlé.</p>
+
+<p>"I should think so&mdash;on Saturday nights."</p>
+
+<p>"And a nice uniform. Do you know," continued
+Lucienne, "that Attila tunic, cornflower colour,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">67</a></span>
+braided with yellow, black boots; but above all I
+like the full dress sealskin busby, with its plume of
+black-and-white horsehair&mdash;and the white frogs. It
+is one of the handsomest uniforms in our army."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, one of the handsomest in the German
+army," Madame Oberlé hastened to correct, wishing
+to make amends for the unlucky words of her
+daughter, for the grandfather had made a gesture
+with his hand as if to rub out something from the
+cloth.</p>
+
+<p>M. Joseph Oberlé added, laughing:</p>
+
+<p>"And equally one of the dearest. I am giving you
+a nice present, Jean, in leaving you to choose the
+Rhenish Hussars, No. 9, as your regiment. I shall
+not get off for less than eight thousand marks."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think so? As expensive as that?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am sure of it. Only yesterday, at the Councillor
+Von Boscher's, before two officers, I mentioned the
+amount which I thought exact, and no one contradicted
+me. Officially, the one year's service man
+in the infantry should spend two thousand two
+hundred marks; in reality he spends four thousand.
+In the artillery he should spend two thousand seven
+hundred, and spends five thousand; in the cavalry the
+difference is still more; and when people maintain that
+you can finish the business with three thousand six
+hundred marks they are making fun of you. You
+must reckon seven or eight thousand marks. That is
+what I contend, and what I uphold."</p>
+
+<p>"The regiment is admirably made up, father," interrupted
+Lucienne.</p>
+
+<p>"A good deal of fortune in fact...."</p>
+
+<p>"A good deal of nobility also, mixed with the sons
+of the rich manufacturers on the banks of the Rhine."</p>
+
+<p>A quick smile of intelligence passed between
+Lucienne and her father. Jean was the only one
+who noticed it. Scarcely had the young girl had
+time to straighten her lips when she said:
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">68</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"The volunteer places in the regiment are taken
+up so quickly that it is necessary to apply early in
+order to get one."</p>
+
+<p>"I spoke to your colonel three months ago," said
+M. Oberlé. "You will be recommended to several of
+the chiefs."</p>
+
+<p>Lucienne chimed in giddily:</p>
+
+<p>"You will be able to bring some here; it would be
+amusing!"</p>
+
+<p>Jean did not answer. Madame Oberlé blushed, as
+she often did when a word too much had been said
+before her. Lucienne was laughing again, when the
+grandfather stopped eating, and painfully, by jerks,
+each of which must have been painful, turned his sad,
+white head towards his grand-daughter. The eyes of
+the old Alsatian must have spoken a language very
+easy to translate, for the young girl ceased laughing,
+made a gesture of impatience as if she said, "Oh!
+I did not remember that you were here," and bent
+towards her father to offer him some Wolxheim wine,
+but really to escape the reproach she felt weighing
+on her.</p>
+
+<p>The three others, M. Joseph Oberlé, Jean, and his
+mother, as if they were agreed not to prolong the
+incident, began to talk of the service, men at the
+St. Nicolas barracks, but hurriedly, multiplying their
+words and their signs of interest with useless gestures.</p>
+
+<p>No one dared raise his head in the direction of the
+grandfather. M. Philippe Oberlé continued to stare
+with his look as implacable as remorse, at his grand-daughter,
+guilty of a giddy and regrettable speech.
+The meal was shortened owing to the general awkwardness,
+which had become almost unbearable, when
+M. Philippe Oberlé, begged by his daughter-in-law to
+forget what Lucienne had said, had answered "No,"
+and refused to eat further.</p>
+
+<p>Ten minutes later, Lucienne went into the alleys of
+the park, to rejoin her brother, who had gone out
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">69</a></span>
+before and was lighting a cigar. Hearing her approach
+behind him, he turned round. She was no longer
+laughing. She had put on no hat, in spite of the
+wind, which disarranged her hair; but having thrown
+a shawl of white wool round her shoulders, no longer
+trying to charm but become all at once passionate and
+domineering, she ran up to him.</p>
+
+<p>"You saw it? It is intolerable!"</p>
+
+<p>Jean lit his cigar, clasping his hands to protect the
+lighted match, then throwing away the glowing vesta.</p>
+
+<p>"Without doubt, but one must learn to put up with
+it, little one."</p>
+
+<p>"There is no little one," she interrupted quickly,
+"there is a grown-up one, on the contrary, who
+wants to have a clear explanation with you. We
+have been separated for a long time, my dear, we
+must learn to know each other, for I hardly know you
+and you do not know me. I am going to help you&mdash;don't
+be afraid&mdash;I came for that."</p>
+
+<p>He had a look of admiration for this fine creature
+violently moved, who had deliberately come to him;
+then, without losing his calmness, feeling that his
+part and his man's honour commanded him to be
+judge and not to get excited in his turn, he began
+to walk along by the side of Lucienne, in the alley
+which ran between a clump of trees on one side and
+the lawn on the other.</p>
+
+<p>"You can speak to me, Lucienne&mdash;you may be
+sure...."</p>
+
+<p>"Of your discretion? I thank you. I do not want
+any this morning. I came simply to explain to you
+my way of thinking on a certain point, and I am not
+going to make any mystery about it. I repeat that
+it is intolerable. You may say nothing here about
+Germany or the Germans, if it is not something bad.
+As soon as one has a word of praise or only of justice
+for them mamma bites her lips, and grandfather
+makes a disgraceful scene and shames me in front of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">70</a></span>
+the servants, as happened just now. Is it a crime to
+say to a volunteer: 'You will bring us some officers
+to Alsheim'? Can we prevent you serving your
+turn in a German regiment, in a German town, commanded
+by officers who, in spite of being Germans,
+are not the less men of the world?"</p>
+
+<p>She walked nervously, and with her right hand
+twisted a gold chain which she wore on her mauve
+bodice.</p>
+
+<p>"If you knew, Jean, what I have suffered by this
+want of liberty in the house, to find our parents so
+different from what they have had us trained to be.
+For I ask, why did they give it to me?"</p>
+
+<p>The young man took the cigar he was smoking
+from his lips:</p>
+
+<p>"Our education, Lucienne? It was only our father
+who wished it."</p>
+
+<p>"He alone is intelligent."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, how can you speak like that of your
+mother?"</p>
+
+<p>"Understand clearly," she answered, embarrassed.
+"I am not of those who hide one half of their
+thoughts and who make the others unrecognisable
+because of the flowery language they are wrapped up
+in. I love mamma very much more than you think,
+but I judge her also. She is possessed of intelligence
+as regards household affairs; she is refined; she has
+some little taste for literature, but she cannot deal intelligently
+with general questions. She does not see
+farther than Alsheim. My father has understood far
+better the position which is given us in Alsace; he
+has been enlightened by his intercourse, which is very
+wide and of all kinds, by his commercial interest and
+by his ambition...."</p>
+
+<p>And as Jean made a questioning movement:
+"What ambition do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>Lucienne continued:
+"I surprise you; yes, for a young girl, as you said,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">71</a></span>
+I seem audacious and even irreverent. Is it not
+true?"</p>
+
+<p>"A little."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear Jean, I am only anticipating your own
+judgment&mdash;only hindering you from losing time in
+comparative psychological studies. You have just
+come home, I left school two years and a half ago.
+I am letting you benefit by my experience. Well,
+there is no doubt about it: our father is ambitious.
+He has all that is necessary for success. A will
+of iron for his inferiors, much flexibility <i>vis-ŕ-vis</i>
+others, wealth, a quickness of mind which makes
+him the superior of all the manufacturers or German
+officials we meet here. I prophesy you that now that
+he is in favour with the Stadthalter you will not
+be long in seeing him a candidate for the Reichstag."</p>
+
+<p>"That is impossible, Lucienne."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps; but it will come to pass, nevertheless;
+I am sure of it. I do not say that he will stand for
+Obernai, but for some place in Alsace, and he will be
+elected, because he will be supported by the Government
+and he will settle the price.... Perhaps you did
+not give this a place in your calculations when you
+decided to return to Alsheim? I know I upset your
+ideas. You will have many such disturbances. What
+you must know, my dear Jean"&mdash;she laid stress on the
+word "dear"&mdash;"is that the home of the family is not
+an amusing one. We are irremediably divided."</p>
+
+<p>Jean and Lucienne were silent for a moment,
+because the lodge was quite near; then they turned
+towards the lawn and took the second alley, which led
+to the house.</p>
+
+<p>"Irremediably? You believe this?"</p>
+
+<p>"It would be childish to doubt it. My father will
+not change and will not become French again,
+because that would be to give up his future for ever,
+and many commercial advantages. Mamma will not
+change, because she is a woman, and because to
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">72</a></span>
+become a German would be to give up a sentiment
+which she thinks very noble. You surely do not
+aim at converting grandfather? Well then?"</p>
+
+<p>She stopped and faced Jean.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, my dear, as you cannot bring peace into
+the family by gentleness, bring it by being strong.
+Do not imagine you can remain neutral. Even if
+you would, circumstances will not permit it. I am
+sure of that. Join with me and father, even if you
+do not think as we do in everything.</p>
+
+<p>"I have sought you out to implore you to be on
+our side. When mamma understands that her two
+children think her wrong she will defend her childhood's
+memories less energetically; she will advise
+grandfather to abstain from demonstrations like those
+of to-day, and our meals will be less like combats
+at close quarters. We shall command the situation.
+It is all that we can hope for. Will you? Papa told
+me, quickly this morning, that your tenderness for
+the Germans was not a lively one. But you do not
+hate them?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"I only ask for tolerance and a certain amount of
+consideration for them&mdash;that is to say, for us who
+see them. You have lived ten years in Germany;
+you will continue to do here what you did there.
+You will not leave the drawing-room when one of
+them comes to see us?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course not. But you see, Lucienne, even if I
+act differently from mamma, because my education
+has made me put up with what is odious to her, I
+cannot blame her. I can find the most touching
+reasons why she should be what she is."</p>
+
+<p>"Touching?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"I find them unreasonable."</p>
+
+<p>Jean's green eyes and Lucienne's lighter ones
+questioned one another for a moment. The two
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">73</a></span>
+young people, both grave, with an expression of
+astonishment and defiance, measured each other and
+thought: "Is it she I saw just now so smiling and
+so tender?" "Is it really he who resists me, a
+brother brought up like me, and who ought to yield
+to me, if it were only because I am young and he
+is glad to see me again?" She was displeased.
+This first meeting had placed in opposition the
+paternal violence which Lucienne had inherited and
+the inflexible will which the mother had transmitted
+to her son. It was Lucienne who broke the silence.
+She turned to continue the walk, and shaking her
+head:</p>
+
+<p>"I see," she said. "You imagine that you will
+have a confidante in mamma, a friend to whom you
+can open your heart fully? She is worthy of all
+respect, my dear. But there again you are mistaken.
+I have tried. She is, or thinks she is, too miserable.
+All you tell her will immediately serve her as an
+argument in her own quarrel. If you wished, for
+example, to marry a German&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No, no; but no."</p>
+
+<p>"I am only supposing. Mamma would go at once
+to find my father, and would say to him: 'Look at
+this! It is horrible! It is your fault! Yours!'
+And if you wished to marry an Alsatian our mother
+would at once take advantage of it and say: 'He
+is on my side, against you, against you.' No, my
+dear, the real, true confidante at Alsheim is Lucienne."</p>
+
+<p>She took Jean's hand, and without ceasing to walk
+she looked up at him, her face beaming with life and
+youthfulness.</p>
+
+<p>"Believe me, let us be frank with each other.
+You do not know me well. You have travelled so
+much. I astonish you. You will see that I have
+great faults. I am proud and selfish, hardly capable
+of making sacrifices; something of a flirt, but I have
+no roundabout ways. Lately, when I was looking
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">74</a></span>
+forward to your arrival, I promised myself a lasting
+joy, the joy of having your youth near mine to
+understand it. I will tell you all that is important
+in my life, all that I am resolved to do&mdash;I have no
+one here whom I can trust absolutely. You cannot
+know what I have suffered. Will you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes."</p>
+
+<p>"You will tell me your thoughts, but above all I
+shall have spoken to you. I shall not suffocate, as
+I have often done in this house. I shall have many
+things to tell you. It will be some way of regaining
+the intimacy we have almost lost, and will give us a
+little tardy fraternal companionship. What are you
+thinking about?"</p>
+
+<p>"About this poor house."</p>
+
+<p>Lucienne lifted her eyes above the slate roof which
+rose in front. She wished to say, "If you knew how
+sad it really is," then she embraced her brother, and
+said:</p>
+
+<p>"I am not so bad as you think me, brother, nor
+so ungrateful to mamma. I am going to find her to
+talk about your return. She certainly wants to
+speak of her happiness to some one."</p>
+
+<p>Lucienne left her brother, turning again to smile
+at him, and walking as a goddess might, with steps free
+and finely poised, with her hand replacing the pins
+which held up her hair so badly, disarranged as it
+was by the walk and blown about by the wind, she
+took the fifty steps which separated her from the
+staircase, and disappeared.</p>
+
+<p class="p4"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">75</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER IV</h2>
+
+<p class="center font95"><b>THE GUARDIANS OF THE HEARTH</b></p>
+
+<p class="p2">When Lucienne left Jean he had turned round the
+house, crossed a semicircular court formed by
+stables and coach-houses, then a large kitchen-garden
+surrounded by walls, and opening a private
+door at the end on the right he found himself in the
+country, behind the village of Alsheim. His first
+joy at his return had already lessened and faded.
+He heard again sentences which had sunk into the
+depths of his soul; their very accent came back to
+him with the appearance and the gesture of the one
+who had uttered them.</p>
+
+<p>He thought of the "sad house" there quite close
+to the wall which enclosed the grounds, and it
+pained him to remember what an entirely different
+idea he had formed years ago of the welcome which
+awaited him at Alsheim, and the almost religious
+emotion he had felt far away, in the towns and on
+the roads of Europe and the East, when he thought,
+"My mother, my father, my sister! My first day at
+home after my father has said yes!" The first day
+had begun. It had not been, up to the present,
+worthy of this old-time dream.</p>
+
+<p>Even the weather was bad. Before him the plain
+of Alsace, smooth, scarcely marked with some lines
+of trees, stretched out to the foot of the Vosges,
+covered with forests which made their height appear
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">76</a></span>
+less than it was. The north wind, blowing from
+the sea, filling all the valley with its continuous
+wailing, chased the dark clouds from the sky, broken
+and heaped together like furrows in fields, clouds
+full of rain and hail, which would dissolve in
+compact masses to fall in the south, on the side of
+the Alps. It was cold.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile Jean Oberlé, having looked to the left,
+from the side where the land declined a little,
+perceived the avenue ending in a little wood, which
+he had seen in the morning, and he felt again that
+his youth called to <i>her</i>. He made sure no one
+was watching him from the windows of his home,
+and he took the path which turned round the
+village.</p>
+
+<p>It was really only a track traced by people going
+to, and coming from work. It followed very nearly
+the zigzag line made by the sheds, the pig-styes,
+the stables, the barns, the low boundaries commanded
+by the manure-heaps, fowl-houses, all the back buildings
+of the dwellings of Alsheim, which had on the
+other side, on the road, their principal façade, or at
+least a white wall, a cart-door, and a great mulberry-tree
+overflowing the edge of it. The young man
+walked quietly on the beaten track. He passed the
+church which, almost in the centre of Alsheim, raised
+its square tower, surmounted by a slate roof in the
+form of a steeple, with a metal point, and came to the
+centre of a group of four enormous walnut-trees,
+serving as landmarks, as ornament and shelter to
+the last farm in the village. There began the
+property of M. Xavier Bastian, the mayor of Alsheim,
+the old friend of M. Joseph Oberlé, a man of
+influence, rich and patriotic, and to whose house
+Jean was going. The sound of flails could be heard
+in the neighbouring yard. It must be the fine, big
+sons of the Ramspacher, the Bastians' tenants. One
+had served his time in the German army, the other
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">77</a></span>
+was going to join his regiment in the month of
+November. They were threshing under the barn in
+the old style. Every autumn, every winter, when
+the miller's store of corn diminished, and when the
+weather was bad outside, they spread out some
+sheaves in the shelter, and their flails struck
+blithely and galloped like colts let loose in high
+grass. Nothing had stopped the tradition.</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't my Alsheim old?" said Jean to himself.
+Although he was very anxious not to be recognised,
+he approached the latticed door which opened on to
+the fields on this side, and if he did not see the
+workers, hidden by an unharnessed cart, he saw
+again with a friendly smile the yard of the old farm,
+a kind of road bordered with buildings which were
+only apparently framework with a little earth between
+the wooden beams, a demonstration of the everlasting
+strength of the chestnut which had furnished the
+jambs, the raising pieces, the wooden balconies, and
+the framework of the windows. No one heard him,
+no one saw him. He went on his way and his heart
+began to beat violently. For immediately after the
+farm of the Ramspachers, the path fell, at right
+angles, to an avenue of cherry-trees leading from the
+village to the house of M. Bastian. It was not
+probable that in this bad weather the Mayor would
+be far from home. In a few moments Jean would
+speak with him; he would meet Odile; he would find
+some means of knowing if she were betrothed.</p>
+
+<p>Odile. All Jean's early childhood was full of that
+name. The daughter of M. Bastian had formerly
+been the playfellow of Lucienne and of Jean when
+the evolution of M. Oberlé had not been affirmed and
+known in the country-side; a little later she had
+become the charming vision which Jean saw again
+at the Munich Gymnasium when he thought of
+Alsheim; the young, growing girl, whom one saw
+in the holidays, on Sundays in church, whom one
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">78</a></span>
+saluted without approaching when Monsieur or
+Madame Oberlé were present, but also the passer-by
+of the grape harvest and of the woods, and the walker
+who had a smile for Lucienne or for Jean met at the
+turn of a road. What secret enchantment did this
+girl of Alsheim possess, brought up entirely in the
+country, except for two or three years passed with
+the nuns of Notre-Dame in Strasburg, not worldly&mdash;less
+brilliant than Lucienne, more silent and more
+grave? The same, no doubt, as the country where
+she was born. Jean had left her, as he had left
+Alsace, without being able to forget her. He had
+forbidden himself to see her during his last short
+stay in Alsheim, in order to prove himself and to
+find out if truly the memory of Odile would resist a
+long separation, studies, and travels. He had thought:
+"If she marries in the interval, it will be a proof that
+she has never thought of me, and I shall not weep
+for her." She had not married. Nothing showed
+that she was engaged. And certainly Jean was
+going to see her again.</p>
+
+<p>He preferred not to go down the wild cherry
+avenue, celebrated for its beauty, which guarded the
+Bastians' property. The people of the little town,
+the few workers in the neighbouring country, although
+they were few, would have recognised the manufacturer's
+son going to the Mayor of Alsheim's. He
+followed the trimmed blackthorn hedge, which
+bounded the alley, walking on the red earth or on
+the narrow border of grass left by the plough at the
+edge of the ditch. Behind him the noise of the flails
+in the barn followed him, fading in the distance and
+scattered by the wind. Jean asked himself: "How
+shall I approach M. Bastian? How will he receive
+me? Bah! I arrive; I am supposed to be ignorant
+of much!"</p>
+
+<p>Two hundred yards to the south of the farm the
+avenue of wild cherries ended, and the grove, which
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">79</a></span>
+one saw from so far off, bordered the sown fields. The
+wood was composed of fine old trees, oaks, planes, and
+elms, at this time bare of leaves&mdash;under which evergreen
+trees had grown up: pines, spindletrees, and
+laurels. Jean continued to follow the hedge as it
+curved across a field of lucerne to a rustic gate, with
+worn paint and half rotten, which rose between two
+jambs. A piece of sandstone thrown across the
+ditch served as a bridge. The laurel-trees growing
+out over the fence of blackthorn on each side of the
+upright posts, closed in the view at two yards. When
+Jean came near, a blackbird flew off, uttering a
+warning note. Jean remembered that to enter one
+had only to pass one's hand through the hedge and
+to lift an iron hook. So he opened the door, and, a
+little uneasy at his audacity, grazed from his coat to
+his gaiters by the overgrown branches of an alley
+far too narrow and hardly ever entered, he came
+out on to a sanded space, passed several clumps of
+shrubs edged with box, and arrived at the house on the
+far side from Alsheim. Here there were plane-trees
+more than a hundred years old, planted in a semi-circle,
+which sheltered a tiny lawn and spread their
+branches over the tiles of an old, low, squat house,
+from which two balconies projected, topped with
+overhanging roofs. Store-rooms, presses, barns, and
+a bee-hive formed the continuation of the master's
+house, where abundance, good nature, and the
+simplicity of the old Alsatian homely spirit were in
+evidence. Jean, kept back for a moment by the
+irresistible attraction of these places, once so familiar
+to him, looked at the plane-trees, the roof, a window
+with a balcony on which ivy grew. He was going
+to take the few steps which separated him from the
+half-open door, when on the threshold a tall man
+appeared, and recognising the visitor made a sign of
+surprise. It was M. Xavier Bastian. No man of
+sixty years of age in the division of Erstein was
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">80</a></span>
+more robust or of a more youthful turn of mind. He
+had wide shoulders, a massive head, as wide below as
+above, quite white hair, divided in short locks overlapping
+each other, his cheeks and the upper lip
+shaven, the nose large, the eyes fine and grey, the
+mouth thickset, and on his countenance the sort of
+prepossessing pride of those who have never known
+fear of anything. He wore the long frock-coat to
+which many notable Alsatians remained faithful,
+even in the villages such as Alsheim, where the
+inhabitants have no special costume or any memory
+of having had any.</p>
+
+<p>Seeing Jean Oberlé, whom he had often dandled on
+his knees, he made a movement of surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it you, my boy?" he said, in the dialect of
+Alsace, which he mostly used, and with which he
+was more familiar than with French. "What has
+happened to bring you here?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing, M. Bastian, if not that I have just come
+home."</p>
+
+<p>He held out his hand to the old Alsatian, who took
+it, pressed it, and suddenly lost that gaiety which
+had been in his welcome, for he thought: "It is now
+ten years since your father last came here, ten years
+that your family and mine have been enemies." But
+he only said, in answer to himself, and as if doing
+away with an objection:</p>
+
+<p>"Come in all the same, Jean; there is no harm for
+once."</p>
+
+<p>But the gladness of the first meeting was gone, and
+did not return.</p>
+
+<p>"How did you know that I was on your land?"
+asked Jean, who did not understand. "Did you
+hear me?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; I heard the blackbird. I thought it was my
+servant, whom I have sent to Obernai to get the
+lamps of my victoria mended. Come into the hall."</p>
+
+<p>He thought, with a feeling of regret and reprobation:
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">81</a></span>
+"As your father used to come in when he was
+worthy."</p>
+
+<p>In the corridor to the left he opened a door, and
+both went into the "big room," which was at the
+same time the dining-room and the reception-room of
+this rich citizen, heir of lands and of the traditions of
+a long series of ancestors, who had only left the house
+at Alsheim for the cemetery. Nearly all the picturesque
+furniture which one still meets with in the
+old houses of rural Alsace had disappeared from the
+dwelling of M. Bastian. No more carved cupboards;
+no more chairs of solid wood, with the backs
+cut in the shape of hearts; no clock in its painted
+case; no more little weights at the windows. The few
+chairs in the big, square, light hall, the table, the
+cupboard, and the big chest, on the top of which was
+the cast of a Pietŕ not known to fame, were all of
+polished walnut. The only thing that was old was
+the historical stove of faience, bearing the signature
+of Master Hugelin of Strasburg, and of which
+M. Bastian was as proud as if it had been a treasure.
+About two-thirds down the room, between the stove
+and the table, a woman of about fifty was sitting,
+dressed in black, rather stout, having regular, thick
+features, bands of grey hair, the forehead almost
+without lines, fine long eyebrows, and eyes as dark
+as if she had come from the south, calm and dignified,
+which she lifted first to Jean and then to her husband
+as if to ask, "How does he come here?"</p>
+
+<p>She was sewing the hem of an unbleached linen
+sheet, which fell about her in big folds. Seeing Jean
+enter, she dropped it. She remained dumb with
+surprise, not understanding how her husband could
+bring to her the son, educated in Germany, of a
+renegade father, traitor to Alsace. During the war
+she had had three brothers killed in the service of
+France.</p>
+
+<p>"I met him coming to see me," M. Bastian said, as
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">82</a></span>
+if to excuse himself, "and I begged him to enter,
+Marie."</p>
+
+<p>"Good day, madame," said the young man, who
+was hurt by the astonishment and coolness of
+Madame Bastian's first glance, and who had stopped
+in the middle of the hall. "Old memories brought
+me here."</p>
+
+<p>"Good day, Jean."</p>
+
+<p>The words died away before reaching the walls,
+papered with old peonies. One could hardly hear
+them. The silence which followed was so cruel that
+Jean grew pale, and M. Bastian, who had shut the
+door, and who, a little behind Jean, was scolding
+gently, with a shake of the head, those beautiful,
+severe eyes of the Alsatian woman, which did not
+lower themselves, intervened, saying:</p>
+
+<p>"I have not told you, Marie, that I saw our friend
+Ulrich this morning in our vineyards of Sainte Odile.
+He spoke to me of this boy's return to Alsheim. He
+assured me that we ought to congratulate ourselves
+that we are going to see his nephew settle in the
+country. He told me that he was one of ours."</p>
+
+<p>The silent lips of the Alsatian wore a vague smile
+of incredulity, which died as the words died. And
+Madame Bastian again began to sew.</p>
+
+<p>Jean turned round, pale, as yet more miserable
+than irritated, and said in a low voice to M. Bastian:</p>
+
+<p>"I knew that our two families were divided, but
+not to such an extent as they evidently are. I left
+Alsheim some time ago. You will excuse me for
+having come."</p>
+
+<p>"Stay, stay! I will explain to you. Believe me
+that we have nothing against you, no animosity
+whatever, neither one nor the other."</p>
+
+<p>The old man placed his hand on Jean's arm in a
+friendly manner:</p>
+
+<p>"I do not want you to go like that. No; since you
+are here I will not let you say that I have sent you
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">83</a></span>
+away without doing the honours. The thought would
+weigh heavy on me. I will not!"</p>
+
+<p>"No, M. Bastian, I ought not to be here. I am in
+the way; I cannot stay one instant."</p>
+
+<p>He moved to go away. The solid hand of the old
+Mayor of Alsheim fastened round the wrist he held.
+His voice rose and became harsh.</p>
+
+<p>"Presently. But do not at least refuse the civility
+I am accustomed to show to all who come here. It is
+the custom of the country and of the house. Drink
+with me, Jean Oberlé, or I shall repudiate you, and
+we shall not even recognise each other."</p>
+
+<p>Jean remembered that no house in the country
+round Barr or Obernai, not even the oldest and
+richest, possessed better recipes for making beam-tree-berry
+brandy or cherry brandy, or elderberry
+wine, or wine made with dried grapes, or spring
+drinks. He saw that the old Mayor of Alsheim
+would be deeply hurt by a refusal, and that the offer
+was a means of showing his cordiality without disavowing
+in words, or in thought, the mother, queen,
+and mistress of the big house, who continued to
+ignore the guest, because the guest was the son of
+Joseph Oberlé.</p>
+
+<p>"So be it," he said.</p>
+
+<p>Then M. Bastian called, "Odile!"</p>
+
+<p>The hands that held the linen, near the stove,
+rested on the folds of her black dress, and for half a
+minute there were three human beings, each with
+very different thoughts, who awaited her who was
+going to enter at the end of the room, on the right,
+near the great walnut cupboard. She came out of
+the shadow of a neighbouring room and advanced
+into the light, while Jean controlled his feelings and
+was saying to himself, "I did well to remember her!"</p>
+
+<p>"Give me the oldest brandy that we have," said
+the father.</p>
+
+<p>Odile Bastian had at first smiled at her father,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">84</a></span>
+whom she saw near the door, then she had, with a
+movement of her brown eyebrows, shown her
+astonishment, without displeasure, when she recognised
+Jean Oberlé near him; then the smile had
+disappeared when she saw her mother, bending over
+her work-table, dumb and holding herself aloof from
+what was going on around her. Then her bosom
+heaved, the words she was going to say were arrested
+before reaching her lips; and Odile Bastian, too
+intelligent not to guess the affront, too much a
+woman to emphasise the secret trouble, had simply
+and silently obeyed. She had sought a key in the
+drawer of a chest, had gone to the big cupboard, and
+raising herself on the tips of her toes, one hand
+leaning on one of the doors at the top of the piece of
+furniture, her head thrown back, she ransacked the
+depths of the hiding-place.</p>
+
+<p>She was just the same girl, but more developed,
+who had lived in Jean's memory for years, and who
+had followed him over the world. Her features were
+not regular. But in spite of that she was beautiful,
+with a strong, glowing beauty. She seemed like the
+statues of Alsace, which one sees on monuments and
+in French souvenir pictures, like those daughters of
+rich and warlike blood, wrathful and daring, while
+near them a more feminine Lorraine weeps sadly.
+She was tall; there were no hollows in her full cheeks,
+curving to a chin as firm and pink. It is true she
+did not wear the wide bows of black ribbon which
+make two wings on the head, but that only accentuated
+the unusual, the exceptional beauty of her
+hair, which was of the colour of ripe corn, of a
+perfectly dull, even tint, bound in bands round her
+temples and there twisted and raised on her head.
+Her eyebrows were of the same colour, long and
+finely marked, and the lashes, and even the eyes,
+slightly apart, where dwelt a soul at rest, were deep
+and passionate. In a moment M. Bastian had on a
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">85</a></span>
+stand two glasses of cut crystal and a big-bellied
+black bottle. He took the bottle in one hand and
+with the other he drew out, without shaking it, a
+cork which swelled out as it left the neck, being
+damp as sapwood in spring time. At the same time
+a smell of ripe fruit was diffused under the beams of
+the room.</p>
+
+<p>"It is fifty years old," said he, pouring a little of
+the liqueur into each of the glasses.</p>
+
+<p>He added seriously, "I drink to your health, Jean
+Oberlé, and to your return to Alsheim!"</p>
+
+<p>But Jean, without answering directly, and with
+every one silent, and looking at Odile, who had withdrawn
+to the cupboard, and who, standing erect
+against it, was also looking at and studying her old
+playfellow returned to his native country, said:</p>
+
+<p>"I drink to the land of Alsace!"</p>
+
+<p>By the tone of the words, by the gesture of the
+hand raising the little sparkling glass, by the look
+fixed on the end of the room, some one understood
+that the land of Alsace was here personified and
+present. The tall, beautiful daughter of the Bastians
+remained motionless, leaning against the cupboard,
+which framed her in its yellowish shadow. But her
+eyes had the brightness that wheat has when it
+waves at a breath of wind in the sunshine, and without
+turning her head, without ceasing to look
+straight in front of her, her eyelids slowly lowered
+and shut, saying thank you!</p>
+
+<p>And that was all.</p>
+
+<p>Madame Bastian had not even looked up. Odile
+had said not a word&mdash;Jean bowed and went out.</p>
+
+<p>The old Mayor of Alsheim rejoined him outside.</p>
+
+<p>"I will go with you to the other end of my garden,"
+he said, "for it is better for us&mdash;for you&mdash;and for
+your father, that you should not be seen coming down
+the avenue. You will seem to be coming from the
+fields."
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">86</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"What a strange country this has become!" said
+the young man in an angry tone. "Because you do
+not hold the same opinions as my father you cannot
+receive me, and when I leave you I must do so
+secretly, and after having had to submit to the insult
+of a silence which was hard to bear. I can tell you
+that!"</p>
+
+<p>He spoke loudly enough to be heard from the
+house, from which he was only a few steps away.
+The usual paleness of his complexion was more
+noticeable, and emotion contracted the muscles of
+his neck and jaws, and all his face had a tragic
+expression.</p>
+
+<p>M. Bastian led him on.</p>
+
+<p>"I have another reason for taking you that way,"
+he said, "it will be longer, and I have things to
+explain to you."</p>
+
+<p>They took a path that was not gravelled, which
+went by the plane-trees, passed a kitchen garden and
+then crossed a little wood.</p>
+
+<p>"You do not understand, dear boy," said M. Bastian,
+in a voice which was firm without being harsh,
+"because you have not yet really lived among us. It
+has not changed; what you see dates back for thirty
+years."</p>
+
+<p>Through an opening in the trees they saw a little
+bit of the plain, with the belfry of Barr in the distance,
+and the blue Vosges mountains above and
+beyond.</p>
+
+<p>"Formerly," continued M. Bastian, pointing vaguely
+to the country, "our Alsace was just one family.
+Big and little knew each other and lived happily
+together. You know that even now I make no
+difference between rich and poor, between a citizen of
+Strasburg and a wood-cutter from the mountain.
+But what is done is done&mdash;we have been torn away,
+against our will, from France, and treated brutally
+because we did not say 'Yes.' We cannot revolt&mdash;we
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">87</a></span>
+cannot drive away our masters, who know nothing
+about our hearts or our lives. But we do not admit
+them to our friendship, neither them nor those amongst
+us who have taken the side of the stronger."</p>
+
+<p>He stopped speaking for a moment, not wishing to
+say all that he thought on this subject, and went on,
+taking Jean's hand.</p>
+
+<p>"You are very angry with my wife because of her
+reception of you; but you are not the cause of it,
+neither is she. Until the doubt which rests on you is
+lifted, you are he who was educated in Germany,
+and the woman you have just seen is this country.
+Reflect&mdash;you must not bear a grudge against her.
+We have not all been faithful to Alsace, we men; and
+the best of us have compromised and have more or
+less recognised the new master. Not so the women&mdash;Ah!
+Jean Oberlé, I have not the courage to disclaim
+them even when you whom I love so well are the
+subject. Our Alsatian women are not insulting you
+in any ordinary way when they do not receive you;
+they are defending their country, they are carrying
+on the war." The old man had tears in his red and
+wrinkled eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"You will know me later," said Jean.</p>
+
+<p>They were at the end of the little park before a
+wooden door as mouldy as the other. M. Bastian
+opened it, shook the young man's hand and stayed a
+long time at the end of the wood watching Jean go
+away and get smaller on the plain, his head bent
+against the wind, which was still blowing, and more
+violently.</p>
+
+<p>Jean was troubled to the depth of his soul.</p>
+
+<p>Between him and each family in this old country
+he felt he was going to find his father. He was
+suffering from having been born in the house towards
+which he was going. He saw the image of Odile as
+the only sweet thing of this first day, and her eyes
+were slowly, slowly closing.</p>
+
+<p class="p4"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">88</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER V</h2>
+
+<p class="center font95"><b>COMPANIONS OF THE ROAD</b></p>
+
+<p class="p2">The winter did not allow M. Oberlé's ideas about the
+professional education of Jean to be carried out
+exactly. The snow which remained on the summits
+of the Vosges, without being thick, made travelling
+very difficult. So Jean paid only two or three visits
+to the wood-cutting centres situated near Alsheim
+and in the Vosges valleys. The excursions to more
+distant places were put off for a warmer season. But
+he learned to cube a pine or a beech without making
+a mistake, to value it according to the place it occupied
+in the forest, according to the height of the
+trunk below the branches, the appearance of the
+bark, which indicated the health of the tree, and by
+other calculations into which a kind of divining
+quality enters, which cannot be taught anywhere,
+and which makes the expert. His father initiated
+him into the working of the factory and the management
+of the machines, the reading of agreements, and
+the traditions of fifty years kept up by the Oberlés
+regarding sale and carriage contracts. He put him
+into relationship with two officials of the administration
+of the forests of Strasburg, who showed
+themselves very ready to be of service, and proposed
+to Jean to explain to him personally the
+new forest legislation, of which he still knew but
+little. "Come," said the younger, "come to see me
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">89</a></span>
+at my office, and I will tell you more things you will
+find it useful to know than you will learn in books.
+For the law is the law, but the administration is
+another thing."</p>
+
+<p>Jean promised to profit when occasions offered
+themselves. But several weeks went by without his
+having the time to go to the town. Then March
+came in mildly and melted the snows. In a week,
+and much earlier than usual, the brooks swelled to
+overflowing, and the high peaks of the Vosges and
+Sainte Odile which one could see from Alsheim, which
+had had their slopes and paths white with snow,
+appeared in their summer robes of dark and pale
+green.</p>
+
+<p>The walks round Alsheim were going to be exquisite
+and such as the young man had pictured to himself in
+his youthful memories. The home, without being a
+model of family unity, had witnessed no repetition of
+the painful scene which occurred the day after Jean's
+return. In each camp words were noted and deeds
+observed, which would one day become arguments
+and subjects of reproach and discussion, but just now
+there was a sort of truce brought about by different
+causes.</p>
+
+<p>In M. Joseph Oberlé it was the desire not to be
+wrong in his son's eyes; for his son was going to be
+useful, and he did not wish to be accused of provocation.
+In Lucienne it was the diversion which the
+presence of her brother had brought into her life,
+and the interest, not yet exhausted, that she took in
+his tales of travel and student life. In Madame Oberlé
+it was fear of making her son suffer, and of alienating
+him by letting him see the family feuds. Nothing
+had really changed. There was only a superficial
+gaiety, an appearance of peace, a truce. But although
+Jean felt that the agreement of the hearts and minds
+around him was not real, he enjoyed it because he
+had spent long years in moral solitude.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">90</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The worries and clashing of interests came from
+elsewhere, and were not wanting. Nearly every day
+Jean had occasion to go through the village of Alsheim,
+which was built on each side of three roads forming
+a fork, the handle of which was the mountain side,
+and the two prongs towards the plain. At the bifurcation
+was the tavern, the Swan, which took up a
+corner of the church square. A little farther on,
+on the left road leading to Bernhardsweiler, dwelt the
+German workmen engaged by M. Joseph Oberlé, and
+lodged in little houses all alike, each with a little
+garden in front. So that in whatever part of Alsheim
+he showed himself, the young man could not help
+reading, in the faces and gestures of those he met,
+different opinions, and all equally distressing. The
+Germans and their wives&mdash;the workmen, better disciplined
+and more tame-spirited than the Alsatians,
+fearing all authority without respecting it, quartered
+in a corner of Alsheim by the hatred of the population
+on which they hoped to take vengeance some day,
+when they should be the more numerous, having with
+the other inhabitants no ties of origin, family, customs,
+or religion&mdash;could only have indifference or hostility
+for the master, which were badly disguised by the
+salutations of the men, and the furtive smiles of the
+women.</p>
+
+<p>But many of the Alsatians were less under restraint.
+It was enough that Jean had entered the business and
+that he was seen constantly with his father, for their
+disapproval to extend to him. He saw himself covered
+with a prudent contempt, the kind that little people
+can always express towards powerful neighbours.
+The forest workmen, the labourers, the women, and
+even the children pretended not to see him when he
+passed, others withdrew into their houses; others,
+the old ones especially, watched the rich man come
+and go as if he had been from another country.
+Those who showed the most signs of respect were
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">91</a></span>
+the tradesmen or the employés, or the relations
+of the employés of the house. And Jean found it
+difficult to bear the reopening of this wound each
+time he left the park.</p>
+
+<p>On Sunday, at church, in the whitewashed nave,
+he waited for the coming of Odile. To reach the seat
+reserved for her family for years, which was the
+first on the Epistle side, she had to pass near Jean.
+She passed, with her father and her mother, without
+any of them appearing to know that Jean was
+there, and M. Oberlé, and Lucienne. She only smiled
+at the end of Mass, when she came down the aisle,
+but she smiled at whole rows of friendly faces, at
+women, old men, at big boys who would have died
+for her, and at the children of the choir, the chanters
+of the "Concordia," who scampered off by the sacristy
+door, to be able to salute, surround, and welcome
+at the door the daughter of M. Bastian, the Alsatian
+girl, the friend, the beloved of all this poor village;
+she did not give away more money than Madame
+Oberlé, but they knew that there was no division
+in her house, no treachery, and that the only
+difference between it and the other houses in the
+valleys and mountains of Alsace was its wealth.
+What did she think of Jean? She, whose eyes
+never spoke in vain, did not look at him. She who
+used to speak to him in the roads now said nothing.</p>
+
+<p>The first month of Jean's new life passed away like
+this in Alsheim. Then spring was born. M. Joseph
+Oberlé waited two days and then, seeing the buds of
+his birch-trees burst in the sunshine, he said to his
+son on the third day:</p>
+
+<p>"You are a good enough apprentice now to go
+alone and inspect our timber-yard in the Vosges.
+You will get ready to start. This year I have made
+exceptional purchases. I have cuttings as far as the
+Schlucht, and to visit them you will have to visit
+nearly all the Vosges. I give you no instructions,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">92</a></span>
+only observe, and bring me a report, in which you
+will note down your observations of each of our
+cuttings."</p>
+
+<p>"When shall I start?"</p>
+
+<p>"To-morrow, if you like&mdash;the winter is over." M.
+Oberlé said that with the assurance of a man who
+has had need to know the weather like a peasant,
+and who knows it. He had, before speaking, ordered
+a list to be prepared of the cuttings of wood bought
+by the house either from the German State or from
+the Communes, or from private people, with the
+detailed directions on the position they occupied in
+the mountains, and he gave this list to Jean.</p>
+
+<p>There were a dozen cuttings distributed over the
+whole length of the Vosges, from the valley of
+the Bruche on the north to the mouth of the
+Schlucht.</p>
+
+<p>The next day Jean put a little linen and a change
+of shoes in a bag, and without telling any one of his
+intention hurried to the mountain, and up to the lodge
+of Heidenbruch.</p>
+
+<p>The square house, with green shutters, and the
+meadow, and the forest all round the clearing, were
+smoking as if a fire had devoured the heath and grass,
+and left the beech and pines intact. Long wreaths
+of mist seemed to emanate from the soil, and to grow
+tenuous, and uniting, lose themselves in the low
+clouds, which glided along, rising from the valleys
+and going up the slopes towards the invisible monastery
+of Sainte Odile. The humidity penetrated to
+the very depths of the forests. It was everywhere.
+Drops of water shone on the pine needles, streamed in
+threads down the bare trunks of the beeches, polished
+the pebbles, swelled the many mosses, and travelling
+over the land, and flowing on dead leaves, went to
+swell the brooks, whose cadenced song could be heard
+on all sides&mdash;the grasshopper of winter whose song
+never ceases.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">93</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Jean went up to the middle of the wooden palisade
+painted green, which surrounded Heidenbruch, passed
+through the gate, and in the front of the lodge called
+out gaily to the windows closed because of the fog,
+"Uncle Ulrich."</p>
+
+<p>A cap appeared behind the window panes, the cap
+of an Alsatian woman who takes care of her big
+black ribbons&mdash;and under the cap there was the smile
+of an old friend.</p>
+
+<p>"Lise, tell uncle!"</p>
+
+<p>This time the last window to the left opened, and
+the refined face, the eyes of a watcher, the pointed
+beard of M. Ulrich Biehler were framed between two
+shutters thrown back against the white wall.</p>
+
+<p>"Uncle, I have at least a dozen wood-cutting places
+to visit. I begin this morning, and I come to take
+you for a companion, to-day, to-morrow, and every
+day...."</p>
+
+<p>"Twelve journeys in the forest," answered his
+uncle, who leaned, his arms crossed, on the window
+sill, "this is a fine ending to Lent! My compliments
+on your mission!" He looked at his nephew in
+walking-clothes, his strong, masculine face raised in
+the fog; he was thinking that one could have sworn
+that he was a French officer, and then, carried away
+by his imagination, he forgot to say whether or not
+he would accompany his morning visitor.</p>
+
+<p>"Come, uncle," continued Jean. "Come! Don't
+refuse me! We will sleep in the inns; you will show
+me Alsace."</p>
+
+<p>"I walked seven leagues yesterday, my friend!"</p>
+
+<p>"We will only do six to-day."</p>
+
+<p>"You really want me to come?"</p>
+
+<p>"An absence of three years, Uncle Ulrich, think of
+that, and a whole education to go through!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well! I won't refuse you, Jean; I am too delighted
+that you should have thought of me. I
+have even a second reason for agreeing to the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">94</a></span>
+journey and to thank you for it. I will tell you
+presently."</p>
+
+<p>He shut the window. In the silence of the woods
+Jean heard him call the old valet, who was second in
+command in Heidenbruch.</p>
+
+<p>"Pierre! Pierre! Ah! there you are! We are
+going for twelve days into the mountains. I take
+you with me. You will pack my bag; put it on
+your back with my nephew's bag. Take your shoes
+with the nails, your stick, and you will go in front
+to the halting-place, while Jean and I go to visit the
+cuttings. Do not forget my waterproof, nor my
+pocket medicine chest."</p>
+
+<p>Going into the house, the young man saw Uncle
+Ulrich, full of business and radiant, pass him, open
+the drawing-room door, go to the wall, take down a
+long object in copper on two nails, and go quickly
+upstairs again.</p>
+
+<p>"What are you taking away, uncle?"</p>
+
+<p>"My telescope."</p>
+
+<p>"Such an old one."</p>
+
+<p>"I cling to it, my friend; it belonged to my great
+uncle, General Biehler. It saw the back of the
+Prussians at Jena!"</p>
+
+<p>Half an hour later, in the meadow on the slope in
+front of the house was M. Ulrich, gaitered like Jean,
+with a soft hat, the telescope slung over his shoulder,
+his dog gambolling round him; old Pierre very
+dignified and solemn, carrying on his mountaineer's
+shoulders a great pack wrapped in linen and fastened
+by straps; then Jean Oberlé, bending over a staff-officer's
+map, which the others knew by heart, discussing
+the two ways to go&mdash;the way of the baggage
+and the way of the walkers. The discussion was
+short. The servant went on in front, bearing to the
+left to reach the village where they would sleep,
+while the uncle and nephew took a path to the
+middle of the mountain&mdash;in a north-easterly direction.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">95</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"So much the better that it is a long way," said
+M. Ulrich, when they gained the shade of the wood.
+"So much the better. I wish it were for a lifetime.
+Two people who understand one another and go
+through the forest&mdash;what a dream!"</p>
+
+<p>He half shut his eyes, as painters do, and breathed
+in the mist with pleasure.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know," he added, in the way he would
+have confided to him something delightful, "Do you
+know that we have had spring here for three days?
+There it is&mdash;that's my second reason!"</p>
+
+<p>The forester said with enthusiasm what the manufacturer
+had said without admiration. By the same
+signs he recognised that a new season had begun.
+With his stick he pointed out to Jean the pine buds,
+red like arbutus berries; the bursting bark on the
+beech trunks, the shoots of wild strawberries running
+along the stones. In the uncovered pathways the
+north wind still blew, but in the hollows, the combes,
+the sheltered spots, one felt, in spite of the fog, the
+first warmth of the sun, which goes to the heart and
+makes men tremble, that warmth which touches the
+germ of the plants.</p>
+
+<p>That day, and during those which followed, uncle
+and nephew lived under wood. They understood one
+another perfectly, whether they spoke fully on any
+subject or were silent. M. Ulrich knew the forest
+and the mountains by heart. He enjoyed this opportunity
+which had been given him to explain the
+Vosges and to discover his nephew. Jean's ardent
+youthfulness often amused him and recalled bygone
+times. The instincts of the forester and hunter,
+slumbering in the young man's heart, were ripening
+and strengthening. But he had also his rage, his
+revolts, his juvenile threatening words, against which
+the uncle protested but feebly, because he really
+approved of them.</p>
+
+<p>The plaint of Alsace rose to his ear for the first
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">96</a></span>
+time, the complaining cry the stranger does not hear
+and the conqueror only half listens to, but can never
+understand. For Jean did not only observe the
+forest; he also observed the people of the forest, from
+the merchants and the officials, feudal lords on whom
+depend a multitude almost past numbering, down
+to woodcutters, jobbers, fellers, carters, charcoal
+burners, down even to wanderers, shepherds, and
+swineherds, pedlars of dead wood, freebooters,
+poachers, myrtle gatherers, who also gather mushrooms
+and wild strawberries and raspberries.</p>
+
+<p>Introduced by Uncle Ulrich, or passing by in his
+shadow, he aroused no suspicions.</p>
+
+<p>He talked freely with the people&mdash;in their words,
+their silence, and in the atmosphere in which he lived
+day and night, he absorbed unto himself the very soul
+of his race. Many did not know France, among the
+young ones, and could not have said if they loved
+her, but even those had France in their veins. They
+did not get on with the German. A gesture, a look,
+an allusion, showed the secret disdain of the Alsatian
+peasant for his conqueror. The idea of a yoke was
+everywhere, and everywhere there was antipathy
+against the master who only knew how to govern
+by fear. Other young men of the families with
+traditions, instructed by their parents in the history
+of the past, faithful without any precise hope, complained
+that the poor of the mountain and plain were
+denied justice and subjected to annoyances if they
+were suspected of the crime of regretting France.
+They spoke of the tricks played by way of revenge
+on the custom officers, on the police, on the forest
+guard&mdash;proud of their green uniform and of their
+Tyrolese hat&mdash;the stories of smuggling and desertion,
+of the Marseillaise sung in the taverns with closed
+doors, of fętes on French land, of perquisitions, domiciliary
+visits and pursuits, of the comic or tragic duel,
+useless and exasperating, between the strength of a
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">97</a></span>
+great country and the mind of a small one. When
+the latter suffered, its thoughts, inherited from
+ancestors, through habit and from affection, went
+over the mountains.</p>
+
+<p>There were also the old folk, and it was M. Ulrich's
+delight to make them talk. When on the roads, and
+in the villages, he saw a man of fifty years or more,
+and he knew him to be an Alsatian, it was seldom
+that he himself was not recognised and that a
+mysterious smile did not prepare the question for
+the Master of Heidenbruch:</p>
+
+<p>"Come, is this not another friend&mdash;a child of our
+family?"</p>
+
+<p>If M. Ulrich, by the expression of the face, by the
+movement of the eyes, by a little fear sometimes, felt
+that his conclusion was justified, he added in a low
+voice:</p>
+
+<p>"You&mdash;you have the face of a French soldier!"</p>
+
+<p>Then there were smiles or tears, sudden shocks to
+the heart, which changed the expression of the face
+pallors, flushings, pipes taken from the corner of the
+lips, and often, very often, a hand raised, turned palm
+outwards, touching the brim of the felt hat, thus
+making the military salute, as long as the two
+travellers were in sight.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you see him?" said Uncle Ulrich, quite softly;
+"if he had a bugle he would play 'La Casquette.'"</p>
+
+<p>Jean Oberlé never ceased talking of France. He
+asked when he came to the top of a mountain ridge:
+"Are we far from the frontier?" He made the uncle
+tell him what Alsace was like under the "gentle rule"&mdash;what
+liberty was enjoyed by each and all, how
+the towns were administered? What difference
+was there between the French gendarmes&mdash;whom
+M. Ulrich mentioned with a friendly smile as good
+fellows, not too hard on the poor&mdash;and these German
+gendarmes, common informers, brutal, always officious
+and full of zeal, whom the whole of the Alsace of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">98</a></span>
+to-day hated? What was the name of that prefect
+of the First Empire who placed by the roadsides of
+Lower Alsace benches of stone of two tiers so that
+the women going to market could sit down, and
+place at the same time their load above them?
+"The marquis de Lezay Marnésia, my boy."</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me the story of our artists, of our deputies in
+the old days, of our bishops. Tell me what Strasburg
+was like in your youth, and what a sight it was when
+the military band played at Contades?"</p>
+
+<p>M. Ulrich, with the joy of living over again which
+mingles with all our memories, remembered and related.
+While climbing and descending the intersections of
+the Vosges he went through the history of French
+Alsace. He had only to let his ardent heart speak,
+and it made him weep. It also made him sing, with
+the gaiety of a child, the songs of Nadaud, of
+Béranger, La Marseillaise, or the old Noels, which he
+sang to the pointed arches of the forest.</p>
+
+<p>Jean took such a passionate interest in these
+evocations of old Alsace, and he so naturally
+entered into the hatreds and revolts of the present
+that his uncle, who was at first pleased at it as a sign
+of good family, ended by growing uneasy. One
+evening, when they had given alms to an old
+teacher, deprived of the right of teaching French,
+and reduced to misery because she was too old to get
+a German diploma, Jean's anger had carried him
+away.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear Jean," said the uncle, "you must be
+careful not to go too far. You have to live with
+Germans."</p>
+
+<p>Since then M. Ulrich had avoided returning so
+often to the question of the annexation. But alas!
+it was the whole of Alsace, it was the landscape, the
+descending road, the sign of some shop, the women's
+dress, the type of men, the sight of soldiers, the
+fortifications at the top of a hill, a finger-post, the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">99</a></span>
+different items in a newspaper bought in the Alsatian
+inn where they had dined in the evening&mdash;it was
+every hour of the day which called their minds back
+to the condition of Alsace, a nation conquered but
+not assimilated. In vain did M. Ulrich answer more
+carelessly and quickly&mdash;he could not hinder Jean's
+thought from travelling the road to the unknown.
+And when they climbed together a neck of the
+Vosges, the elder man saw with pleasure and
+apprehension Jean's eyes travel to seek the horizon
+on the west, and gaze there as at some loved face.
+Jean did not look so long at the east or the
+south.</p>
+
+<p>A fortnight was employed in visiting the forest of
+the Vosges, and during this time M. Ulrich came
+back to Heidenbruch only twice for some hours. The
+separation took place only on Palm Sunday, in a
+village of the Valley of Münster.</p>
+
+<p>It was evening&mdash;the hour when the valleys of the
+German side of the mountains were quite blue, and
+there was only a strip of light on the last pines which
+surrounded the shade. M. Ulrich Biehler had
+already said good-bye to this nephew, his dearest
+friend.</p>
+
+<p>The servant had taken the train that same morning
+for Obernai, M. Ulrich, the collar of his cloak turned
+up because the cold was piercing, had just whistled
+to Fidčle and was leaving the inn, when Jean, in his
+blue hunting-costume, without a hat, came down the
+flight of steps.</p>
+
+<p>"Again good-bye," he said.</p>
+
+<p>And as the uncle, very upset, and not wishing to
+show it, made a sign with his hand to avoid words
+which might be tremulous&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I will go with you to the last house of the village,"
+continued Jean.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, my boy, it is useless to prolong&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>His head turned towards his uncle, and his uncle,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">100</a></span>
+looking down the road, Jean began to walk. He
+commenced in his cajoling young voice:</p>
+
+<p>"I am inexpressibly sorry to leave you, Uncle
+Ulrich, and I must tell you why. You understand
+before one says twenty words. You do not contradict
+aggressively: when you are not of my
+opinion, I know it by your mouth, which makes
+the point of your white beard rise&mdash;that is all. You
+are kind. You do not get angry, and I feel you are
+very decided. Other people's ideas all seem familiar
+to you&mdash;you are able to answer them so easily; you
+are respected by the weak. I was not accustomed to
+that on the other side of the Rhine."</p>
+
+<p>"Bah! bah!"</p>
+
+<p>"I even appreciate your fears about me."</p>
+
+<p>"My fears?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Do you think that I did not see that there
+is another question which interests me intensely,
+and of which you have not spoken to me for six
+days?"</p>
+
+<p>This time Jean did not see his uncle's profile; he
+saw his full face, and its expression was a little
+anxious.</p>
+
+<p>"My boy, I did that purposely," said M. Ulrich.
+"When you questioned me, I told you what we were
+and what we are. And then I saw that I must not
+insist too much, because you would be full of grief.
+You see, grief is good for me; but for you, youth, it
+is better that you should start off like the horses
+which have not yet run a race, and only carry a
+very slight weight."</p>
+
+<p>The last house was passed. They were in the
+country, between a stream strewn with many
+boulders, and a steep slope which joined the forest
+up above.</p>
+
+<p>"Too late," said Jean Oberlé, holding out his hand
+and stopping, "too late; you have said too much,
+Uncle Ulrich. I feel I belong to the older times, as
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">101</a></span>
+you do. And so much the worse, as to-morrow I go up
+to the Schlucht. I shall see her&mdash;I shall say good
+day to our country of France!"</p>
+
+<p>He laughed as he uttered these words. M. Ulrich
+shook his head once or twice to scold him, but without
+answering, and he went away into the mist.</p>
+
+<p class="p4"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">102</a></span></p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER VI</h3>
+
+<p class="center font95"><b>THE FRONTIER</b></p>
+
+<p class="p2">The next day Jean started in the morning on foot
+to go to the cutting bought by the House of Oberlé,
+which was situated on the crest of the mountains,
+enclosing the valley, to the left of the neck of the
+Schlucht, in the forest of Stosswihr. The way was
+long&mdash;the soil made slippery by a recent shower;
+besides, Jean lost several hours in going round a
+great rock he ought to have climbed. The afternoon
+was well advanced when he came to a wood cabin at
+the place where the road ended: just the time to
+talk to the German foreman who directed, under the
+supervision of the forest administration, the felling
+and transport of the firs; and the young man, continuing
+his climb, passed the workmen from the
+timber-yard coming down before the end of the day,
+to regain the valley. The sun, still splendid, was
+about to disappear on the other side of the Vosges.
+Jean was thinking with a beating heart of the
+frontier now quite near; however, he would not ask
+the way of the men who saluted him in passing, for
+he prided himself on hiding his emotions, and his
+words might have betrayed him before this gang of
+woodcutters released from work, and curious at the
+meeting. He entered the cutting they had just left.
+Around him the pine-trees, branchless and despoiled
+of their bark, were lying on the slopes, which they
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">103</a></span>
+seemed to light up by the whiteness of their trunks.
+They had rolled&mdash;and stopped&mdash;one could not see
+why. At other times they had made a barrier and
+placed themselves pell-mell like spilikins on a game
+board. In the high forest there only remained one
+workman, an old man dressed in dark clothes who,
+kneeling, tied up in his handkerchief, a store of mushrooms
+he had gathered. When he had finished tying
+the ends of the red stuff with his clumsy fingers he
+got up, pushed his woollen cap well on to his head,
+and began to descend, with long strides over the moss,
+his mouth open to the odour of the forests.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah," said Jean, "one minute, my man."</p>
+
+<p>The man between two immense pine trunks, himself
+the colour of the bark, turned his head.</p>
+
+<p>"Which is my nearest way to get to the neck of
+the Schlucht?"</p>
+
+<p>"Go down by the waterfall, the way I go, and
+then turn up again. But do not go up there another
+two hundred yards, for then you go down into France;
+you will find paths which will lead you to the Schlucht.
+Good evening!"</p>
+
+<p>"Good evening!"</p>
+
+<p>The words rang out, soon lost in the vast silence.
+But one of them went on speaking to Jean Oberlé's
+heart: "You will go down into France." He was in
+a hurry to see her, this mysterious France, which held
+such a large place in his dreams, in his life&mdash;she,
+who had destroyed the unity of his family because
+the older members, some of them at least, remained
+faithful to her charms. France, for whom so many
+Alsatians had died and for whom so many others
+were waiting and whom they were loving with that
+silent love which makes hearts sad. So near him&mdash;she
+from whom he had been so jealously kept&mdash;she
+for whom Uncle Ulrich, M. Bastian, his mother, his
+grandfather Philippe, and thousands and thousands of
+others said a prayer every night!
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">104</a></span></p>
+
+<p>In a few minutes he had reached the top and begun
+his descent on the other side. But the trees formed a
+thick curtain round him. And he began to run to
+find a road and a free space to see France. He took
+pleasure in sliding down and letting himself almost
+fall, head foremost, seeking the desired opening.
+On this side of the mountain the sun was touching
+the earth; here and there the air was still warm; but
+the pines always made a wall.</p>
+
+<p>"Halt!" cried a man, showing himself suddenly,
+and coming out from behind the trunk of a tree.
+Jean went on running some steps&mdash;carried away by
+the impetus. Then he came back to the customs
+official who had called to him. Then the man, who
+was a brigadier, young and squat, with defective
+eyes, a little wild, two locks of yellow hair framing
+the thick-set face&mdash;the real type of a man of the
+Vosges, looked at the young man and said:</p>
+
+<p>"Why the devil did you run? I thought you were
+a smuggler."</p>
+
+<p>"I was trying to find a place to see a landscape in
+France...."</p>
+
+<p>"Does that interest you? You are from the other
+side?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Not a Prussian all the same?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; an Alsatian."</p>
+
+<p>The man smiled slightly and said, "That is
+better!"</p>
+
+<p>But Jean continued without taking up the conversation,
+and as if he had forgotten his question, to
+look at this poor officer of France, his face, his
+uniform, and to photograph them on his mind. The
+officer seemed amused at his curiosity and said,
+laughing:</p>
+
+<p>"If it is a view you are after, you have only to
+follow me. I have one which the Government offers
+me to complete my treatment."
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">105</a></span></p>
+
+<p>They both began to laugh, looking straight into
+each other's eyes quickly&mdash;less for what the customs
+officer had said than because of a certain sympathy
+which they felt for each other.</p>
+
+<p>"We have no time to lose," said the brigadier, "the
+sun is dying down."</p>
+
+<p>They went on under the vault of pines, turning
+round a cliff of bare rocks on which were planted at
+some distance two posts marking the spot where
+Germany ended and where France began, and at the
+end point, which was like a spur in the green, on a
+straight platform, which had its bed down in the
+forest, they found a watch-house of heavy planks of
+pines nailed on to the beams. From there one could
+see an immense landscape, which went on and on,
+sloping down&mdash;as far as human eye could see. In this
+moment and in the setting sun a pale golden light
+bathed the terraced lands, forests, villages, and rivers,
+the lakes of Retournemer and Longemer, softening
+the reliefs, and casting a colour like that of corn on
+uncultivated lands covered with heath. Jean remained
+standing, drinking in the picture to intoxication, and
+kept silence, while his emotion increased. He felt
+that the whole depth of his soul was full of joy.</p>
+
+<p>"How beautiful it is!" he said.</p>
+
+<p>The brigadier of customs, who was observing him
+from the corner of his eye, was flattered by the
+other's unstinted praise of his native district and
+answered:</p>
+
+<p>"It is tiring, but in summer it is good to walk&mdash;for
+those who have the time. People come from
+Gérardmer, and from Saint Dié and Remiremont
+and from farther still. Many people come from over
+there&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Over his shoulder, with his thumb reversed and
+turned backwards, he pointed to the country beyond
+the frontier.</p>
+
+<p>Jean was shown in which direction lay the three
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">106</a></span>
+towns of which the Custom House official had spoken.
+But he only followed his own thought with attention.
+What delighted him was the clearness of the air, and
+the idea of the illimitable, of the sweetness of life
+and of fertility which came to his mind at the
+sight of the French land. It was all he knew of
+France, what he had read, and what he had heard
+his mother, grandfather, and uncle Ulrich talk about,
+what he had pictured to himself, memories buried
+deep in his mind, which rose again suddenly like
+millions of grains of corn to the call of the sun.</p>
+
+<p>The brigadier was seated on a bench, along the
+side of the hut; he had taken his short pipe from
+his pocket and was smoking.</p>
+
+<p>When he saw the visitor turn towards him, his
+eyes full of tears, and seat himself on the bench, he
+guessed Jean's feelings; for Jean's admiration of the
+picturesque had escaped him, but the tears of regret
+at once made the brigadier grave. Those were from
+the heart, and a sublime equality united the two
+men. However, as he did not dare to question he
+stiffened his neck, until the muscles were visible, and
+began to study the horizon silently.</p>
+
+<p>"What part of France do you come from?" asked
+Jean.</p>
+
+<p>"About five leagues from here, in the mountain."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you served your time in the army?"</p>
+
+<p>The brigadier took his pipe from his mouth and his
+hand quickly touched the medal hanging on his breast.</p>
+
+<p>"Six years," said he&mdash;"two furloughs. When I
+left I was a sergeant, with this medal, which I brought
+back from Tonquin. A fine time when it is finished."
+He spoke like travellers who prefer the remembrance
+of a journey but all the same have not disliked it.
+And he continued:</p>
+
+<p>"With you, they say it is harder."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"I have always heard it said Germany is a great
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">107</a></span>
+country, but the officer and the soldier are not relatives
+as in France."</p>
+
+<p>The sun was going down; the great golden landscape
+became tawny in places and purple in shadow.
+This purple spread with the rapidity of racing clouds
+on shadowed slopes and veiled plains&mdash;how Jean
+Oberlé would have loved to see you again in strong
+light! He asked:</p>
+
+<p>"Do you ever see any deserters?"</p>
+
+<p>Those who pass the frontier before their service
+begins are naturally not known, only the soldiers
+serving in the Alsace-Lorraine regiments and who
+desert in uniform. "Yes; I have seen several poor
+fellows who had been too severely punished or
+whose tempers were too proud. You will say that
+some desert from our side too, and it is true; but
+then they are not so many&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Shaking his head and looking tenderly at the
+sleeping forests:</p>
+
+<p>"When one belongs to this side, you see, one can
+speak ill of it, but one is not satisfied elsewhere.
+You do not know the country, sir, and yet to look at
+you one would swear you belonged to it."</p>
+
+<p>Jean felt himself getting red; his throat was dry;
+he could not answer. And the man, thinking that he
+had taken a liberty, said:</p>
+
+<p>"Excuse me, sir; one never knows whom one
+meets; and it is better not to talk about these things.
+I must continue my rounds and go down again."</p>
+
+<p>He was going to salute in military fashion; Jean
+took his hand and pressed it.</p>
+
+<p>"You are not mistaken, my friend," he said.</p>
+
+<p>Then, feeling in his pocket, he held out his cigar-case
+to him.</p>
+
+<p>"Come, take a cigar!"</p>
+
+<p>And then, with a kind of childish joy, he emptied
+his case into the hand which the Custom House official
+held out.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">108</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Take them all; you will give me pleasure. Do
+not refuse me!"</p>
+
+<p>It seemed as if he wanted to give something to
+France.</p>
+
+<p>The brigadier hesitated for a moment, and closed
+his hand over them, saying:</p>
+
+<p>"I will smoke them on Sunday. Thank you, sir!
+Good-bye!"</p>
+
+<p>He saluted quickly, and was lost to sight almost
+immediately in the firs that clothe the mountains.
+Jean heard his footsteps growing fainter in the
+distance. Above all, he heard echoing in his soul,
+and with indescribable emotion, the words of this
+unknown man.</p>
+
+<p>"You belong to us." "Yes, I belong here; I feel
+it, I see it; and that explains to me so many things in
+my life."</p>
+
+<p>The shadow descended.</p>
+
+<p>Jean saw the land darkening. He thought of
+those of his family who had fought there, round
+the villages submerged by the night, so that Alsace
+should remain united to that great country stretched
+out before him. "Sweet country&mdash;my country&mdash;every
+one has tender words for her; and I, why did
+I come? Why am I as moved as if she were living
+before me?"</p>
+
+<p>In a little while, on the fringe of the sky just
+where the blue began, rose the evening star. Alone,
+faint but dominating as an idea.</p>
+
+<p>Jean rose; the night was becoming quite dark, and
+he took the path which follows the crest of the hills;
+but he could not take his eyes from the star. Walking
+all alone in the deep silence, on the summit of the
+divided Vosges, he said to the star and to the shadow
+beneath:</p>
+
+<p>"I belong to you; I am happy to have seen you.
+It frightens me to love you as I do!"</p>
+
+<p>Soon he reached the frontier, and by the magnificent
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">109</a></span>
+road crossing the Schlucht, went back again
+into the German-land.</p>
+
+<p>The following day, the Tuesday of Holy Week, he
+was again at Alsheim, and handed to his father the
+report he had drawn up. Every one welcomed his
+return with such evident pleasure that he was
+very much touched by it. The evening after the
+"conference" between the old grandfather and the
+manufacturer, and at which Jean was present, since
+he had just returned from visiting the cuttings,
+Lucienne called her brother to the fire before which
+she was warming herself in the large yellow drawing-room.
+Madame Oberlé was reading near the window;
+her husband had gone out, the coachman having
+informed him that one of the horses had gone lame.</p>
+
+<p>"Well!" asked Lucienne. "What is the most
+beautiful thing you saw?"</p>
+
+<p>"You."</p>
+
+<p>"No, do not joke; tell me, the most beautiful
+thing during your journey?"</p>
+
+<p>"France!"</p>
+
+<p>"Where?"</p>
+
+<p>"At the Schlucht. You cannot imagine the
+emotion it made me feel. It was a shock&mdash;like a
+revelation. You do not seem to understand me."</p>
+
+<p>She answered in an indifferent manner:</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; I am delighted that you were pleased. It
+ought to be a very fine excursion at this time of the
+year. The first spring flowers, are there not? And
+the breeze in the woods? Ah, my dear boy, there
+is so much convention in all that!"</p>
+
+<p>Jean did not go on. She it was who continued, and
+in a confidential voice, which she modulated, and
+made marvellously musical:</p>
+
+<p>"Here we've had grand visits&mdash;oh, visits which
+nearly cost a scene. Imagine, two German officers
+came last Wednesday in a motor car to the lodge,
+and asked permission to see the saw-mills. Happily
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">110</a></span>
+they were in mufti. The Alsheim people only saw
+two gentlemen like any others. Very fashionable;
+an old one&mdash;a commandant, and a young one with a
+grand air, and accustomed to society. If you had
+seen him bow to papa! I was in the park. They
+bowed to me too, and visited the whole of the works,
+personally conducted by our father. While this was
+going on that idiot Victor informed grandfather,
+who showed he was annoyed when we came in.
+I ought to have run away, it appears. As the gentlemen
+did not enter the house&mdash;'my house,' as grandfather
+says&mdash;his irritation did not last long. However,
+there was a sequel&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Lucienne laughed a little stifled laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear, Madame Bastian did not approve of me."</p>
+
+<p>"You were then present during their visit to the
+works, when these gentlemen&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"All the time?"</p>
+
+<p>"My father kept me. In any case, I do not see
+how that should affect the Mayor's wife. But I had
+such a cold bow from her, my dear, last Sunday
+at the church door. Do you care about the Bastians'
+bows?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; in the same way that I care for the greetings
+of all good people."</p>
+
+<p>"Good people&mdash;yes; but they do not know what
+life is! To be blamed by them is just the same to
+me as if I were to be blamed by an Egyptian mummy
+come to life for the purpose. I should answer:
+'You do not understand anything about it; go and
+wrap yourself up again.' Is it not strange that you
+do not think as I do&mdash;you, my brother?"</p>
+
+<p>Jean stroked the hand which was raised in front of
+him to make a screen.</p>
+
+<p>"Even mummies can judge of certain things of
+our time, my darling&mdash;the things which are of all
+times."
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">111</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Oh! how serious you are. Come now, where was
+I wrong? Was it in going for a walk? In not
+looking away? In answering a greeting? In obeying
+my father, who told me to come and stay?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; assuredly not!"</p>
+
+<p>"What harm have I done?"</p>
+
+<p>"None. I have danced with many German girls.
+You can acknowledge an officer's greeting."</p>
+
+<p>"Then I did right?"</p>
+
+<p>"As a fact, yes. But there are so many sorrows
+around us&mdash;real sorrows, and so noble. You must
+remember that they all come to life again at a word,
+or a gesture."</p>
+
+<p>"I shall never consider that. Since what I do is
+not wrong, no one shall ever stop me. Do you
+hear?"</p>
+
+<p>"That is where we differ, Lucienne. It is not
+so much in our ideas; it is in a whole range of
+feelings which your education prevents you from
+possessing."</p>
+
+<p>He kissed her, and the conversation wandered to
+different topics.</p>
+
+<p class="p4"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">112</a></span></p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER VII</h3>
+
+<p class="center font95"><b>THE EASTER VIGIL</b></p>
+
+<p class="p2">The weather had settled fine. Jean found the plain
+of Alsace in full spring glory.</p>
+
+<p>However, he only felt a faint and mixed pleasure
+in the sight he had longed for. He came back from
+this excursion more upset than he cared to own to
+himself. It had revealed to him the opposition of
+the two nations&mdash;that is to say, of two minds, the
+persistent memory of many of the poor, and the
+difficulty they found to make a livelihood which
+their prudent and even hidden opinions created for
+them. He understood better now how difficult a part
+his would be to play in the family, at the works, in
+the village, in Alsace.</p>
+
+<p>The pleasure he felt the morning after his return
+at his father's congratulations on the report of the
+forest cultivation by the House of Oberlé made only a
+short diversion in the midst of this worry. He tried
+in vain to appear quite happy, and he duly deceived
+those whose interest it was to be deceived.</p>
+
+<p>"My Jean," said his mother, kissing him as he was
+going to sit down to breakfast, "I think you look
+splendid. The strong Alsheim air agrees with you,
+and also being near your poor mamma!"</p>
+
+<p>"Fancy that!" said Lucienne, "and I thought him
+very gloomy!"</p>
+
+<p>"Business," explained M. Joseph Oberlé, turning
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">113</a></span>
+towards the window where his son was sitting,
+"cares of business. He has handed me a report, on
+which I must congratulate him publicly; it is very
+well drawn up, very clear, and the result of which
+will be that I shall economise, in four places at least,
+in the transport of my trees. You understand,
+father?"</p>
+
+<p>The grandfather made a sign with his head. But
+he finished writing something on the slate, and
+showed it to his daughter-in-law.</p>
+
+<p>"Has he already seen the country weep?"</p>
+
+<p>Madame Monica rubbed the sentences out quickly
+with her fingers. The others looked at her, and
+all were uneasy, as if there had been some painful
+explanation between them.</p>
+
+<p>Jean again experienced that intimate sorrow for
+which there is no remedy. All the afternoon he
+worked in the office at the saw-mills, but he was
+distracted and dreamy. He reflected that Lucienne
+would go away one day, and that nothing would be
+altered; that the grandfather might disappear also,
+and that the division would still go on. All the plans
+that he had had when far away, the hope of being
+himself a diversion, of bringing peace, of uniting
+them or of giving them an appearance of union: all
+that appeared childish to him now. He saw that
+Lucienne had spoken truly when she made fun of his
+illusions.</p>
+
+<p>No, the evil was not in his family, it was in the
+whole of Alsace. Even if no one of his name lived
+at Alsheim, Jean Oberlé would meet at his door, in
+the village, among his workmen, his clients, and his
+friends the same annoyance at certain moments,
+always the same question. Neither his will nor any
+will like his could deliver his race, either now or
+later.</p>
+
+<p>In this melancholy mood the idea of seeing Odile
+again, and making her love him, came back to him
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">114</a></span>
+and took possession of his mind. Who else besides
+Odile could make life at Alsheim acceptable to him,
+and bring back his scattered and suspicious friends,
+and re-establish the name of Oberlé in the esteem of
+"Old Alsace"? He saw now that she was more than
+a pretty woman towards whom his youthful heart
+went out in song; he saw in her peace and dignity,
+and the only strength possible in the difficult future
+which awaited him.</p>
+
+<p>She was the brave and faithful creature whom he
+needed here.</p>
+
+<p>How to tell her? How to find an opportunity to
+speak freely to her, without the risk of being
+surprised, and troubling this orderly and jealous
+family? Evidently not at Alsheim. Then where
+should he arrange to meet her? And how could he
+forewarn her?</p>
+
+<p>Jean thought of this all the evening.</p>
+
+<p>The next day, Maundy Thursday, was the day on
+which in Catholic churches the Tomb would be
+decorated with flowers, branches of trees, materials,
+and torches placed in ledges, where the faithful
+hasten to adore the Host. It was beautiful weather,
+clear, even too clear for the time of year, when clearness
+calls up mist or rain.</p>
+
+<p>After he had talked with his mother and Lucienne
+in M. Philippe Oberlé's room&mdash;it was the first time
+that he had felt that his home held a family&mdash;Jean
+went towards the orchards, which are behind the
+houses of Alsheim, and followed the road which he
+had taken a few weeks ago to call on the Bastians.
+But a little beyond the Ramspachers' farm he
+took the path which up to there ran at right
+angles to the avenue, and was now parallel with it,
+and with it joined the village road. He came out on
+to a piece of waste land, used for carts by many
+farmers on the plain. The neighbouring fields were
+deserted. The road was partially screened by a bank
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">115</a></span>
+of earth planted with hazel-trees. Jean walked
+along the quick-set hedge which ran round the
+Bastians' property, approached the village, and came
+back again. He waited. He hoped that Odile would
+soon come into the path on the other side of the
+hedge to go to the Alsheim church to pray at the
+Tomb.</p>
+
+<p>The remembrance of former meetings, at the same
+place and on the same day, had come into his mind,
+and had decided him. As he began the walk for the
+third time he saw what he had not seen at first.</p>
+
+<p>"How wonderful," he said to himself. "The road
+was made for her!"</p>
+
+<p>At the end of the avenue, for more than two
+hundred yards in front, the fence, the clumps of trees,
+a small portion of the long roof appeared in a
+marvellous frame.</p>
+
+<p>The old cherry-trees had flowered all together in
+the same week with the almond-trees and the pear-trees.
+The pear-trees blossom in clusters, the almond-trees
+in stars; as for the wild cherry-trees, from
+the forest transplanted to the plain&mdash;they blossom
+into white distaffs of bloom.</p>
+
+<p>Round the substantial branches, swollen and
+coloured red with sap, thousands of white corollas like
+a drift of snowflakes, trembled on their fragile stalks,
+and so thick were they that in many places one
+could not see the branch itself. Every tree cast its
+flowery spindles in all directions. So many of the
+cherry-trees were old that from one side of the avenue
+to the other the points of the flowering branches
+touched and intermingled. A swarm of bees covered
+them with hovering wings. A subtle odour of honey
+floated in waves down the avenue, and was wafted
+on the wind far away to the plain, to the fields, to
+the scarcely covered ground surprised by this feeling
+of spring. There were no trees in the large open
+valley which could vie with these for splendour&mdash;only
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">116</a></span>
+to the right&mdash;and quite close, the four walnut-trees
+of the Ramspachers had begun to show their
+leaves, and seemed with their heavy branches to be
+enamels encrusting the farm walls.</p>
+
+<p>The minutes passed by&mdash;the petals of the cherry-blossoms
+fell in showers. And lo, here is a woman
+stooping to unlatch the gate&mdash;it is she! She stands
+erect, and walks onwards in the middle of the path,
+between its two borders of grass&mdash;quite slowly, for
+she is gazing upwards. She is looking at the white
+blossoms which are open. The idea of a bride's
+wedding wreath, an idea so familiar to young girls,
+passes through her mind. Odile does not smile, only
+her face beams with an uplifted look, and an involuntary
+stretching out of her hands gives the
+greeting and thanks of her youth to the joyous
+earth.</p>
+
+<p>She goes down towards Alsheim. On her fur cap,
+on her rounded cheeks, on her blue cloth dress, the
+wild cherry-trees shed their blossoms. She is serious.
+In her left hand she carries a prayer book, half
+hidden in the folds of her skirt. She thinks she is
+alone.</p>
+
+<p>The splendour of the day speaks to her. But there
+is nothing languid about her. She is a valiant
+creature; she is made to face life bravely. Her eyes,
+which seek the tree-tops, are alive and masters of her
+thoughts, and do not give themselves up to a tempting
+dream. She was drawing near, never suspecting that
+Jean was waiting for her. The meal-time ended,
+the usual noises were going on in the village of
+Alsheim, rumbling cart-wheels, barking dogs, voices
+of men, of children calling to each other, but all
+softened by the distance, scattered in the vast aerial
+space, drowned in the tide of the wind, as is the noise
+of a clod of earth which has become loose and falls
+into the sea.</p>
+
+<p>As she came near, Jean took off his hat and stood
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">117</a></span>
+up a little on the other side of the hedge. And she
+who walked between two walls of blossoms, although
+she was gazing upwards, turned her head, her glance
+still full of the spring which had excited her.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, is that you?" she said.</p>
+
+<p>And she came at once across the strip of grass
+where the cherry-trees were planted, up to the place
+in the hedge where Jean was.</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot come to you freely as I used to," he said,
+"so I came to wait for you. I have a favour to ask
+of you...."</p>
+
+<p>"A favour? And you say that so seriously!"
+She tried to smile, but her lips refused. They had
+both become pale.</p>
+
+<p>"I am going," said Jean, as if he was making
+a grave declaration; "I am going up to Sainte Odile
+the day after to-morrow&mdash;I shall go to hear the bells
+ring in Easter. If you also asked for permission to
+come&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You have made a vow?"</p>
+
+<p>He answered:</p>
+
+<p>"Something like it. I must speak to you&mdash;to you
+alone."</p>
+
+<p>Odile withdrew slightly. With something of fear
+in her look she was trying to find out if Jean was
+speaking the truth&mdash;if she had guessed aright. He
+was watching her in an agony of anxiety. They
+were motionless, trembling, and so near and yet so
+far from each other that one would have said that
+they were threatening each other. And in fact both
+felt that the peace of their lives was at stake. They
+were not children, but a man and a woman of a
+strong and passionate race. All the powers of their
+being asserted themselves and broke through the
+hackneyed commonplaces of custom, because in
+these simple words, "I must speak to you," Odile
+had heard the breath of a soul which was giving
+itself, and which demanded a return.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">118</a></span></p>
+
+<p>In the deserted avenue the old cherry-trees lifted
+their white distaffs of blossom, and in the cup of each
+flower the spring sun was resting.</p>
+
+<p>"The day after to-morrow?" she said, "at Sainte
+Odile&mdash;to hear the bells ring?"</p>
+
+<p>She repeated what he had said. But that was to
+gain time, and to gaze deeper into those eyes fixed
+upon her, eyes which looked like the green depths
+of the forest.</p>
+
+<p>There was a great calm in the plain and in the
+next village. The wind ceased for a moment&mdash;Odile
+turned away.</p>
+
+<p>"I will go," she said.</p>
+
+<p>Neither of them explained themselves further. A
+covered cart rolled along the road, not far off. A
+man shut the gate through which carts pass to the
+Bastians' farm. But the great thing was Jean had
+said what he had to say.</p>
+
+<p>In the profound depths of their souls the words
+echoed and re-echoed. They were no longer alone.
+Both had the sacred moment of their meeting enclosed,
+as it were, in themselves, and they fell back
+on their own thoughts as the earth in the furrows
+does when the sowing is done, and the germinating
+seed is beginning to expand.</p>
+
+<p>Odile went away. Jean admired the healthy and
+beautiful woman disappearing along the road. She
+walked well, without swinging her body. Above
+the white neck, Jean placed in imagination the big
+black bows of the Alsatian women who live beyond
+Strasburg. She no longer raised her eyes towards
+the cherry-trees. She let her skirt trail, and it swept
+the grass, making a little dust fly, and the petals of
+cherry blossoms, which flew about a little in the
+wind before dying.</p>
+
+<hr class="c5" />
+
+<p>The day after to-morrow was slow in coming.
+Jean had said to his father:
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">119</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Some pilgrims are going up to Sainte Odile on
+Saturday to hear the Easter bells. I have never been
+there at this time. If you do not mind, it is an
+excursion I should much like to make."</p>
+
+<p>He did not mind.</p>
+
+<p>Jean opened his window when he woke that
+morning. There was a thick fog. The fields near
+the house were invisible.</p>
+
+<p>"You will not go in this weather?" asked Lucienne,
+when she saw her brother come into the dining-room,
+where she was drinking her chocolate.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I shall go."</p>
+
+<p>"You will see nothing."</p>
+
+<p>"I shall hear."</p>
+
+<p>"Is it then so extraordinary?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Then will you take me?"</p>
+
+<p>She did not wish to go to Sainte Odile. Dressed in
+a light morning-gown trimmed with lace, and drinking
+her chocolate in little sips, she had no intention whatever
+of doing anything but stop her brother on his
+way and kiss him.</p>
+
+<p>"Seriously, are you making a kind of pilgrimage
+up there?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;a kind of&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Bending at this moment over her cup, she did not
+see the quick smile which accompanied the words.
+She answered a little bitterly:</p>
+
+<p>"You know I'm not devout. I fulfil my obligations
+as a Catholic but poorly, and the practices of devotion
+do not tempt me. But you, you have more faith
+than I have. I am going to tell you what you ought
+to ask for&mdash;it will be worth a pilgrimage, I can tell
+you." She changed her tone, and her voice became
+suddenly passionate; she raised her eyebrows, her
+eyes were at once self-willed and affectionate, and
+she said:</p>
+
+<p>"You must ask for that miracle of perfection
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">120</a></span>
+among women who will live with you here. When
+I am married and go away life will be terrible for
+you here. You will have to bear all alone the
+misery of the family quarrels, and the suspicions
+of the peasants. You will have no one to pity you.
+That is the part to play. Ask for some one strong
+enough, gay enough, and with a conscience fine
+enough to do it, since you would live at Alsheim.
+You see, my thought is that of a friend."</p>
+
+<p>"Of a great friend."</p>
+
+<p>They kissed each other.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-bye, Pilgrim, good-bye&mdash;good luck!"</p>
+
+<p>"Good-bye."</p>
+
+<p>Jean got away. He was soon in the park, turned
+after passing through the gate, went through the
+hop-fields and the vineyards, and so into the forest.</p>
+
+<p>The forest was also full of mist. The serried
+masses of pines, which took the hill as it were by
+storm, appeared grey from one bank of the stream
+to the other, and were almost immediately lost in a
+thick mist without sun and without shadow.</p>
+
+<p>Jean did not go up the beaten track. He went
+gaily climbing up the woods when not too steep,
+and stopping sometimes to take breath and to listen
+if he could not catch above as below, somewhere in
+the mysterious and impenetrable mists of the mountain,
+either the voice of Odile or the chant of the
+pilgrims. But no; he only heard the rushing of
+water, or perhaps the voice of some one calling to
+his dog, or the timid call of some poor peasant of
+Obernai picking up dead sticks with his child, in spite
+of the regulation which allows wood-picking only
+on Thursdays. The saucepan must boil on Easter
+Sunday! And was not this fog which hid everything
+a divine protection against the forest guard?</p>
+
+<p>Jean experienced great pleasure from this solitary,
+stiff climb. As he went up he thought of Odile
+more and more, and he was more and more glad
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">121</a></span>
+that he had chosen this holy place of Alsace in
+which to meet her&mdash;and this day&mdash;doubly affecting.
+Everywhere around him the beautiful scalefern
+which carpets the rocky slopes unfolded its velvet
+fronds. On all last year's shoots of honeysuckle
+there were little leaves; the first strawberries were
+in flower, and the first lilies of the valley. The
+geraniums, which are so fine in Sainte Odile, lifted
+their hairy stalks, and the multitude of whortle
+berries and bilberries and raspberries, that is the
+entire undergrowth, whole fields of it, began to pour
+out on the breeze the perfume of their moving sap.
+The fog retained these few scents and kept them in
+like a net work on the sides of the Vosges.</p>
+
+<p>Jean came close to Heidenbruch, looked at the
+green shutters and went on his way. "Uncle
+Ulrich," he murmured, "you would be glad if you
+saw me, and if you knew where I am going, and
+with whom, perhaps, I shall be presently!" Fidčle
+barked, half asleep, but did not come. The mountain
+was again deserted. A buzzard called above the mist.
+Jean, who had not been this way since his childhood,
+enjoyed the wildness and peacefulness of the place.
+He reached the higher part, which is the property of
+the bishopric of Strasburg, and followed the "pagan
+wall" which surrounds the summit for ten miles,
+that he might recall his school-boy impressions of
+long ago.</p>
+
+<p>At midday he had passed the Männelstein rock
+and entered the convent courtyard, built on the
+mountain top, a crown of old stone placed above the
+summit of the pine forests; and there, although there
+was no crowd, he found groups of pilgrims, carriages
+with horses unharnessed, fastened to the trunks of
+ancient lime-trees, grown no one knew how at this
+altitude, and covering with their branches nearly the
+whole enclosure. Jean remembered the way; he
+went towards the chapels on the right. He merely
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">122</a></span>
+passed through the first, which is painted, but
+stopped in the second, with elliptical arches leading
+to the shrine, where lies the wax figure of the
+patroness of Alsace, the Abbess Sainte Odile&mdash;so
+gentle, with her pink face, her veil, and her golden
+crozier, her purple mantle lined with ermine. Jean
+knelt down: with all the strength of his faith he
+prayed for his home, so sadly divided against itself,
+from which he felt glad to be away, and that Odile
+Bastian should not fail to keep this love tryst, the
+hour for which was so near at hand. As his was a
+sincere soul, he added: "Let our way be made clear
+to us! May we follow it together! Let us see all
+obstacles removed from our path!"</p>
+
+<p>The whole of Alsace had knelt at the same spot for
+centuries.</p>
+
+<p>Then he went out to the refectory, where the nuns
+had begun to help the first visitors. Odile was not
+there. After the lunch, which was very long, being
+continually lengthened by the arrival of fresh
+pilgrims, Jean went hastily to the foot of the great
+rock on which the convent is built, and finding once
+more the road which comes from Saint Nabor and
+passes by Sainte Odile's well, he posted himself in a
+thick part of the wood which overlooked a bend in
+the road. At his feet was the narrow strip of downtrodden
+earth, bare of grass and covered with pine
+needles, and which seemed hanging in the air. Far
+beyond that point the slope of the mountain became
+so steep that he could see no farther. In clear
+weather you could see to right and left two sunken
+wooden buttresses, but now the curtain of white mist
+hid everything&mdash;the abyss, the slopes, and the trees.
+But the wind blew and moved the mist, whose thickness,
+one could feel, varied from minute to minute.</p>
+
+<p>It was two o'clock. In an hour the Easter bells
+would ring. The people who wanted to hear them
+could not now be far from the summit, and in the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">123</a></span>
+great silence Jean heard, rising upwards from below,
+voices blending round the bend of the wood. Then
+a phrase whistled: "<i>Formez vos bataillons!</i>" warned
+him that Alsatian students were near. Two young
+men&mdash;he who had whistled overtaken by another&mdash;came
+little by little out of the fog and went towards
+the abbey.</p>
+
+<p>Then a young couple passed, the wife dressed in
+black, her square-cut bodice showing a white chemise,
+and wearing a lace cap like a helmet on her head;
+the man wore a flowered velvet waistcoat, a jacket
+with a row of copper buttons, and a fur cap.</p>
+
+<p>Weissenburg peasants thought Jean.</p>
+
+<p>Then he saw florid women from Alsheim and
+Heiligenstein pass, chattering, but not showing any
+trace of Alsatian dress.</p>
+
+<p>Among them was a woman from the Münster
+valley, recognisable by her cap of dark stuff, bound
+round her head like the handkerchief of the
+southerners, and decorated in front with a red
+rosette. Two minutes slipped by. A step was
+heard through the fog, and a priest appeared&mdash;an
+old, heavy man, who wiped his face as he walked.
+Two children, very alert, doubtless the belated
+children of one of the women who had already gone
+by, overtook him, greeting him in Alsatian with the
+words, "Praised be Jesus Christ, M. le curé!"</p>
+
+<p>"For ever and ever!" answered the priest.</p>
+
+<p>He did not know them; he only spoke to them to
+answer the old and beautiful form of greeting. Jean,
+seated near a pine-tree and half hidden, heard an old
+man overtake the priest at the bend of the road and
+say, "Praised be Jesus Christ!"</p>
+
+<p>How many times must that greeting have echoed
+through the vaults of the forest!</p>
+
+<p>Jean looked before him as one in a dream, who
+sees only vague figures without attaching any
+meaning to them.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">124</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He stayed like that a short time. Then a murmur,
+almost imperceptible, so faint as to pass almost
+unheard, weaker than the twitter of a bird, was
+borne up on the fog: "Hail, Mary, full of grace;
+blessed art thou among women!" Another murmur
+followed, and finished with "Holy Mary, Mother of
+God, pray for us!" and an involuntary agitation, a
+mysterious certainty, preceded the appearance of two
+women.</p>
+
+<p>They were both tall. The elder was an old
+spinster of Alsheim, whose face was the colour of
+the fog, and who lived in the shadow of the church,
+which she decorated on feast-days. She looked
+weary, but she smiled as she recited the rosary.
+The younger walked on the right, at the edge of
+the path, even with the slope, her proud head raised.
+Her fair hair was like a beautiful piece of pine bark,
+her body, robust and perfectly proportioned, stood
+out completely from the pale screen of cloudy mist
+which filled the bend of the road.</p>
+
+<p>Jean did not move, nevertheless the younger
+woman saw him, and turned her head towards him.
+Odile smiled, and without interrupting her prayer,
+her eyes, turned towards the summit of the mountain,
+said:</p>
+
+<p>"I will wait for you up there."</p>
+
+<p>The two women did not slacken their steps. With
+even steps, upright, moving slightly the rosaries
+which they held in their hands by the swaying of
+their bodies, they mounted upwards, and were hidden
+in the shadow of the old wood. Jean let some
+moments pass by and followed the same road. At
+the turning, where the road becomes straight and
+crosses the crest of the mountain to reach the
+convent, he saw the two women again. They were
+walking more quickly, glad to have arrived, their
+sunshades open, for the mist, which had not dispersed,
+was now warm, and there were splashes of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">125</a></span>
+shadow at the foot of the trees. The sun was going
+down towards the peaks of the Vosges and towards
+the plains of France beyond.</p>
+
+<p>The pilgrims who had arrived had already made
+their pilgrimage to the shrine of Sainte Odile, and
+were hastening to visit the places consecrated by
+pious or profane tradition: Sainte Odile's well, St.
+John's well, or by the pagan wall along the goat-path
+to the Rock of Männelstein, from where there
+is generally such a lovely view, to the tops of the
+Bloss and the Elsberg, to the ruined castles which
+lift their ancient towers among the pines&mdash;Andlau,
+Spesburg, Landsberg, and others. Jean saw the two
+women cross the courtyard and go towards the
+chapel. He retraced his steps to the beginning of
+the wind-swept avenue, along the old building, which
+reminds one of the advance works of old forts, and
+passes through a vaulted porch used as an entrance.</p>
+
+<p>Ten minutes later Odile came out of the chapel
+alone, and guessing that Jean Oberlé was waiting
+for her elsewhere rather than in this courtyard too
+full of onlookers, took the road leading to the forest.</p>
+
+<p>She was dressed in the clothes she had worn on
+Maundy Thursday, the same dark dress, but her hat
+was very simple, very youthful, and suited her to
+perfection: a straw, with a wide brim turned up on
+one side, and trimmed with a twist of tulle. She
+carried a summer jacket on her arm, and a sunshade.
+Odile walked quickly, with her head slightly bent,
+as those walk who are not interested in the road,
+or who are either praying or dreaming. When she
+came near Jean, who was on the right of the portico,
+she looked up, and said without stopping:</p>
+
+<p>"The woman who came with me is resting. Here
+I am!"</p>
+
+<p>"It is good of you to have trusted me!" said Jean.
+"Come, Odile!"</p>
+
+<p>He followed, close to her, the avenue planted with
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">126</a></span>
+sorry trees distorted by the winter winds. He was
+so much affected by the realisation of his dream that
+he could only think and speak of one thing: his
+gratitude to Odile, who was absolutely silent, only
+listening to what he did not say&mdash;and as full of
+emotion as he was.</p>
+
+<p>They left the road at the place where it begins to
+slope downwards, and took a path through the forest
+of lofty pines in serried ranks which leads round the
+convent. There was no one there, and Jean saw that
+Odile's eyes of the colour of ripe corn, eyes deep and
+serious, were turned towards him. There was no
+sound in the wood save that from the drops of
+moisture falling from the leaves. They were quite
+close to each other.</p>
+
+<p>"I asked you to come," said Jean, "so that you
+should decide what my life is to be. You were the
+love of my early youth. I want you to be my love
+always!"</p>
+
+<p>Odile's look was far away, lost in the distance.
+She trembled slightly, and said:</p>
+
+<p>"Have you thought?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of everything!"</p>
+
+<p>"Even of that which may separate us?"</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean by that? What are you
+afraid of? Of entering a disunited family?"</p>
+
+<p>"No!"</p>
+
+<p>"You would bring them together, I am sure of it.
+You would be its joy and peace. What do you
+fear&mdash;my father's or your father's opposition because
+they are now enemies?"</p>
+
+<p>"That could be got over," said the young girl.</p>
+
+<p>"Then it is because your mother detests me," said
+Jean hastily. "She does hate me, does she not?
+The other day she was so stiff to me, so offensive."</p>
+
+<p>The fair head made a sign of denial.</p>
+
+<p>"She will be slower in believing in you than my
+father was, slower than I was myself. But when
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">127</a></span>
+she sees that your education has not changed your
+mind towards Alsace she will overcome her prejudices."</p>
+
+<p>After a moment's silence Odile said:</p>
+
+<p>"I do not think I am making any mistake. To-day's
+difficulties can be brushed on one side by you
+or by me, or by both of us. I am only afraid of
+what I do not know, the least thing which to-morrow
+might aggravate such a disturbed state&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I understand," said Jean, "you are afraid of my
+father's ambition?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps!"</p>
+
+<p>"We have already suffered much from that. But
+he is my father. He is set on keeping me here; he
+says it every day. When he knows that I have chosen
+you, Odile, if he has personal projects which would
+prevent our marriage, he will at least put them off.
+Do not have any fear; we shall win!"</p>
+
+<p>"We shall win!" she repeated.</p>
+
+<p>"I am sure of it, Odile. You will make my life,
+Odile, which will be difficult, perhaps impossible, if
+you were not there. It was for you that I came
+back to the country. If I tell you that I have
+travelled much, and found no woman who had the
+charm for me that you have, or who made the same
+impression on me&mdash;how shall I tell you? The impression
+of a mountain stream so fresh and deep!
+Every time I think of my future marriage your
+image comes before my eyes. I love you, Odile!"</p>
+
+<p>He took Odile's hand, and she answered, lifting
+her eyes to the light coming from above the trees.</p>
+
+<p>"God is my witness that I love you, too!"</p>
+
+<p>She thrilled with joy, and Jean felt her hand
+tremble.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Jean; and he tried to look into her
+eyes, which were still fixed on the distance.</p>
+
+<p>"We shall overcome everything. We shall overcome
+the numerous obstacles arising from this terrible
+subject: that is all that is between us."
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">128</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Yes; it is the one and only question in this part
+of the world."</p>
+
+<p>"It poisons everything!"</p>
+
+<p>She stopped, and turned her radiant face full of
+love to him&mdash;of that beautiful and proud love which
+he had longed to know and to inspire.</p>
+
+<p>"Say rather that it makes everything greater.
+Our quarrels here are not village quarrels&mdash;we are
+either for or against a country. We are obliged to
+have courage every day, to make enemies every day,
+every day to break with old friends who would
+willingly have remained faithful to us, but who are
+not faithful to Alsace. No action of our lives is
+indifferent; there is no action that is not an affirmation.
+I assure you, Jean, there is nobleness in
+that."</p>
+
+<p>"That is true, Odile, my beloved."</p>
+
+<p>They stopped to enjoy that delicious word to the
+full. Their souls were in their eyes, and they looked
+at each other tremblingly. In low tones, although
+there were no onlookers other than the pines swayed
+by the wind, they spoke of the future as of a battle
+already begun.</p>
+
+<p>"Lucienne will be on my side," said Jean. "I shall
+entrust my secret to her when occasion occurs. She
+will help me, and I count on her."</p>
+
+<p>"I count on my father," said Odile; "for he is
+already well disposed towards you. But take care
+not to do anything that would annoy him. Do not
+try to see me at Alsheim. Do not try to hurry on
+the time."</p>
+
+<p>"That glorious time when you will be mine!"</p>
+
+<p>They smiled at each other for the first time.</p>
+
+<p>"I love you so dearly," continued Jean, "that
+I shall not ask you for the kiss that you would no
+doubt give me&mdash;I have no right to it. We do not
+entirely depend on ourselves, Odile. And then it
+pleases me to show you how sacred you are to me.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">129</a></span>
+Tell me at least that I shall take away with me
+a little of your soul?"</p>
+
+<p>The lips so near his murmured "Yes!" And
+almost immediately:</p>
+
+<p>"Do you hear down there? Is that the first Easter
+bell?"</p>
+
+<p>They turned together towards the side where the
+wood sloped downwards.</p>
+
+<p>"No; it must be the wind in the trees."</p>
+
+<p>"Come," said she: "the bells are going to ring.
+And if I were not seen up there when they rang, old
+Rose would speak of it...."</p>
+
+<p>Hardly saying a word, she led him to the base of
+the rock. There they separated to go back to the
+Abbey by two different paths.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall find you again on the terrace," said Odile.</p>
+
+<p>The daylight was growing blue in the hollows.
+That was the hour when waiting for the night does
+not seem long, and the morrow already dawns in the
+dreaming mind.</p>
+
+<p>In a few minutes Jean had crossed the yard,
+followed the corridors of the convent, and opened a
+door leading to the garden in a sharp angle at the
+east of the buildings. There it was that all the
+pilgrims to Sainte Odile met to see Alsace when the
+weather was clear. A wall, high enough to lean on,
+runs along the top of an enormous block of rock,
+advancing like a spur above the forest. It overlooks
+the pines which cover the slopes everywhere. From
+the extreme point shut in, like the lantern of a lighthouse,
+one can see to the right quite a group of
+mountains, and in front and to the left the plain of
+Alsace. At this moment the fog was divided into
+two parts, for the sun was shining on the peaks of the
+Vosges. All the cloudy mist which did not reach that
+waving line of peaks, was grey and wan; but just
+above, almost horizontal rays pierced the mist and
+coloured it, giving to the second half of the landscape
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">130</a></span>
+a look of brightness like luminous foam. And this
+separation showed with what quickness the mist came
+up from the valley towards the departing sun. The
+fleecy clouds intermingling, were wafted into the
+illumined space, were irradiated, showing thus their
+incessantly changing shapes, and the strength of the
+motion impelling them, as if the light had summoned
+their columns to greater heights.</p>
+
+<p>There was at the entrance of this narrow place,
+arranged for pilgrims and visitors, an old man
+wearing the costume of the old Alsatians to the north
+of Strasburg; near him the priest with grey curly
+hair whom the children had greeted in the morning
+on the slope of Sainte Odile; a step or two farther
+on were the young Weissenburg peasants, and at
+the narrowest spot, squeezed close together on the
+wall, were the two students who might have been
+taken for brothers on account of their protruding
+lips and their beards divided in the middle, one fair,
+the other chestnut coloured. Both were Alsatians.
+They exchanged everyday remarks, as is usual
+among people who do not know each other. When
+they saw Jean Oberlé they turned round, and they
+felt themselves suddenly united by a common bond of
+race which becomes stronger in the face of a common
+danger.</p>
+
+<p>"Is he a German&mdash;that one there?" asked a
+voice.</p>
+
+<p>The old man who was near the priest cast a glance
+in the direction of the garden and answered:</p>
+
+<p>"No; he wears his moustache in the French fashion
+and he looks like one of us."</p>
+
+<p>"I saw him walking with Mademoiselle Odile
+Bastian, of Alsheim," said the young woman.</p>
+
+<p>The group was reassured, and more so when Jean
+greeted the priest in Alsatian and asked:</p>
+
+<p>"Are the bells of Alsace late?"</p>
+
+<p>They all smiled, not because of what he had said,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">131</a></span>
+but because they felt at home among themselves
+without an inconvenient witness.</p>
+
+<p>Odile came in her turn and leaned against a wall
+on the right of the first group. Jean took up a
+similar position on the other side of the group. They
+were suffering from loving so much, from having said
+it, and from only being sure of themselves.</p>
+
+<p>The bells were not late. Their voices were encircled
+and enclosed by the rising mists. Suddenly they
+escaped from the cloudy masses, and it seemed as if
+each separate morsel of fog burst like a bubble on
+touching the wall and poured out on the summit of
+the sacred mountain all the harmony of the pealing
+bells. "Easter! Easter! The Lord is risen! He
+has changed the world and delivered men! The
+heavens are opened!" So sang the bells of Alsace.
+They were ringing from the foot of the mountain,
+and from the distance, and from far, far away, voices
+of the little bells, and voices of the great bells of
+cathedrals; voices which never ceased and from peal
+to peal were prolonged in re-echoing reverberations;
+voices that passed away lightly, intermittently, delicately,
+like a shuttle in a loom; a prodigious choir,
+whose singers were never visible to each other; cries
+of joy from a whole population of churches, songs
+of the spring eternal, which rose up from the
+depths of the misty plain and mounted to the summit
+of Sainte Odile to blend into one harmonious whole.</p>
+
+<p>The grandeur of this concert of pealing bells
+silenced the few folk gathered together up there.
+The very air prayed. Souls thought of the risen
+Christ. Several thought of Alsace.</p>
+
+<p>"There is some blue sky," said a voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Some blue up there," repeated a woman's voice,
+as if in a dream.</p>
+
+<p>They scarcely heard it, in the roar of sounds which
+rose from the valley. Yet all eyes were raised at
+once. They saw in the sky, amidst the masses of fog
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">132</a></span>
+fleeing before the assailing sun, blue depths opening
+and opening with bewildering rapidity. And when
+they again looked downwards they perceived that
+the cloud of mist also was tearing itself to pieces on
+the slopes. It was the clearing up. Parts of the
+forest slipped, as it were, into the divisions made in
+the moving fog; then others; then black crevasses,
+the thickets, and rocks; then of a sudden the last
+rags of mist, drawn, thin, contorted, lamentable, went
+up in whirling masses, brushed against the terrace,
+and disappeared above. And the plain of Alsace
+appeared all blue and gold.</p>
+
+<p>One of those who saw it cried out:</p>
+
+<p>"How beautiful!"</p>
+
+<p>All leaned forward to see in the opening of the
+mountain the plain growing lighter and lighter as far
+as eye could see.</p>
+
+<p>All these Alsatian souls were touched. Three
+hundred villages of their own country lay below them
+scattered about amidst the young green of the cornfields.
+They were sleeping to the sound of the bells.
+Each was only a rose-red spot. The river, near the
+horizon, showed like a bar of dusky silver. And
+beyond rose stretches of country, whose shape was
+vanishing rapidly in the fogs which still hung above
+the Rhine. Quite near by, following the slope of the
+fir plantations, one saw, on the contrary, the smallest
+details of the forest of Sainte Odile. Several points
+of dark green jutted out into the valley and mixed
+with the pale green of the meadows. All was lit
+up by reflection from a sky full of rays of light.
+No bright spot attracted the eye. As the bells had
+united their voices, so the varying shades of the
+earth had melted into a harmonious unity. The old
+Alsatian, who kept his place at the side of the priest,
+stretched his arms, and said:</p>
+
+<p>"I hear the cathedral bells."</p>
+
+<p>He pointed, away in the distance over the flat
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">133</a></span>
+country, to the celebrated spire of Strasburg, which
+looked like an amethyst the size of a thumbnail.
+Now that they could see the rose-red of villages, they
+imagined they could recognise the sound of the bells.</p>
+
+<p>A voice said: "I recognise the sound of the bells
+of the Abbey of Marmoutier. How well they
+chime!"</p>
+
+<p>"I," said another, "I hear the bells of Obernai!"</p>
+
+<p>"And I the bells of Heiligenstein."</p>
+
+<p>The peasant, who came from the neighbourhood of
+Weissenburg, also said:</p>
+
+<p>"We are too far off to hear what the bells of Saint
+George of Haguenau are ringing. However, listen,
+listen; there&mdash;now."</p>
+
+<p>The old Alsatian repeated seriously:</p>
+
+<p>"I hear the cathedral!" and he added: "Look up
+there again!"</p>
+
+<p>They could all see that the clouds had ascended to
+the regions of the sunbeams. The cloud, shapeless
+at the base of the mountain, had spread across the
+sky, and was like sheaves of gladioli thrown above
+the Vosges and the plain: some red, like blood,
+some quite pale, and some like molten gold. And
+all those witnesses looking up from between the
+two abysses, their gaze having followed the long
+light line, remarked that it lit up the earth with its
+reflection, and that the distant houses of the capital
+and the spire of the cathedral stood out in a tawny
+light from the thickening shadow.</p>
+
+<p>"That is like what I saw on the night of August
+the 23rd, 1870," said the old Alsatian. "I was just
+here&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>They, even the very young ones, had heard this
+date frequently spoken of. Their looks were fixed
+more steadily on the little spire, whence came still a
+little shining light and the sound of the resurrection
+bells.</p>
+
+<p>"I was here with the women and girls from yonder
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">134</a></span>
+villages, who had come up here because the noise of
+the cannons had redoubled. We heard the cannons
+as we now hear the bells. The bombs burst like
+rockets. Our women were weeping here where you
+stand. That was the night when the library caught
+fire, that the new church caught fire, and the picture
+gallery, and ten houses in Broglie. Then a yellow-and-red
+smoke rose, and the clouds looked like these
+we now see. Strasburg was burning. They had
+fired one hundred and ninety-three shells against the
+city.</p>
+
+<p>One of the students, the younger one, shook his
+fist.</p>
+
+<p>"Down with them!" muttered the other.</p>
+
+<p>The peasant took his cap off and kept it under his
+arm, without saying a word.</p>
+
+<p>The bells were still ringing, but not so many of
+them. They could no longer hear the bells of
+Obernai, nor of Saint Nabor, nor some of the others
+they thought they had heard. They were like lights
+going out. Night was coming.</p>
+
+<p>Jean saw that the two women were almost weeping,
+and that every one was silent.</p>
+
+<p>"Please say one prayer for Alsace," he said to the
+priest, "while the bells are still ringing for the
+resurrection."</p>
+
+<p>"Right! that's right, my boy!" said the old
+peasant standing by the priest; "you belong to the
+country!"</p>
+
+<p>The heavy, weary face of the priest brightened at
+the same time. His voice, which was slightly broken,
+was not steady. An old and enduring sorrow, yet
+always new, spoke through his lips, and while they
+were all looking, as he was himself, towards Strasburg,
+the city which night was hiding, he prayed:</p>
+
+<p>"My God, here, now we can see from your Sainte
+Odile nearly all the beloved land, our towns, our
+villages, and our fields. But some of our land lies
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">135</a></span>
+also on the other side of the mountains, and yet
+that is also our country. You permitted us to be
+separated. My heart breaks to think of it. For on
+the other side of the mountains is the nation we love,
+and which you still love. It is the oldest of the
+Christian nations; it is the nearest to Godlike things.
+It has more angels in its skies because it has more
+churches and chapels on earth, more holy tombs to
+defend, more sacred dust mixed with its fields, with
+its grass, with the waters which permeate the land
+and nourish it. Oh God, we have suffered in our
+bodies, in our goods; we still suffer in our memories.
+Nevertheless, make our memories last. Grant that
+France also will not forget. Make her more worthy
+to lead nations. Give her back her lost sister, who
+may also return. Amen!"</p>
+
+<p>"As the Easter bells return."</p>
+
+<p>"Amen!" said the voices of two men.</p>
+
+<p>"Amen! Amen!"</p>
+
+<p>The others wept in silence. There was only the
+hollow sound of one single bell in the cold air that
+came up from the depths. The ringers had left the
+towers, already lost in the shadow that covered the
+plain.</p>
+
+<p>Above the high platform in the garden the
+darkened clouds, flying to the west, left a border of
+purple on the crest of the mountains. Stars came
+out, in the black depths of the night, as the first
+primroses were coming out, at the same time under
+the pines. Only three persons were left on the
+terrace. The others had gone when the secret of
+their Alsatian souls had been revealed.</p>
+
+<p>The old priest, seeing before him two young people
+close to each other, and Odile's head near Jean's
+shoulder, asked:</p>
+
+<p>"Betrothed?"</p>
+
+<p>"Alas!" answered Jean. "Wish that it may
+become true."
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">136</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I do wish it. What you just said is right. I
+wish that you, who are young, may see Alsace once
+more French."</p>
+
+<p>He went away.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-bye," said Odile quickly, "Good-bye, Jean!"</p>
+
+<p>She held out her hand, and went away without
+turning to look back. Jean remained near the
+terrace wall.</p>
+
+<p>The night birds&mdash;owls, sea-eagles, eagle-owls, and
+horned owls&mdash;mingling their cries, flew from wood to
+wood. For a quarter of an hour, the time of their
+passage, which they made in sweeping flights, their
+calls resounded over the mountain sides. Then complete
+silence settled down. Peace arose with the
+perfumes of the sleeping forests.</p>
+
+<p class="p4"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">137</a></span></p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER VIII</h3>
+
+<p class="center font95"><b>AT CAROLIS</b></p>
+
+<p class="p2">At the beginning of the rue de Zurich, facing the
+Quay des <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'Bateliels'">Bateliers</ins>, one of the relics of old Strasburg,
+there is a narrow house, much lower than its neighbours,
+with a roof of two stories like a Chinese
+pagoda. The front, formerly adorned with the
+pattern of its painted beams, is now covered with
+whitewash, on which is this inscription:</p>
+
+<p class="center">"<span class="smcap">JEAN, CALLED CAROLIS, <i>WEINSTUBE</i>."</span></p>
+
+<p>This wine-shop, whose exterior has nothing about
+it to arouse the curiosity of the passer-by, is not a
+nondescript place, nor is it an ordinary public-house.
+The place is historical. The inhabitants of Zurich
+came here in 1576, or, at least, the best shots among
+them, to take part in the grand shooting competition
+to which Strasburg had summoned the Empire and
+the confederated States. They had brought with
+them a pot of boiled millet, and scarcely were they
+out of the boat than they made the Strasburg people
+understand that the pudding was still warm.</p>
+
+<p>"We could easily come to your aid, neighbours,"
+they said; "by the Rhine and the Ill, the distance
+between our cities is very short." The word given in
+1576 was kept in 1870, as is testified to by an
+engraved inscription just near by on the Zurich
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">138</a></span>
+Fountain. At the moment when besieged Strasburg
+was in the most distressed condition the people of
+Zurich intervened, and obtained from General Werder
+permission to allow the old men and children to leave
+the city. This house was noted for something else&mdash;thanks
+to the Southerner who in 1860 established a
+shop there for wines of the South.</p>
+
+<p>Jean, called Carolis, bore a remarkable resemblance
+to Gambetta. He knew him, and copied his gestures
+and his clothes, the cut of his beard, and the sound
+of his voice. His trade was fairly flourishing before
+the war, but he became prosperous in the years that
+followed. And a certain number of German officers
+got into the habit of coming there to drink the black
+wines of Narbonne, Cette, and Montpellier.</p>
+
+<p>One morning towards the end of April, Jean
+Oberlé, who was going to see the Chief of the
+Administration of Forests, whom he had long promised
+to visit, was passing along the quay, when a woman
+of about forty, clothed in black, evidently an Alsatian,
+came out of the café, crossed the road, and, apologising,
+said:</p>
+
+<p>"Pardon me, monsieur, but will you kindly come
+in? One of your friends is asking for you."</p>
+
+<p>"Who is it?" asked Jean, astonished.</p>
+
+<p>"The youngest officer there."</p>
+
+<p>She pointed with her finger to the confused mass of
+shadow moving under the lowered linen blind, and
+which he saw to be the inside of the room with its
+groups of customers.</p>
+
+<p>Jean, after hesitating for a moment, followed her,
+and was surprised&mdash;for not belonging to Strasburg,
+he was ignorant of the reputation and also of the
+customers of this wine-shop&mdash;at finding there six
+officers, three of whom were Hussars, seated at tables
+covered with red and blue check cloths, talking
+loudly, smoking, and drinking Carolis wine.</p>
+
+<p>The first glance he gave, on coming from the light
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">139</a></span>
+into the semi-darkness, showed him that the room
+was small&mdash;there were only four tables&mdash;and decorated
+with allegorical pictures in the German style; he saw
+a monkey, a cat, a pack of cards, a packet of cigarettes,
+but above all there was a semi-circular mirror filling
+a recess in the left wall and round which hung framed
+photographs of the present or past habitués of the
+house. Jean looked again to see who could have
+sent for him, when a very young cavalryman got up.
+This simple movement displayed the beauty of his
+slender form in its sky-blue tunic with gold lace. He
+rose from the back of the room to the left. Near
+him, and round the same table, a captain and a
+commandant remained seated.</p>
+
+<p>The three officers must have returned from a long
+march; they were covered with dust, their foreheads
+were wet with perspiration, their features were drawn,
+and the veins stood out on their temples. The
+youngest had even brought back from this country
+ride a branch of hawthorn, which he had slipped
+under his flat epaulet, on the side near the heart.</p>
+
+<p>The Alsatian recognised Lieutenant Wilhelm von
+Farnow, a Prussian, three years older than himself,
+whom he had met before during his first year's law
+course in Munich, where Farnow was then sub-lieutenant
+in a regiment of Bavarian Uhlans. Since
+then he had not seen him. He only knew that in
+consequence of an altercation between Bavarian and
+Prussian officers in the regimental casino, some of
+the officers implicated had been removed, and that
+his old comrade was among their number.</p>
+
+<p>No; doubt was not possible. It was Farnow, with
+the same elegant, haughty way of offering his hand,
+the same fair, beardless face, too thick-set and too
+flat, with thick lips, an impertinent little nose, slightly
+turned up, and fine eyes of steel-blue&mdash;a hard blue
+where dwelt the pride of youth, of command, of a
+bold and disputatious temper. His body gave promise
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">140</a></span>
+of developing into that of a solid and massive
+cuirassier later on. But at present he was still thin,
+and so well-proportioned, so agile, so evidently inured
+to warlike exercises, so vigorous, there was such
+disciplined precision in all his movements, that de
+Farnow, although he had not a handsome face, had
+gained a reputation for good looks, so much so that
+in Munich one would call him sometimes "Beauty"
+Farnow, and sometimes "Death's Head" Farnow.
+With reddish moustaches, bushy brows, and a helmet
+accentuating the shadow over his eyes, he would have
+been terrifying. But, though scarcely twenty-seven,
+he gave the impression of a warlike being, violent,
+conqueror of himself, disciplined even to his acquired
+and perfectly polished manners.</p>
+
+<p>Jean Oberlé remarked that when he rose Farnow
+spoke to the commandant, his immediate neighbour,
+a robust soldier with slow, sure eyes. He was explaining
+something, and the other approved, with an
+inclination of his head, at the moment when the
+lieutenant made the introduction.</p>
+
+<p>"Will the commandant permit me to present to
+him my comrade, Jean Oberlé, son of the factory
+owner of Alsheim?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly, sir. An intelligent Alsatian&mdash;very well
+known."</p>
+
+<p>Jean's introduction to the captain, a man still
+young, with straight features, evidently cultured,
+and no less evidently of a haughty temper, led to
+the same flattering expressions regarding the factory
+owner at Alsheim: "Yes, truly Monsieur Oberlé is
+well known&mdash;an enlightened mind. I have had the
+pleasure of seeing him&mdash;kindly remember me to
+him."</p>
+
+<p>Jean felt humiliated by the marked attentions of
+these two officers. He had the impression that he
+was the object of exceptional attention, he, a civilian,
+a citizen; he, an Alsatian; he, who from every point
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">141</a></span>
+of view should have been looked upon by these lofty
+personages as their inferior. "What my father has
+done then is of great importance," he thought, "that
+they should requite him in this fashion. Neither his
+fortune, nor his style of living, nor his conversation,
+can justify this. He does not live at Strasburg, nor
+has he filled any office."</p>
+
+<p>A sign from the commandant almost at once put an
+end to the awkward situation, and gave the young
+men liberty to go and sit at the table farthest away
+from the window at the back of the room.</p>
+
+<p>"It is quite by chance that you meet me here,"
+said Farnow, in a slightly sarcastic tone, which
+revealed the pride of the Prussian lieutenant.</p>
+
+<p>"My regiment is hardly ever here&mdash;it is mostly
+infantry officers who come here.... I generally go
+to the 'Germania'&mdash;but we have just been reconnoitring,
+as you see, and my commandant was very
+hot.... You will pardon me, my dear Oberlé, for
+having sent for you."</p>
+
+<p>"On the contrary, it was very friendly. You could
+hardly leave your chiefs."</p>
+
+<p>"And I wanted to renew my acquaintance with you.
+I have not seen you for so long, not since Munich
+days. You had just gone past the corner of the house
+over there, when I said to the servant, 'That is one
+of my friends! Run and fetch M. Oberlé here!'"</p>
+
+<p>"And truly, you see me very happy, Farnow."</p>
+
+<p>The two young men looked at each other with the
+curiosity of two beings who try to fill in the unknown
+years. "What sort of a life has he led? What does
+he think of me? How far can I trust him?"</p>
+
+<p>"I fancy," said Farnow, "that you have arrived
+quite recently?"</p>
+
+<p>"Just so; I came at the end of February."</p>
+
+<p>"They told me that you were going to commence
+your military service in October in the Hussars."</p>
+
+<p>"That is true."
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">142</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Do you know, Oberlé, that I had the honour of
+meeting your father in society last winter? I asked
+to be introduced."</p>
+
+<p>"Excuse me, I am still such a new-comer...."</p>
+
+<p>Conversation languished at this moment at Carolis,
+and Jean noticed that the two blue tunics had turned
+towards him, and that the commandant and the
+captain were both examining the face of the future
+volunteer.</p>
+
+<p>They finished drinking the wine like Bordeaux they
+had ordered in a sealed bottle.</p>
+
+<p>"I should much like to see more of you," said
+Farnow, lowering his voice. "I hope we shall be
+able to meet."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know Alsheim?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; I've been through it several times during
+man&oelig;uvres."</p>
+
+<p>The lieutenant was visibly trying to find out how
+far he could go.</p>
+
+<p>He was in an annexed country; many incidents of
+daily life had taught him that. He did not care about
+renewing the experience. He was feeling his way.
+Should he promise a call? He did not know yet.
+And this uncertainty, so contrary to his energetic
+nature; this caution, so wounding to his pride&mdash;made
+him hold up his head as if he were going to pick up
+a challenge.</p>
+
+<p>Jean, on his side, was disturbed. This simple thing,
+the receiving a former comrade, seemed to him now
+a delicate problem to solve. Personally he should
+have inclined towards the affirmative. But neither
+Madame Oberlé nor the grandfather would admit
+any exception to the rule so strictly kept up to
+now&mdash;that no Germans, except quick and commonplace
+business men, should be admitted to the house
+of the old protesting deputy. They would never
+consent. But it was hard for Jean to show himself
+less tolerant in Strasburg than he had been in
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">143</a></span>
+Munich, and at the the first meeting on Alsatian
+ground to offend the young officer who had come
+to him with hand outstretched. He tried at least to
+put a note of cordiality into his answer:</p>
+
+<p>"I will come and see you, dear Farnow, with
+pleasure."</p>
+
+<p>The German understood, frowned, and was silent.
+Evidently others had refused even to visit him. He
+did not meet in Oberlé that systematic and complete
+hostility. His anger did not last, or he did not show
+it. He reached out his slender hand, the wrist of
+which looked like a bundle of steel threads covered
+with skin, and with the tips of his fingers he touched
+the hilt of his sword, which had not left his side.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall be charmed," he said at last.</p>
+
+<p>He ordered a bottle of Burgundy, and having
+filled Jean's glass and his own, drank.</p>
+
+<p>"To your return to Alsheim!" he said.</p>
+
+<p>Then, drinking it in a draught, he placed the glass
+upon the table.</p>
+
+<p>"I am really very pleased to see you again. I live
+pretty well alone, and you know my tastes outside
+my profession, which I adore, above which I place
+nothing whatever, nothing if it be not God, who is
+the great judge of it. I love hunting best&mdash;I think
+man is made to move in large spaces, to strengthen
+his power and his dominion over the beasts, when
+he has not the occasion to do it over his kind.
+For me there is no pleasure to equal it. Apropos of
+this, it seems that M. Oberlé has been ousted from
+his hunting rights?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Jean; "he has given them up almost
+entirely&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Would you like to have a turn at my place?
+I have rented some shooting near Haguenau, half
+wood and half plain; I have roebuck which come from
+the forest&mdash;the ancient Sacred Forest; I have hares
+and pheasants, and snipe at the time of passage; and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">144</a></span>
+if you like glowworms, I have some who fly under
+the pine-trees and shine like the lances of my
+Hussars."</p>
+
+<p>The conversation ran on for a while on this subject.
+Then Farnow finished the bottle of Carolis wine
+with Jean, and lifting the hawthorn which beflowered
+his epaulet and letting it drop to the
+ground, said:</p>
+
+<p>"If you will allow me, Oberlé, I will go some way
+with you. What direction do you take?"</p>
+
+<p>"Towards the University!"</p>
+
+<p>"That is my way."</p>
+
+<p>The two young men got up together. They were
+nearly of the same height and figure; both were of
+an energetic type, although different in expression&mdash;Oberlé,
+careful to relax all that was too serious in
+his face when at rest; Farnow exaggerating the
+harshness of his whole personality. The young
+lieutenant drew down his tunic to take out the
+creases, took from a chair his flat cap decorated in
+front with a cockade of the Prussian colours, and
+walking first with a studied stiffness, half turned
+towards the table where the commandant and the
+captain were sitting, saluted them with an almost
+invisible and several times repeated inclination of
+the body. The respectful good-fellowship of a short
+time ago was not now in place. The two chiefs from
+habit inspected this lieutenant leaving Carolis.
+Gentlemen themselves, very jealous of the honour
+of their corps, having learned by heart all the articles
+of the code of the perfect officer, they interested
+themselves in all that had to do with the conduct,
+the attitude, the dress, and the speech of a subordinate,
+who is the object of public criticism. The examination
+must have been favourable to Farnow. With a
+friendly and protective movement of his hand, the
+commandant dismissed him.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as they were in the street Farnow asked:
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">145</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Well, they were perfect, were they not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"How you say that? Did you not find them
+kindly? You ought to see them in the service."</p>
+
+<p>"On the contrary," interrupted Jean, "they were
+too amiable. I see every day more and more that
+my father must have humiliated himself very much
+to be so honoured in high places. And that wounds
+me, Farnow."</p>
+
+<p>The other looked serious, and said:</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Franzosenkopf!</i> What a strange character this
+nation has&mdash;who cannot accept their position as the
+conquered, and think themselves dishonoured if
+Germans make advances to them!"</p>
+
+<p>"It is because they do nothing gratuitously," said
+Oberlé.</p>
+
+<p>Farnow was not displeased at the word. It
+seemed to him a kind of homage to the hard,
+utilitarian temperamant of his race. Besides, the
+young lieutenant would not enter into a discussion
+where he knew that friendships ran the risk of being
+spoilt. He greeted a young woman, who came
+towards him, and followed her with his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"That is the wife of Captain von Holtzberg.
+Pretty, isn't she?"</p>
+
+<p>Then pointing to the left, beyond the bridge to
+the quarters of the old city, illumined by the vaporous
+light of this spring morning, he added, as if the two
+thoughts were united naturally in his mind:</p>
+
+<p>"I like this old-world Strasburg. How feudal
+it is!"</p>
+
+<p>Above the river, whose waters were soiled by
+works and sewers, rose the long sloping roofs, with
+their high dormer windows, the tiles of all shades of
+red&mdash;the medićval purple of Strasburg, mended,
+patched, and spotted, and washed, violet in places,
+nearly yellow in others adjoining, rose-colour on
+certain slopes, orange-coloured in some lights,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">146</a></span>
+royally beautiful everywhere and stretched out like
+a marvellous Eastern carpet of soft faded silks
+round the cathedral. The cathedral itself, built in
+red stone, viewed from this point, seemed to have
+been, and still to be, the pattern which had decided
+the colour of all the rest; it was the ornament, the
+glory, and the centre of all. A stork, with open
+wings, cleaving the air with wide strokes, as an
+oarsman cleaves water, his feet horizontally prolonging
+his body and acting as rudder, his bill a
+little raised like a prow, an heraldic bird, was flying
+through the blue, faithful to Strasburg, like all its
+ancient race, protected, sacred like the place, and
+always returning to the same nests above the same
+chimney stacks.</p>
+
+<p>Jean and Farnow saw it inclining towards the
+cathedral spire, and seen from behind, foreshortened,
+it looked like some bird beating the air with its bow
+of feathers, and then it disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>"These are the inhabitants," said Farnow, "whom
+neither the smoke of our factories, nor the tramways,
+nor the railways, nor the new palaces, nor the new
+order of things can astonish."</p>
+
+<p>"They have always been German," said Jean with
+a smile. "The storks have always worn your colours&mdash;white
+belly, red bill, black wings."</p>
+
+<p>"So they have," said the officer, laughing.</p>
+
+<p>He went on his way along the quays, and almost
+immediately stopped laughing. Before him, coming
+from the direction of the new part of the town, an
+artillery soldier was leading two horses, or rather he
+was being led by them. He was drunk. Walking
+between the two brown horses, holding the reins in
+his raised hands, he went on stumbling, knocking
+against the shoulder of one or the other of the beasts,
+and to save himself from falling, dragged from time
+to time at one of them, which resisted and moved
+away.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">147</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"What is this?" growled Farnow&mdash;"a drunken
+soldier at this time of day!"</p>
+
+<p>"A little too much malt spirit," said Oberlé. "He
+is not merry in drink."</p>
+
+<p>Farnow did not answer. Frowning, he watched
+the man who was approaching, and who was only
+about ten yards away.</p>
+
+<p>At this distance, according to regimental rules, the
+man ought to have walked in step and turned his
+head in the direction of his superior officer. Not only
+had he forgotten all his instruction and continued to
+roll painfully between the horses; but at the moment
+when he had to pass Farnow he murmured something,
+no doubt an insult.</p>
+
+<p>That was too much. The lieutenant's shoulders
+shook with anger for a moment, and then he marched
+straight to the soldier, whose frightened horses backed.
+The officer felt humiliated for Germany.</p>
+
+<p>"Halt!" he cried. "Stand straight!"</p>
+
+<p>The soldier looked at him, stupefied, made an effort,
+and succeeded in standing still and nearly erect.</p>
+
+<p>"Your name?"</p>
+
+<p>The soldier told his name.</p>
+
+<p>"You will have your punishment at the barracks,
+you brute! But in expectation of better things, take
+this on account, for dishonouring the uniform as you
+have!"</p>
+
+<p>Saying this, he stretched his right arm out at full
+length, and with his gloved hand, hard as steel, he
+hit the man on the face. The blood ran out at the
+corner of his mouth; he squared his shoulders; he
+drew up his arms as if about to box. The soldier
+must have been terribly tempted to retaliate. Jean
+saw the wandering eyes of the drunkard when he
+was thus thrust backwards, turn right round in their
+sockets with pain and rage. Then they looked down
+on the pavement, overcome by a confused and terrifying
+remembrance of the power of the officer.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">148</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Now march!" cried Farnow. "And do not
+stumble!"</p>
+
+<p>He was in the middle of the quay&mdash;erect, booted, a
+head higher than his victim, as it were surrounded
+by sunlight, with flashing eyes, the lower lids and
+the corners of his lips wrinkled by anger; and those
+who called him "Death's Head" must have caught
+a glimpse of him like that.</p>
+
+<p>The loafers who had hurried up to witness the
+scene and formed a circle, stood aside at the order
+of the lieutenant, and let the soldier pass through,
+who was trying not to pull the reins too hard. Then,
+as a certain number of them remained gathered
+together, either silent or merely muttering their
+opinion, Farnow, turning on his heels and crossing
+his arms, looked at them one after the other. The
+little bank clerk went by first, adjusting his eyeglasses;
+then the milk-woman with her copper pot
+on her hip passed on by herself, shrugged her
+shoulders, ogling Farnow; then the butcher who
+had come from the neighbouring shop; then two
+boatmen who tried to look as if they did not care,
+although both had flushed faces; then the urchins
+who at first wanted to cry, and who now nudged
+each other and went off laughing. The officer drew
+near to his companion, who had remained on the left
+near the canal.</p>
+
+<p>"I think you went a little too far," said Oberlé.
+"What you have just done is forbidden by the
+Emperor's express orders. You risk a reprimand."</p>
+
+<p>"That is the only way to treat those brutes!"
+said Farnow, his eyes still blazing. "Besides, believe
+me, he has already passed on my blow to his horses,
+and to-morrow he will have forgotten all about it."</p>
+
+<p>The two young men walked side by side to the
+University gardens, without speaking to each other,
+thinking over what had just happened. Farnow put
+on a new pair of gloves to replace the others, probably
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">149</a></span>
+soiled by the soldier's cheek. He bent towards
+Jean, saying gravely and with evident conviction:</p>
+
+<p>"You were very young when I met you, my dear
+fellow. We shall have to tell each other a few things
+before we shall know exactly our respective opinions
+on many points.</p>
+
+<p>"But I am astonished that you have not yet perceived,
+you who have stayed so long in all the
+German provinces, that we were born to conquer the
+world, and that conquerors are never gentle men, nor
+ever perfectly just."</p>
+
+<p>He added, after a few steps:</p>
+
+<p>"I should be vexed if I have hurt your feelings,
+Oberlé; but I cannot hide from you that I do not
+regret what I did. Only understand that behind my
+anger there is discipline, the inviolable prestige and
+dignity of the army of which I am a unit. Do not
+report the incident to your people, dear fellow, without
+also adding the excuse <i>for</i> it. That would mean
+to betray a friend. Well, good-bye."</p>
+
+<p>He held out his hand. His blue eyes lost for the
+moment something of their haughty indifference.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-bye, Oberlé! Here is the door of your Clerk
+of the Forests."</p>
+
+<p class="p4"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">150</a></span></p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER IX</h3>
+
+<p class="center font95"><b>THE MEETING</b></p>
+
+<p class="p2">Jean came back in fairly good time to the Strasburg
+station and took the train to Obernai, where he had
+left his bicycle. While going from Obernai to Alsheim
+he saw in the meadows through which the Dachs ran,
+near Bernhardsweiler, a second stork&mdash;motionless on
+one leg.</p>
+
+<p>This was the first thing he told Lucienne, whom he
+met under the trees in the park. She was reading,
+and wore a grey linen dress with lace on the bodice.
+When she heard the noise of the bicycle on the
+gravel she lifted her intelligent eyes, smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear, how I have missed you. What in the
+world makes you go away so constantly?"</p>
+
+<p>"I make discoveries, dear sister. First, I have seen
+two storks, arriving on the sacred day&mdash;April 23&mdash;punctual
+as lawyers."</p>
+
+<p>A slight pout of her red lips showed that the news
+did not interest her much.</p>
+
+<p>"Then?"</p>
+
+<p>"I spent three hours in the offices of the Forest
+Conservators, where I learned that&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You can tell all that to father," she interrupted.
+"I see so much wood here, living and dead, that I have
+no wish to occupy my mind with it unnecessarily.
+Tell me some Strasburg news, or about some costumes,
+or some conversation you had with some one in
+society."
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">151</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"That is true," said the young man, laughing. "I
+did meet some one."</p>
+
+<p>"Interesting?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; an old acquaintance of Munich, a lieutenant
+in the Hussars."</p>
+
+<p>"Lieutenant von Farnow?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, the very man&mdash;Lieutenant Wilhelm von
+Farnow, lieutenant in the 9th Rhenish Hussars.
+What is the matter?"</p>
+
+<p>They were halfway down the avenue, hidden by a
+clump of shrubs. Lucienne, bold and provoking as
+ever, crossed her arms and said, in a quieter tone of
+voice:</p>
+
+<p>"Only this&mdash;he loves me."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>He?</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"And I love him!"</p>
+
+<p>Jean stepped away from his sister in order to see
+her better.</p>
+
+<p>"It is not possible!"</p>
+
+<p>"And why not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Lucienne, because he is a German, an officer&mdash;a
+Prussian!"</p>
+
+<p>There was silence; the blow had struck home.
+Jean, quite pale, went on:</p>
+
+<p>"You must also know that he is a Protestant."</p>
+
+<p>She flung her book on the seat and, holding up her
+head, quivering all over at the protest:</p>
+
+<p>"Do you imagine I have not thought it all over?
+I know all you can possibly say. I know that the
+people in the midst of whom we live in Alsace here,
+intolerant and narrow-minded as they are, will not
+hesitate to say what they think on the subject. Yes;
+they will make a fuss, they will blame me and pity
+me and try to make me give way. And you; are you
+not beginning the game? But I warn you that
+arguments are quite useless&mdash;all your arguments. I
+love him. It is not to be done, it <i>is</i> done. I have
+only one wish, and that is to know if you are on
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">152</a></span>
+my side or against me. For I shall not alter my
+mind."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, my God! my God!" cried Jean, hiding his
+face in his hands.</p>
+
+<p>"I never thought it could hurt you so much. I do
+not understand. Do you share their stupid hatred?
+Tell me. I am putting a strong control on my feelings
+that I may talk to you. Tell me then. Speak.
+You are paler than I am&mdash;I, whom this alone
+concerns."</p>
+
+<p>She caught hold of his hands and uncovered his
+face. And Jean gazed at her strangely for a moment
+as do those whose look does not as yet correspond
+with their thoughts.</p>
+
+<p>Then he said:</p>
+
+<p>"You are mistaken; we are both concerned,
+Lucienne!"</p>
+
+<p>"Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"We are one against the other, because I, too,
+must tell you that I love&mdash;I love Odile Bastian!"</p>
+
+<p>She was terrified at what she foresaw in connection
+with this name; she was touched at the same time
+because the argument had reference to love, and was
+a confidence. Her irritation passed at once. She
+put her head on her brother's shoulder. The curls
+of her fair hair intermixed with auburn lay ruffled
+and disordered against Jean's neck.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor, dear Jean," she murmured. "Fate pursues
+us. Odile Bastian and the other. Two love
+affairs which exclude each other! Oh! my poor
+dear, it is the drama of our family perpetuating
+itself through us!" She straightened herself, thinking
+she heard a step, and taking her brother's arm
+went on nervously: "We cannot talk here, but we
+must talk about other than merely surface things.
+If father suddenly came across us, or mamma, who
+is working in the drawing-room at heaven knows
+what everlasting piece of embroidery. Ah, my dear,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">153</a></span>
+when I think that only a few steps away from her
+we are exchanging such secrets as these, which she
+little suspects! But first we must think of ourselves,
+must we not? Ourselves...!" For a
+moment she thought of returning to the house, and
+of going up to her room with Jean. Then she
+decided on a better place of refuge. "Come into
+the fields, there no one will disturb us."</p>
+
+<p>Arm-in-arm, hastening their steps, speaking to
+each other in low tones and short sentences, they
+went through the gate, passed the end of the enclosure,
+and to the right of the road, which was
+higher than the surrounding land; they went down
+a sloping path, which could be seen like a grey
+ribbon winding its seemingly endless way through
+the young corn. Already each of them, after the
+first moment of surprise, of dejection, and of real
+pain caused by the thought of what the other would
+suffer, had come back to thoughts of self.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps we are wrong to worry ourselves," said
+Lucienne, entering the path. "Is it certain that our
+plans are irreconcilable?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Odile Bastian's mother will never agree
+to her daughter becoming the sister-in-law of a
+German officer."</p>
+
+<p>"And how do you know that this officer would
+not perhaps prefer marrying into a family a little
+less behind the times than ours?" said Lucienne,
+hurt. "Your plan may also injure mine."</p>
+
+<p>"Pardon me; I know Farnow&mdash;nothing will stop
+him."</p>
+
+<p>"To tell the truth, I think so too!" said the young
+girl, looking up, and blushing with pride.</p>
+
+<p>"He is one of those who are never in the wrong."</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly so."</p>
+
+<p>"You share his ambitions."</p>
+
+<p>"I flatter myself that I do."</p>
+
+<p>"You can rest assured then: he will have no hesitation.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">154</a></span>
+The scruples will come from the Bastian side,
+who are the souls of honour...."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! if he heard you," said Lucienne, letting go
+her brother's arm, "he would fight you."</p>
+
+<p>"What would that prove?"</p>
+
+<p>"That he felt your insult as I felt it myself, Jean.
+For Lieutenant von Farnow is a man of honour!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, in <i>his</i> way&mdash;which is not our way."</p>
+
+<p>"Very good! Very noble!"</p>
+
+<p>"Rather feudal, this nobility of theirs. They have
+not had the time to have that of a later date. But
+after all it does not matter. I am not in a mood for
+discussion. I suffer too much. All I wish to say is
+that when I ask for Odile's hand I shall be refused.
+I foresee it, I am sure of it; and that von Farnow
+will not understand why, and if he did understand
+he would not withdraw, he would never think of
+sacrificing himself. In speaking like this, I am not
+slandering him. I simply understand him."</p>
+
+<p>They walked on, enveloped in an atmosphere of
+light and warmth, which they did not enjoy, between
+long strips of young corn, smiling unnoticed around
+them. In the plain, some labourers seeing them pass
+side by side, walking together, envied them. Lucienne
+could not deny that her brother's forebodings were
+reasonable. Yes, it must be so, judging from what
+she herself knew of Lieutenant von Farnow and the
+Bastians. In any other circumstance she would have
+pitied her brother, but personal interest spoke louder
+than pity. She felt a kind of disturbed joy when
+she heard Jean acknowledge his fears. She felt
+encouraged <i>not</i> to be generous, because she felt he
+was anxious. Not being able to pity him, she at any
+rate drew near to him, and talked to him about
+herself.</p>
+
+<p>"If we had lived together longer, Jean," she said,
+"you would have known my ideas on marriage, and
+I should astonish you less to-day. I had made up my
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">155</a></span>
+mind to marry only a very rich man. I dislike the
+fear of what to-morrow may bring; I want certainty
+and to lead...."</p>
+
+<p>"The conditions are fulfilled," said Jean, with
+bitterness. "Farnow has a vast property in Silesia.
+But at the same time he is also lieutenant in the
+9th regiment of Rhenish Hussars!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well!"</p>
+
+<p>"Officer in an army against which your father has
+fought, your uncle has fought, and all your relations,
+every one old enough to carry arms."</p>
+
+<p>"Quite right. And I would not have asked anything
+better than to marry an Alsatian. Perhaps I
+even wished to do so without saying anything about it.
+But I did not find what I wished. Nearly all who
+had name, fortune, or influence have chosen France;
+that is to say, they all left Alsace after the war. They
+called it patriotism. Truly, words can serve every
+use. Who remain? You can easily count the young
+people of Alsatian origin belonging to wealthy families,
+and who could have aspired to the hand of Lucienne
+Oberlé."</p>
+
+<p>She went on more excitedly:</p>
+
+<p>"But they did not ask for me; and they will not
+ask for me, my dear! That is what you have never
+understood. They kept away, they and their parents,
+because father....</p>
+
+<p>"They have put us and our family under an interdict.
+I am, in consequence, one of those they do
+not marry. Owing to their intolerance, the narrowness
+of their conception of life, I am condemned by
+them. They call me the 'beautiful Lucienne Oberlé,'
+but none of those who like to look at me, and greet
+me with affected respect would dare to defy his
+people and make me his wife. I have not had to
+choose; you cannot reproach me on that score. The
+situation is such that, willing or not, I shall not be
+asked in marriage by an Alsatian. It is not my fault.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">156</a></span>
+I knew what I was doing when I accepted Lieutenant
+von Farnow!"</p>
+
+<p>"Accepted?"</p>
+
+<p>"In the sense that I am bound&mdash;certainly. During
+last autumn, but especially for the last four months,
+Lieutenant von Farnow has paid me a great deal of
+attention."</p>
+
+<p>"Then it was he on horseback, there on the road,
+the night I returned?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Was it he who recently came to visit the saw-mills
+with another officer?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; but I have met him mostly in society at
+Strasburg, when father took me to balls and
+dinners.&mdash;You know that mamma, because of her
+poor health&mdash;but above all because of her hatred of
+everything German&mdash;generally avoids accompanying
+me. I met Lieutenant von Farnow constantly. He
+had every chance of talking to me.</p>
+
+<p>"At last, when he came here, just lately, he asked
+father if I would allow him to pay me definite
+attentions. And this very morning, after lunch, I
+answered 'Yes.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Then father consents?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"The others?"</p>
+
+<p>"Know nothing about it. And it will be terrible.
+Think of it. My mother, my grandfather, Uncle
+Ulrich! I hoped for your support, Jean, to help me
+overcome all these difficulties, and to help me also
+to heal all the wounds I am going to inflict. First of
+all, von Farnow must be introduced to mamma, who
+does not know him. Alsheim is quite impossible.
+We have been thinking of a meeting at some mutual
+friend's house in Strasburg. But if I have to consider
+you as one more enemy, what good is there in
+my telling you my plans?"</p>
+
+<p>They stood still, Jean reflecting for a moment, as
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">157</a></span>
+he faced the plain, which unrolled its strips of barley,
+and young corn, intermingling at the edges like the
+flow and counterflow of running water. Then,
+gathering his thoughts together and looking at
+Lucienne, who was waiting for his words, with
+raised face, suppliant, restless, and ardent.</p>
+
+<p>"You cannot imagine how much I am suffering.
+You have destroyed all my joy!"</p>
+
+<p>"My dear, I did not know about your love!"</p>
+
+<p>"And I&mdash;I have not the courage to destroy
+yours...."</p>
+
+<p>Lucienne threw her arms round his neck.</p>
+
+<p>"How generous you are, Jean! How good you
+are!"</p>
+
+<p>He put her away from him, and said sadly:</p>
+
+<p>"Not so generous as you imagine, Lucienne, for
+that would be to show myself very weak. No; I do
+not approve of your decision. I have no confidence
+in your happiness...."</p>
+
+<p>"But at least you will leave me free? You will
+not go against me? You will help me against
+mamma?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, since you have gone so far, and since our
+father has given his consent, and since our mother's
+opposition might only cause still greater unhappiness...."</p>
+
+<p>"You are right, Jean. Greater unhappiness, for
+father told me that&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I guess. He told you that he would crush
+all opposition, that he would leave our mother rather
+than give in. That is all very likely. He would do
+it. I shall not enter into any struggle with him.
+Only, I keep my liberty of action with regard to
+von Farnow."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean by that?" she asked
+quickly.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish," Jean replied, in a tone of authority, in
+which Lucienne felt her brother's invincible determination,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">158</a></span>
+"I wish to let him know exactly what I
+think. I shall find some means of having an
+explanation with him. If he persists, after that, in
+his desire to marry you, he will make no mistake, at
+least as to the difference of feeling and ideas which
+separate us."</p>
+
+<p>"I do not mind that," answered Lucienne, reassured,
+and she smiled, being certain that von
+Farnow would stand the trial.</p>
+
+<p>She turned towards Alsheim. A cry of victory
+was on her lips, but she restrained it. For some
+time she stood silent, breathing quickly, and seeking
+with her eyes and mind what she could say so that
+her happiness should not appear an insult to her
+brother.</p>
+
+<p>Then she shook her head.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor house," she said. "Now that I am going to
+leave it, it is becoming dear to me. I am persuaded
+that later on, when life in the garrison takes me
+away from Alsace, I shall have visions of Alsheim.
+I shall see it in imagination, just as it stands there."</p>
+
+<p>In the midst of its girdle of orchards were massed
+together the red roofs of the village. And both
+village and trees formed an island among the corn
+and April clover. Little birds, gilded by the sunshine,
+were flying over Alsheim. The house of the
+Oberlés at this distance seemed only to be one of
+many. There was so much sweetness in all things
+that one might have imagined life itself sweet.</p>
+
+<p>Lucienne gave herself up to this appreciation of
+beauty, which only came to her as a consequence of
+her thoughts of love. Again she heard her own
+words, "I shall have visions of Alsheim just as it
+stands there." Then the undulating line of the
+Bastians' wood, which rose like a little blue cloud
+beyond the farthest gardens, reminded her of Jean's
+trouble. She only then realised that he had not
+answered her. She was moved, not enough to ask
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">159</a></span>
+herself if she should renounce her happiness to make
+Jean happy, but up to the point of regretting, with a
+sort of tender violence, this conflict between their
+loves. She would have liked to soothe the pain she
+had caused, to comfort it with words, to put it to
+rest, and not to feel it so close to her and so
+alive.</p>
+
+<p>"Jean, my brother Jean," she said, "I will requite
+you for all you are doing for me by helping you, by
+doing my very best for you. Who knows but by
+working together we may not be able to solve the
+problem?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; it is beyond your power and mine."</p>
+
+<p>"Odile loves you? Yes, of course she loves you.
+Then you will be very strong."</p>
+
+<p>Jean made a movement of weariness.</p>
+
+<p>"Do not try, Lucienne. Let us go back."</p>
+
+<p>"I beseech you. Tell me at least how you came
+to love her? I can understand that. We said we
+would tell each other more than the names. You
+have only me to whom you can speak your mind
+without danger."</p>
+
+<p>She was making herself out to be humble. She
+was even humiliated by her secret happiness. She
+renewed her request, was affectionate, and found the
+right words to describe Odile's stately beauty, and
+Jean spoke.</p>
+
+<p>He did it because his need to confide to some one
+the hope which had been his&mdash;a hope which was still
+struggling not to die. He told of the Easter vigil at
+Sainte Odile and how he had met the young girl
+on Maundy Thursday in the cherry avenue. From
+that, each helping the other to recall happenings, to
+fix dates, to find words, they went back into the past,
+up to long-ago times when their parents were not at
+variance, or at least when the children were ignorant
+of their dissensions or did not perceive them, when
+in the holidays Lucienne, Odile, and Jean might
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">160</a></span>
+believe that the two families, united in intimate
+friendship, would continue to live as important land-owners,
+respected and beloved by the village of
+Alsheim.</p>
+
+<p>Lucienne did not realise that in calling up these
+pictures of the happy past she was not calming her
+brother's mind. He may have found pleasure in
+them for a moment, hoping to get away from the
+present, but a comparison was immediately drawn,
+and his revolt was only the more profound, arousing
+all the powers of his being, against his father, against
+his sister, against that false pity behind which
+Lucienne's incapability of sacrifice was hidden. Soon
+the young man gave up answering his sister. Alsheim
+was getting nearer, and was now a long outline
+broken here and there. In the calm evening the
+Oberlés' house raised its protecting roof amid the
+tops of the trees, still bare. When the park gates,
+closed each day when the workmen left, were
+opened for the two pedestrians, Jean slipped behind
+Lucienne, and, making her go on, said, in very low,
+ironical tones:</p>
+
+<p>"Come, Baroness von Farnow, enter the house of
+the old protesting deputy, Philippe Oberlé."</p>
+
+<p>She was going to make a retort, but an energetic
+footstep scrunched the gravel, a man turned into the
+avenue round a gigantic clump of beeches, and a
+resonant, imperious voice, which was singing in order
+to appear the voice of a happy man without any
+regrets, cried:</p>
+
+<p>"There you are, my children! What a nice walk
+you must have had! From the waterfall by the
+works I saw you in the corn leaning towards each
+other like lovers."</p>
+
+<p>M. Joseph Oberlé questioned the faces of his
+children, and saw that Lucienne at least was smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"Did we have things to tell each other?" he went
+on. "Great secrets, perhaps?"
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">161</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Lucienne, embarrassed by the nearness of the lodge,
+and still more so by the exasperation of her brother,
+answered quickly:</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; I have spoken to Jean. He has understood.
+He will not oppose my wishes."</p>
+
+<p>The father seized his son's hand. "I expected
+nothing else from him. I thank you, Jean. I shall
+not forget that."</p>
+
+<p>In his left hand he took Lucienne's, and, like a
+happy father between his two children, he crossed
+the park by the long, winding carriage drive.</p>
+
+<p>A woman behind the drawing-room window saw
+them come, and her pleasure in looking at this scene
+was not undiluted. She asked herself if the father
+and children had united against her.</p>
+
+<p>"You know, dear Jean," said the father, holding
+up his head and, as it were, questioning the front of
+the château. "You know that I wish to spare
+susceptibilities and to prepare solutions, and not to
+insist on them until I am forced to do so. We are
+invited to the Brausigs'&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! is it already settled?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, to a dinner, to a fairly large evening party&mdash;not
+too many people. I think that would be a very
+good opportunity to present Lieutenant von Farnow
+to your mother. I shall only speak of this to your
+mother later on. And in order not to bias any of her
+impressions&mdash;you know how timid she is&mdash;so that she
+does not meet my look when she talks to this young
+man, I shall refuse for myself&mdash;I shall confide
+Lucienne's future to you. All my dream is to make
+this dear one happy. Not a word to my father. He
+will be the last to learn what does not really concern
+him but secondarily."</p>
+
+<p>The great empty space by the flight of steps had
+not seen for a long time such a united group walk on
+the well-rolled gravel.</p>
+
+<p>In the drawing-room, keeping herself a little back,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">162</a></span>
+trying to make her mind easy and not succeeding,
+Madame Oberlé had left off working. The embroidery
+was on the floor.</p>
+
+<p>Jean was thinking.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall thus assist at the interview, and I shall
+take mamma there, who will suspect nothing. What
+a part to play to avoid greater evils! Happily, she
+will forgive me one day when she knows everything."</p>
+
+<hr class="c5" />
+
+<p>Late that night, kissing her son, Madame Oberlé
+said:</p>
+
+<p>"Your father insists upon my accepting the
+Brausigs' invitation. Are you going, my darling?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, mamma."</p>
+
+<p>"Then I shall also go."</p>
+
+<p class="p4"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">163</a></span></p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER X</h3>
+
+<p class="center font95"><b>THE DINNER AT THE BRAUSIGS'</b></p>
+
+<p class="p2">At seven o'clock the guests of the Geheimrath
+Brausig were gathered together in the blue drawing-room&mdash;with
+its plush and gilded wood&mdash;which that
+official had taken with him to the different towns
+he had lived in. The Geheimrath was a Saxon of
+excellent education, and of amiable though somewhat
+fawning manners. He seemed always to bend
+in any direction in which he was touched. But the
+frame-work was solid; and, on the contrary, he was
+a man whose ideas were unchangeable. He was tall,
+ruddy, nearly blind, and wore his hair long, and his
+red beard streaked with white, he wore short. He
+did not wear spectacles, because his eyes, of a pale
+agate colour, were neither shortsighted nor longsighted,
+but were worn out and almost dead. He
+was a great talker. His speciality was to reconcile
+the most opposite opinions. In his offices, in his
+relations with his inferiors one saw the real basis of
+his character. Herr Brausig had an Imperial spirit.
+He never allowed private people to be in the right.
+The words "Public interest" seemed to him to
+answer all arguments. In the official world they
+talked about raising him to the nobility. He repeated
+this. His wife was fifty years old, had the remains
+of beauty and an imposing figure; she had received
+the officials of eight German towns before coming to
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">164</a></span>
+live in Strasburg. At her entertainments she gave
+all her attention to supervising the servants, and
+her impatience at the countless annoyances connected
+with their service, which she tried to hide, did
+not allow her to reply to her neighbours except in
+sentences absolutely devoid of interest.</p>
+
+<p>The guests formed a mixture of races and professions
+which one would not so easily come across
+in any other German town. There are so many
+imported elements in the Strasburg of to-day! They
+were fourteen in number, the dining-room could seat
+sixteen with a little over two feet of table for each
+person, such space being an essential in the eyes of
+the Geheimrath. He had in his house, around him&mdash;and
+he dominated them with his sad, insipid head&mdash;some
+protégés, people recommended to him, or friends
+gathered together from various parts of the empire:
+two Prussian students from the University of Strasburg,
+then two young Alsatian artists, two painters
+who had been working for a year at the decoration
+of a church; these were the unimportant guests, to
+which we must add the two Oberlés, brother and
+sister, and even the mother, who was looked upon in
+the official world as a person of limited intellect.
+The guests of note were Professor Knäpple, from
+Mecklenburg, cultured and studious, whose erudition
+consisted chiefly of minutić, and the author of an
+excellent work on the socialism of Plato. He was the
+husband of a pretty wife, round and pink, who seemed
+fairer and pinker by the side of her dark husband,
+with his black beard curling like an Assyrian's. The
+Professor of Ćsthetics, Baron von Fincken from
+Baden&mdash;who shaved his cheeks and chin, so that the
+scars gained in the duels of his student days might be
+better seen, was of a slender, nervous build; his head
+was of the energetic type, his nose was turned up
+and showing the cartilage very plainly; ardent,
+passionate, and very anti-French, and yet he looked
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">165</a></span>
+more like a Frenchman than any one present, except
+Jean Oberlé. There was no Madame von Fincken.
+But there was beautiful Madame Rosenblatt, the
+woman who was more envied, sought after, looked up
+to, than any other woman in the German society of
+Strasburg, even in the military world, because of
+her beauty and intelligence. She came from Rhenish
+Prussia, as did also her husband, the great iron-master,
+Karl Rosenblatt, multi-millionaire, a man of sanguine
+temperament, and at the same time methodical and
+silent, and one said that he was bold and cold and
+calculating in business.</p>
+
+<p>This party was like all the parties that the
+Geheimrath gave; there was no homogeneity. The
+official himself called that conciliating the different
+elements of the country. He also spoke of the
+"neutral ground" of his house and of the "open
+tribunal," for each and every opinion. But many
+Alsatians did not trust this eclecticism and this
+liberty. Some maintained that Herr Brausig was
+simply playing a part, and that whatever was said in
+his house was always known in higher spheres.</p>
+
+<p>Madame Oberlé and her children were the last to
+arrive at the Geheimrath. The German guests
+welcomed Lucienne, who was intimate with them
+already. They were polite to the mother, because
+they knew she only went into Government society
+under constraint. Wilhelm von Farnow, introduced
+by Madame Brausig, who alone knew about the
+officer's plans, bowed ceremoniously to the mother
+and the young girl, drew himself up erect, stood
+stiffly, then returned at once to the group of men
+standing near the mirror.</p>
+
+<p>A servant announced that dinner was served.
+There was a movement among the black coats, and
+the guests entered the large room, decorated as at
+the Oberlés' house with evident predilection. But the
+taste was not the same. The vaulted bays with two
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">166</a></span>
+mullions, decorated with rose windows in the pointed
+arch, and filled with stained-glass, of which at this
+time only the lead-work was to be seen; the sideboards
+with torso pillars with sculptured panels; the
+wainscoting rising to the ceiling and ending in little
+spires; the ceiling itself divided into numerous sunk
+panels, and in the carving of which electric lamps
+shone like fire blossoms: the whole decoration recalled
+to mind Gothic art.</p>
+
+<p>Jean, who came in one of the last in the procession
+of diners, gave his arm to pretty Madame Knäpple,
+who had eyes only for the wonderfully made and
+equally wonderfully worn dress of Madame Rosenblatt.
+Professor Knäpple's little wife thought she saw that
+Jean Oberlé was noticing the same thing. So she said:</p>
+
+<p>"The low neck is indecent. Don't you think so?"</p>
+
+<p>"I find it irreproachable. I think that Madame
+Rosenblatt must go to Paris for her dresses."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; you have guessed rightly," answered the
+homely little woman. "When one has such a fortune
+one has often odd fancies, and but little patriotism."</p>
+
+<p>The beginning of the meal was rather silent. Little
+by little the noise of different conversations rose.
+They began to drink. M. Rosenblatt had large
+bumpers of Rhine wine poured out for him. The two
+students in spectacles came back to Wolxheim wine,
+with as serious a mien as if it were some difficult
+passage in the classics. The voices grew louder.
+The servants' footsteps could no longer be heard on
+the parquet floor. General conversation began as
+the froth of intellects had been moved by the light
+and the wine. Professor Knäpple, who had a quiet
+voice, but a manner of pronouncing very clearly and
+distinctly, was heard above the hum of conversation,
+when he answered his neighbour, Madame Brausig:</p>
+
+<p>"No; I do not understand that one should join the
+strong because one is strong. I have always been
+a liberal."
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">167</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You are alluding to the Transvaal perhaps," said
+the Geheimrath opposite, with a loud laugh, pleased
+at having guessed.</p>
+
+<p>"Precisely, Herr Geheimrath. It is not political
+greatness to crush small nations."</p>
+
+<p>"You find that extraordinary?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; very ordinary. But I do say there is nothing
+to boast about in that."</p>
+
+<p>"Have other nations acted differently?" asked
+Baron von Fincken.</p>
+
+<p>He turned up his insolent nose. No one carried on
+the discussion, as if the argument were unanswerable.
+And the wave of general talk rolled on, intermingling
+and drowning the private conversations of which it
+consisted.</p>
+
+<p>Madame Rosenblatt's musical voice broke the hum
+of talk. She was saying to little Madame Knäpple,
+placed on the other side of the table:</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, madame, I assure you that the question has
+been discussed. Everything is possible, madame;
+however, I should not have thought that the
+Municipality of a German town could even discuss
+such an idea."</p>
+
+<p>"Not so devoid of sense; don't you think so,
+Professor, you who lecture on ćsthetics?"</p>
+
+<p>Professor von Fincken, seated at the right hand of
+the beautiful Madame Rosenblatt, turned towards her,
+looked into the depths of her eyes, which remained
+like an unrippled lake, and said:</p>
+
+<p>"What is it about, madame?"</p>
+
+<p>"I told Madame Knäpple that in the Municipal
+Council the question had been raised of sending the
+Gobelin Tapestries which the town possesses, to Paris
+to be mended."</p>
+
+<p>"That is right, madame, the noes have it."</p>
+
+<p>"Why not to Berlin?" asked Madame Knäpple's
+pretty red mouth. "Do they happen to work so
+badly in Berlin?"
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">168</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The Geheimrath found it time to "conciliate." "To
+make Gobelin tapestry, without doubt, Madame Rosenblatt,
+is right, and Paris is necessary; but to mend
+them! I think&mdash;it seems to me&mdash;that can be done in
+Germany."</p>
+
+<p>"Send our tapestry to Paris!" expostulated
+Madame Knäpple. "How do they know if they
+would ever come back?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" one of the young painters at the end of the
+table answered gravely. "Oh, madame!"</p>
+
+<p>"How! Oh! You are an Alsatian, sir," said the
+homely little woman, pricked by the interjection as
+if it had been the point of a needle. "But we&mdash;we
+have the right to be mistrustful."</p>
+
+<p>She had gone too far. No one stood up for her
+verdict&mdash;general conversation stopped, and was replaced
+by flattering appreciations made by each guest
+on some quails in aspic which had just been served.
+Madame Knäpple herself came back to subjects with
+which she was more familiar, for she but rarely took
+any part in discussions when men were present. She
+turned towards her neighbour, von Farnow, which
+prevented her from seeing the elegant Madame
+Rosenblatt, and Madame Rosenblatt's beautiful dress,
+and the periwinkle-blue eyes of Madame Rosenblatt,
+and she undertook to explain to the young man how
+to do quails in aspic, and how to make "Cup" according
+to her recipe. However, for the second time their
+thoughts had been turned to the vanquished nation&mdash;and
+this thought continued to disturb their minds
+in a vague way, while champagne, German-labelled,
+was sparkling in the glasses.</p>
+
+<p>Madame Brausig had only exchanged very unmeaning
+words with M. Rosenblatt, her neighbour
+on the right, and with Professor Knäpple, her neighbour
+on the left, who preferred talking to Madame
+Rosenblatt, and Baron von Fincken, her <i>vis-ŕ-vis</i>,
+and sometimes with Jean Oberlé. It was she, however,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">169</a></span>
+who started a fresh discussion, without wishing
+to. And the conversation rose at once to a height
+it had not yet reached. The councillor's wife was
+speaking to M. Rosenblatt&mdash;looking all the time
+angrily at a servant who had just knocked against
+the chair of her most important guest, Madame
+Rosenblatt; she was speaking of a marriage between
+an Alsatian and a German from Hanover, the commandant
+of the regiment of Foot Artillery No. 10.
+The iron-master answered quite loudly, without
+knowing that he was sitting beside the mother of
+a young girl sought after by an officer:</p>
+
+<p>"The children will be good Germans. Such
+marriages are very rare, and I regret it, because
+they add immensely to the Germanisation of this
+obstinate country."</p>
+
+<p>Baron von Fincken emptied his champagne glass
+at a draught and, placing it on the table, said:</p>
+
+<p>"All means are good, because the end is good."</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly," said M. Rosenblatt.</p>
+
+<p>Jean Oberlé was the best known of the three
+Alsatians present, and the best qualified to make a
+reply, and yet the most disqualified, it seemed to him,
+to give his opinion, because of the discussions which
+this question had caused in his own house. He saw
+that Baron von Fincken had looked at him as he
+spoke, that Herr Rosenblatt was staring at him,
+that Professor Knäpple cast a glance at his left-hand
+neighbour, that Rosenblatt smiled with the air
+of one who would say "Is this little fellow capable of
+defending his nation? Will he answer to the spur?
+Let us see!"</p>
+
+<p>The young man answered, choosing his adversary,
+and, turning towards the Baron, "On the contrary,
+I think that the Germanisation of Alsace is a bad
+and clumsy action."</p>
+
+<p>At the same time his face grew harder and the
+green in his eyes vibrated, like the green of the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">170</a></span>
+forests when the wind blows the leaves of the trees
+the wrong way.</p>
+
+<p>The Professor of Ćsthetics looked like a man of
+the sword.</p>
+
+<p>"Why bad, if you please? Do you look upon the
+conquest as unpleasant? This is the sequel of that?
+Do you think so, really? But say so, then!"</p>
+
+<p>In the silence of all present the answer of Jean
+Oberlé fell clear and distinct.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"You dare, sir!"</p>
+
+<p>"Allow me," said the Geheimrath Brausig, stretching
+out his hand as if to bless them. "Here we are all
+good Germans, my dear baron! You have no right
+to suspect the patriotism of our young friend, who is
+only speaking from a historical point of view!"</p>
+
+<p>Madame Oberlé and Lucienne signed to Jean.</p>
+
+<p>"Be quiet! be quiet!"</p>
+
+<p>But Baron von Fincken saw nothing and heard
+nothing. The bitter passion of which his face was
+the symbol was let loose. He half rose, and leaning
+forward, with his head over the table, he said:</p>
+
+<p>"France is pretty! united! powerful and moral!"</p>
+
+<p>Little Madame Knäpple went on:</p>
+
+<p>"Above all, moral!"</p>
+
+<p>Voices high, low, ironical, and irritated rang out
+confusedly.</p>
+
+<p>"Deceivers, the French! Look at their novels and
+plays! France is decadent! A worn-out nation!
+What will she do against fifty-five millions of
+Germans?"</p>
+
+<p>Jean let the avalanche pass; he looked now at
+Fincken, who was gesticulating, now at von Farnow,
+who was silent, with head held high and frowning
+brows.</p>
+
+<p>"I believe France is very much calumniated," he
+said at last. "She may be governed badly. She may
+be weakened by dissensions; but since you attack her,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">171</a></span>
+I am delighted to tell you that I look upon her as
+a very great nation. Even you yourselves have no
+other opinion."</p>
+
+<p>Veritable clamours arose. Ah! Oh! Indeed.</p>
+
+<p>"Your very fury against her proves this. You
+have conquered her, but you have not left off envying
+her!"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you read the commercial statistics, young
+man?" asked the resolute voice of Herr Rosenblatt.</p>
+
+<p>"Her merchant navy is in the sixth rank!"
+whispered one of the students.</p>
+
+<p>Professor Knäpple fixed his spectacles on his nose
+and very clearly articulated the following proposition:</p>
+
+<p>"What you say, my dear Oberlé, is true as regards
+the past. Even to-day I think I can add, that if we
+had France to ourselves she would rapidly become
+a great country. We should know how to improve
+her."</p>
+
+<p>"I beg you," added von Fincken insolently, "not
+to discuss an opinion which is not tenable."</p>
+
+<p>"I beg you, in my turn," said Jean, "not to use in
+discussion arguments which are not conclusive, and
+do not really touch the question. One cannot judge
+a country simply and solely by its commerce, its navy,
+or its army."</p>
+
+<p>"On what would you form your judgment then,
+sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"On the soul of the country, sir. France has hers;
+that I know from history and from I know not what
+filial instinct I feel within me; and I firmly believe
+that there are many superior virtues, eminent qualities,
+generosity, disinterestedness, love of justice, taste,
+delicacy, and a certain flower of heroism, which are to
+be found more often than elsewhere in the past and
+in the present of this nation. I could give many
+proofs of it. Even if she were as weak as you assert,
+she holds treasures which are the honour of the
+world, which must be torn from her before she merits
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">172</a></span>
+death, and by the side of these things the remainder
+seems very small. Your Germanisation, sir, is only
+destruction or diminution of those virtues or French
+qualities in the Alsatian soul. And that is why I
+maintain that it is bad!"</p>
+
+<p>"Come now," said Fincken, "Alsace belongs
+naturally to Germany; she has made her come back.
+We make our repossession sure. Who would not
+do as much?"</p>
+
+<p>"France!" answered Oberlé; "and that is why we
+love her. She might have taken the territory, but
+she would not have done violence to the soul. We
+belong to her by right of love."</p>
+
+<p>The baron shrugged his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"Go back then to her!"</p>
+
+<p>Jean almost shouted, "Yes." The servants stopped
+to listen, in passing round the sweets. He went on:</p>
+
+<p>"I find your attempt bad in itself, because it is
+a repression of consciences; but I also find that it is
+clumsy, even from a German point of view."</p>
+
+<p>"Charming," said the little falsetto of Madame
+Knäpple. "You should have the interest to keep
+what originality and independence remains to us. It
+would be a useful example to Germany."</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks," said a voice.</p>
+
+<p>"And more and more useful," insisted the young
+man. "I was educated in Germany and I am sure
+of my contention. What struck me most, and shocked
+me, is the want of personality in Germans, their
+increasing forgetfulness of liberty, their effacement
+before the power of&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Take care, young man!" interrupted the
+Geheimrath quickly.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall say before the power of Prussia, Geheimrath,
+which devours consciences, and which allows
+only three types of men to live, and these she has
+moulded from childhood&mdash;taxpayers, officials, and
+soldiers."
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">173</a></span></p>
+
+<p>From the end of the table one of the students rose
+from his chair:</p>
+
+<p>"The Roman Empire did the same, and it was
+the Roman Empire!"</p>
+
+<p>A vibrating voice near him cried:</p>
+
+<p>"Bravo!"</p>
+
+<p>All the guests looked up. It was Wilhelm von
+Farnow, who had said only this one word since the
+beginning of the discussion. The violence of the
+debate had irritated him like a personal provocation.
+It had excited others. Herr Rosenblatt clenched his
+fists. Professor Knäpple muttered stormy sentences
+as he wiped his spectacles. His wife laughed
+nervously.</p>
+
+<p>Then the beautiful Madame Rosenblatt, letting her
+pearl necklace run through her fingers, smiled, and
+looking pleasantly at the Alsatian, said:</p>
+
+<p>"M. Oberlé has at least the courage of his opinions.
+No one could be more openly against us."</p>
+
+<p>Jean felt far too irritated to answer pleasantly.
+He looked intently at the faces of Fincken, Rosenblatt,
+and Knäpple, at the student who was moving restlessly
+near Lucienne, and then leaning slightly
+towards Madame Rosenblatt, said:</p>
+
+<p>"It is only through the women that the German
+nation can acquire the refinement which is wanting,
+madame. Germany has some accomplished women."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you for us!" answered three men's
+voices.</p>
+
+<p>Madame Knäpple, furious at the compliment paid
+to Madame Rosenblatt, said:</p>
+
+<p>"What is your scheme then, sir, for shaking off the
+yoke of Germany?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have none."</p>
+
+<p>"Then what do you ask for?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing, madame; I suffer."</p>
+
+<p>It was one of the Alsatian artists, the painter with
+the yellow beard, who looked like one of Giotto's
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">174</a></span>
+pupils, who continued the conversation, and all the
+table turned towards him.</p>
+
+<p>"I am not like M. Oberlé, who asks for nothing.
+He has only just come into the country after a long
+absence. If he had lived here some time, he would
+come to a different conclusion. We Alsatians of the
+new generation through our contact with three
+hundred thousand Germans have had the difference
+of our French culture from that of Germany conclusively
+demonstrated. We prefer our own; that is
+permitted? In exchange for the loyalty that we
+have shown to Germany, the taxes we pay, the
+military service we perform&mdash;we desire to remain
+Alsatians. And you determinedly refuse to understand.
+Our demand is that we should not be compelled
+to submit to exceptional laws, to this sort of state of
+siege which we have endured for thirty years. We
+demand that we should not be treated and governed
+as a country of the Empire&mdash;after the fashion of the
+Cameroons, Togoland, and New Guinea, the Bismarck
+Archipelago, or the Isles of Providence, but like a
+European province of the German Empire. We
+shall not be satisfied until that day comes when we
+can feel we are in our own home here&mdash;Alsatians in
+Alsace, as the Bavarians are Bavarians in Bavaria.
+Whilst as things are, we are the conquered ones
+waiting on the good pleasure of a master. That
+is my demand!"</p>
+
+<p>He spoke clearly, with apparent coldness, and his
+golden beard looked like the point of an arrow. His
+measured words succeeded in exciting their minds&mdash;and
+one could foresee the angry answer when
+Geheimrathin Brausig rose.</p>
+
+<p>Her guests followed suit, and went into the blue
+drawing-room.</p>
+
+<p>"You were absurd! What were you thinking
+about?" Lucienne asked in an undertone as she
+passed Jean.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">175</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps what you said was imprudent," added
+Madame Oberlé, a moment after; "but you defended
+Alsace well&mdash;and I approve of you."</p>
+
+<p>The Geheimrath was already turning to all sides,
+making use of the usual formula, which he murmured
+into the ears of Fincken, von Farnow, of Rosenblatt
+and Professor Knäpple, the two students, Jean, and
+the two Alsatian artists:</p>
+
+<p>"Do me the pleasure of following me to the smoking-room!"</p>
+
+<p>The smoking-room was a second drawing-room,
+separated from the first by plate-glass.</p>
+
+<p>M. Brausig's guests were soon reunited there.
+Cigars and beer were brought. Smoke spirals
+went up, mingled together, and rose to the ceiling.
+M. Rosenblatt became a centre of conversation. The
+Professor Knäpple became another. The loud voices
+seemed to be wrangling, but were only explaining
+simple ideas with difficulty.</p>
+
+<p>Alone, two men were talking of a serious subject
+and making but little noise. They were Jean Oberlé
+and von Farnow. Scarcely had the former lit his
+cigar when von Farnow touched Jean's arm and said:</p>
+
+<p>"I want to have a little conversation with you
+apart."</p>
+
+<p>To be more free, the young men seated themselves
+near the monumental mantelpiece, facing the bay
+which opened into the drawing-room, while the other
+smokers grouped round M. Rosenblatt and Baron
+von Fincken occupied the embrasure of the windows.</p>
+
+<p>"You were violent to-night, my dear fellow," said
+von Farnow, with the haughty politeness which he
+often adopted; "I was tempted twenty times to answer
+you, but I preferred waiting. Were you not aiming
+at me a little?"</p>
+
+<p>"Much of what I said was meant for you. I
+wanted to tell you very clearly what I was and to
+teach it to you before witnesses, so that it should be
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">176</a></span>
+clearly understood that if you persevere in your
+projects, I have made no concessions to you, no
+advances; that I have nothing whatever to do with
+the marriage you are contemplating. I am not going
+to oppose my father's wishes, but I will not have my
+ideas confused with his."</p>
+
+<p>"That is how I understood it. You have evidently
+learned that I have met your sister in society and
+that I love her?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Is that all you have to answer?"</p>
+
+<p>A rush of blood suffused the German's cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>"Explain yourself quickly!" he went on. "My
+family is of the nobility; do you recognise that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you recognise that it is an honour for a
+woman to be sought by a German officer?"</p>
+
+<p>"For any except an Alsatian woman. But although
+you do not understand that feeling, we are not like
+other people&mdash;we are the people of Alsace. I esteem
+you very much, Farnow, but your marriage with my
+sister will cruelly affect three persons among us&mdash;myself
+first of all."</p>
+
+<p>"How? I ask you!"</p>
+
+<p>They were obliged to speak in an undertone and to
+avoid any gestures, because of the presence of the
+Geheimrath's guests at the farther end of the room,
+who were observing the young men, and were trying
+to interpret their attitudes. All their emotion
+and their irritation was in their eyes and in the
+whispering of words which must only be heard by
+one person.</p>
+
+<p>Through the sheet of plate-glass, Lucienne could
+see von Farnow, and getting up and crossing the
+drawing-room, or pretending to admire the basket
+of flowers which stood out from the frame-work, she
+looked inquiringly at the faces of the officer and of
+her brother.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">177</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You are a man of heart, von Farnow. Think what
+our home in Alsheim will be when this fresh cause of
+dissension is added to the others?"</p>
+
+<p>"I shall go away," said the officer; "I can exchange
+and leave Strasburg."</p>
+
+<p>"The memory will remain with us. But that is
+not all. And from now on there is my mother, who
+will never consent...."</p>
+
+<p>With a movement of his hand von Farnow showed
+that he brushed aside that objection.</p>
+
+<p>"There is my grandfather, whom Alsace once
+elected to protest, and who cannot to-day give the
+lie to all his past life."</p>
+
+<p>"I owe nothing to M. Philippe Oberlé," interrupted
+Farnow.</p>
+
+<p>His voice became more imperious.</p>
+
+<p>"I warn you that I never give up a resolution
+once taken. When M. von Kassewitz, the prefect of
+Strasburg, and the only near relation remaining to me,
+returns from the holiday he is going to take in a few
+days' time, he will go to Alsheim, to your house; he
+will ask for the hand of Mlle. Lucienne Oberlé for his
+nephew, and his request will be granted, because
+Mlle. Lucienne Oberlé wishes to accept me, because
+her father has already consented, and because I will
+have it so&mdash;I, Wilhelm von Farnow!"</p>
+
+<p>"It remains to be seen whether you have done
+well...."</p>
+
+<p>"According to my will: that is sufficient for me."</p>
+
+<p>"How much pride there is in your love, Farnow!"</p>
+
+<p>"It is in everything I do, Oberlé!"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think I am mistaken? My sister pleases
+you because she is pretty?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Intelligent?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"But also because she is an Alsatian girl! Your
+pride has seen in her a victory to be gained. You
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">178</a></span>
+are not ignorant of the fact that the women of Alsace
+are in the habit of refusing Germans. They are
+queens not easily accessible to your amorous
+ambitions, from the country girls, who at their
+gatherings refuse to dance with the emigrants, up
+to our sisters, who are not often seen in your
+drawing-rooms or on your arms. In the various
+regiments you will belong to you will boast that you
+have won Lucienne Oberlé. It will even be a good
+mark for you in high quarters? Will it not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps," said Farnow with a sneer.</p>
+
+<p>"Go on then, break, or finish breaking, three of
+us!"</p>
+
+<p>They were getting more and more irritated, each
+trying to control himself.</p>
+
+<p>The officer rose, threw away his cigar, and said
+haughtily:</p>
+
+<p>"We are civilised barbarians&mdash;that is understood,
+less burdened than you with prejudices and pretensions
+to justice. That is why we shall conquer
+the world. But in the meantime, Oberlé, I am going
+to join your mother and talk to her, as amiably as
+an enemy possibly can. Will you accompany me?"</p>
+
+<p>Jean Oberlé shook his head in the negative.</p>
+
+<p>Farnow crossed the smoking-room, leaving Oberlé
+there.</p>
+
+<p>Lucienne was anxiously awaiting him in the drawing-room.
+She saw him direct his steps towards Madame
+Oberlé, and, forcing himself to smile, place a chair near
+the arm-chair in which the fragile Alsatian lady in
+black was sitting. At the same time the Geheimrath
+called out, "Oberlé! You have smoked a cigar without
+even drinking one glass of beer. But that is a
+crime! Come. Professor Knäpple is explaining the
+measures the Government is taking to prevent the
+Russianising of the eastern provinces of Germany."</p>
+
+<hr class="c5" />
+
+<p>Late that night, a landau bore away to Alsheim
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">179</a></span>
+three travellers; it had fetched them from the station
+at Molsheim.</p>
+
+<p>The way there was a long one, and Lucienne
+soon went to sleep in the carriage. Her mother, who
+had hardly said anything up to then, bent towards
+her son, and, pointing to the beautiful creature sound
+asleep, asked him:</p>
+
+<p>"You knew?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"I guessed it. There was no need to tell me much.
+I have seen her look at him. Oh, Jean, this trial that
+I hoped to escape!&mdash;the fear of which has made me
+accept so many, many things! I have only you left,
+my Jean! But you remain to me!"</p>
+
+<p>She kissed him fervently.</p>
+
+<p class="p4"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">180</a></span></p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XI</h3>
+
+<p class="center font95"><b>IN SUSPENSE</b></p>
+
+<p class="p2">As things do not usually happen as we foresee, the
+visit of Herr von Kassewitz to Alsheim did not take
+place on the date Farnow said it would. Towards
+the end of June&mdash;at the moment when the prefect,
+returned from taking the waters, was getting ready
+to go to ask for Lucienne's hand, a telegram had
+asked him to put off the visit. The condition of
+M. Philippe Oberlé had suddenly become worse.</p>
+
+<p>The old man, whom it was necessary to inform of
+what was going on in the house, had just learned
+the truth. His son had gone up one morning to the
+sick man's room. "With circumlocution and in ways
+that he took out of respect and consideration for
+him, he let it be seen that Lucienne was not indifferent
+to the advances of a cavalry officer belonging to a
+high German family; he had said that the liking
+was spontaneous; that he, Joseph Oberlé, in spite of
+certain regrets, did not believe that he had the right
+to thwart the freedom of his children, and that he
+hoped that his father, in the interests of peace, would
+be resigned.</p>
+
+<p>"My father," he said, "you are not ignorant of
+the fact that your opposition would be useless and
+purely vexatious. You have a chance to give
+Lucienne a great proof of your affection, as we
+ourselves have given; do not repulse her."
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">181</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The old man had asked in signs:</p>
+
+<p>"And Monica; has she consented?"</p>
+
+<p>M. Joseph Oberlé had been able to answer yes,
+without telling a lie, for the poor woman, threatened
+with a separation, had yielded once more. Then the
+sick man put an end to his son's long monologue by
+writing two words, which were his answer:</p>
+
+<p>"Not I!"</p>
+
+<p>The same evening, fever declared itself. It continued
+the following day, and soon became so persistent
+and weakening that the condition of the sick man
+troubled the Oberlés.</p>
+
+<p>From this day on, the health of M. Philippe Oberlé
+became the topic of anxious inquiries, evening and
+morning. They questioned Madame Monica or Jean,
+whom he received whilst excluding the others.</p>
+
+<p>"How is he? Is his strength returning? Has
+he still all his wits about him&mdash;the full use of his
+mental faculties?"</p>
+
+<p>Each one was wondering what was happening up
+above in the room where the old fighter, who had
+half disappeared from the world of the living, still
+governed his divided family, holding them all
+dependent on him. They spoke of their uneasiness,
+and under this name, which they rightly used, what
+projects were hid, what different thoughts!</p>
+
+<p>Jean himself awaited the issue of this crisis with
+an impatience in which his affection for his grandfather
+was not the only interest involved. Since the
+explanation he had had with Lucienne, especially
+since the party at the Geheimrath's, all intimacy
+between brother and sister had ceased. Lucienne
+was as amiable and just as officiously kind as she
+could be, but Jean no longer responded to her
+advances. When work kept him no longer at the
+factories he fled from the house: sometimes to the
+country, where the first hay harvest attracted all
+the life from the Alsatian farms. Sometimes he would
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">182</a></span>
+go and talk to his neighbours the Ramspachers,
+already his friends, when at nightfall they came
+back from the plain; and there he was led on by
+the hope that he should see the daughter of M. Bastian
+walking along the path. But more often still he
+went up to Heidenbruch. M. Ulrich had received
+his nephew's confidences and a mission at the same
+time. Jean had said to him:</p>
+
+<p>"I have now no hope of winning Odile. My sister's
+marriage will prevent mine. But in spite of that
+I am bound to ask for the hand of her to whom I
+have confessed my love. I wish to be certain of
+what is already breaking my heart, although I am
+only afraid of it. When M. Bastian has heard that
+Lucienne is betrothed to Lieutenant von Farnow or
+that she is going to be&mdash;and that will not be delayed
+if grandfather gets better&mdash;you will go to M. Bastian.
+You will speak to him on my behalf. He will answer
+you, knowing fully all the facts; you will tell me
+if he refuses, once for all, his daughter to the brother-in-law
+of von Farnow; or if he insists on some time
+of probation&mdash;I will accept it, no matter how long
+it may be; or if he has the courage&mdash;in which I do
+not believe&mdash;to pay no attention to the scandal which
+my sister's marriage will cause."</p>
+
+<p>M. Ulrich had promised.</p>
+
+<p>Towards the middle of August the fever which
+was wearing out M. Philippe Oberlé disappeared.
+Contrary to the expectation of the doctor, his strength
+returned very quickly. It was soon certain that the
+robust constitution of the invalid had got the better
+of the crisis. And the truce accorded by M. Joseph
+Oberlé to his father had come to an end. The old
+man, having recovered to that sad condition of a
+sick man whom death does not desire, was going to
+be treated like the others, and would not be spared.
+There was no fresh scene between the sick man and
+his son. All went on quietly. On the 22nd of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">183</a></span>
+August, after dinner in the drawing-room, where
+Victor had just brought the coffee, the factory owner
+said to Madame Oberlé:</p>
+
+<p>"My father is now convalescent. There is no
+longer any reason to put off the visit of Herr von
+Kassewitz. I give you notice, Monica, that it will
+take place during the next few days. You would do
+well to tell my father, since you alone go to him.
+And it is necessary that everything should be done
+in order, without anything like surprise or deception.
+Is that your opinion?"</p>
+
+<p>"You do not wish to put off this visit any longer?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"Then I will tell him!"</p>
+
+<p>Jean wrote the same evening to Heidenbruch, where
+he was not able to go.</p>
+
+<p>"My uncle, the visit is settled. My father makes
+no mystery about it; not even before the servants.
+He evidently wishes that the report of the marriage
+should be spread abroad. As soon as you hear some
+one from Alsheim get indignant or sad about us, go
+and see, I implore you, if the dream that I dreamed
+can still live on. You will tell M. Bastian that it is
+the grandson of M. Philippe Oberlé who loves Odile."</p>
+
+<p class="p4"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">184</a></span></p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XII</h3>
+
+<p class="center font95"><b>THE HOP-PICKING</b></p>
+
+<p class="p2">At the foot of Sainte Odile, a little below the vineyards
+in the deep earth formed by gravel and leaves fallen
+from the mountain, M. Bastian and other land-owners
+or farmers of Alsheim had planted hop-fields. Now
+the time was come when the flower produces its
+maximum of odorous pollen&mdash;a quickly passing hour
+difficult to seize.</p>
+
+<p>The hop-planters appeared frequently in the hopfields.
+The brokers went through the villages. One
+heard buyers and sellers discussing the various merits
+of Wurtemburg hops and the Grand Duchy of Baden
+hops, and of Bohemian and Alsatian hops. The
+newspapers began to publish the first prices of the
+most famous home-grown: Hallertan, Spalt, and
+Wolnzach.</p>
+
+<p>A Munich Jew had come to see M. Bastian on
+Sunday August 26, and had said to him:</p>
+
+<p>"Wurtemburg is promising: Baden will have fine
+harvests: our own country of Spalt, in Bavaria, has
+hops which are paying us one hundred and sixty
+francs the fifty kilos, because they are rich hops&mdash;they
+are as full of the yellow aromatic powder as a
+grape of juice. Here you have been injured by the
+drought. But I can offer you one hundred and
+twenty francs on condition that you pick them at
+once. They are ripe."
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">185</a></span></p>
+
+<p>M. Bastian had given in, and had called together
+his daily hop-pickers for August 28. That was also
+the day when the Count von Kassewitz was to pay
+his visit to M. Joseph Oberlé.</p>
+
+<p>From dawn of a day already warmed by wafts of
+hot air, women had set themselves to walk up what
+is called "the heights of Alsheim," the region where
+the cultivated land, hollowed like a bow, will bear
+hops. Some hundreds of yards from the border of
+the forest high poles in battle array bore up the
+green tendrils. They looked like very pointed tents
+of foliage, or belfries&mdash;for the millions of little cones,
+formed of green scales sprinkled with pollen, swung
+themselves from the extreme top to the ground like
+bells whose ringer is the wind. All the inhabitants
+know the event of the day&mdash;one picks hops for
+M. Bastian. The master, up before dawn, was already
+in the hop-field, examining each foot, calculating
+the value of his crop, pressing and crushing in his
+fingers one of the little muslin-like pine cones whose
+perfume attracts the bees. At the back on the
+stubble furrows are two narrow wagons, harnessed
+to a horse, waiting for the harvest, and near them
+was Ramspacher the farmer, his two sons Augustin
+and François, and a farm servant. The women, on
+the direct road leading up there, came up in irregular
+bands, three in file, then five abreast, then one
+following the others, the only one who was old.
+Each one had put on a working dress of some thin
+stuff, discoloured and the worse for wear, except,
+however, the grocer's daughter, Ida, who wore a
+nearly new dress, blue with white spots, and another
+elegant girl from Alsheim, Juliette, a brunette, the
+daughter of the sacristan, and she had a fashionable
+bodice and a checked apron, pink and white. The
+greater number were without hats, and had only
+the shade of their hair, of every tint of fairness, to
+preserve their complexions. They walked along
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">186</a></span>
+quietly and heavily. They were young and fresh.
+They laughed. The farm boy mounted on a farm
+horse, going to the fields, the reapers, encamped in a
+corner, and the motionless man with the scythe in
+the soft lucerne turned their heads, and their eyes
+followed these women workers, whom one did not
+generally see in the country: needlewomen, dressmakers,
+apprentices, all going as if to a fęte towards
+the hop-field of M. Bastian. The vibration of words
+they could not hear flew to them on the wind that
+dried the dew. The weather was fair. Some old
+people, the pickers of fallen fruit beneath the
+scattered apple- and walnut-trees, rose from their
+stooping posture, and blinked their eyes to see the
+happy band of girls coming up the forest road.
+These girls without baskets such as the bilberry
+and whortleberry pickers, and raspberry gatherers
+had to carry.</p>
+
+<p>They went into the hop-field, which contained eight
+rows of hops and disappeared as if in a gigantic
+vineyard. M. Bastian directed the work, and pointed
+out that they must begin with the part touching the
+road. Then the old farmer, his two sons and farm
+servant, seized each of them one of the poles, heavy
+with the weight of harvest, the tendrils, the little
+scaly bells, the leaves all trembled; and after the
+women had knelt down and had cut the stalks even
+with the ground, the loosened poles came out of the
+earth and were lowered and despoiled of the climbing
+plants they had carried.</p>
+
+<p>Stalks, leaves, and flowers were thrown down and
+placed in heaps&mdash;to be carried away by the wagons.
+The workers did not wait to pick the hops which
+they would gather at Alsheim in the farmyard in
+the afternoon. But, already covered with yellow
+powder and pieces of leaves, the men and women
+were hurrying to strip the lowered poles. The hops
+exhaled their bitter, healthy odour, and the humming
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">187</a></span>
+of the band of workers, like the noise of early
+vintage, spread out over the immense stretch of
+country, striped with meadows, stubble, and lucerne,
+and the open and fertile Alsatian land which the
+sun was beginning to warm.</p>
+
+<p>This light, the repose of the night still neighbouring
+the day, the full liberty which they did not enjoy
+every day of the week, the instinctive coquetry
+evoked by the presence of the men, even the desire
+of being pleasant to M. Bastian, whom they knew to
+be of a gay disposition, made these girls and children
+who picked the hops joyful with a boisterous joy.
+And one of the farm servants having called out
+while his horses stopped to take breath: "Is no one
+singing then?" the daughter of the sacristan,
+Juliette, with the regular features and the beautiful
+deep eyes under her well combed and nicely dressed
+hair, answered:</p>
+
+<p>"I know a lovely song."</p>
+
+<p>As she answered she looked at the owner of the
+property, who was smoking, seated on the first row
+of stubble above the hop-field, and who was contemplating
+with tenderness now his hops and now his
+Alsace, where his mind always dwelt.</p>
+
+<p>"If it is pretty; sing it," said the master. "Is it a
+song that the police may hear?"</p>
+
+<p>"Part of it."</p>
+
+<p>"Then turn round to the forest side: the police
+do not often go that way because they find nothing
+to drink there."</p>
+
+<p>The workers who were stooping and those who
+were standing upright laughed silently because of
+the detestation in which they held the gendarmes.
+And the beautiful Juliette began to sing&mdash;of course
+in Alsatian&mdash;one of those songs which poets compose
+who do not care to sign their works, and who rhyme
+in contraband.</p>
+
+<p>The full, pure voice sang:
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">188</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I have cut the hops of Alsace&mdash;they have grown
+on the soil we tilled&mdash;the green hops are certainly
+ours&mdash;the red earth is also ours."</p>
+
+<p>"Bravo!" said gravely M. Bastian's farmer. He
+took his pipe from his mouth in order to hear
+better.</p>
+
+<p>"They have grown in the valley&mdash;in the valley
+where every one has passed along, many sorts of
+people, and the wind, and also anguish&mdash;we have
+chosen our own friends.</p>
+
+<p>"We will drink beer to the health of those who
+please us. We will have no words on our lips&mdash;but
+we will have words in our hearts&mdash;where no one can
+efface them."</p>
+
+<p>The heavy, solid heads, young and old, remained
+motionless for a moment when Juliette had finished.
+They waited for the remainder. The young girls
+smiled because of the voice and because of life.
+The eyes of M. Bastian and the Ramspachers shone
+because of bygone days. The two sons had grown
+grave. Juliette did not begin to sing again: there
+was no more to follow.</p>
+
+<p>"I think I know the miller who composed that
+song," said M. Bastian. "Come, my friends, hurry
+yourselves; there is the first cart starting for Alsheim.
+All must be gathered and put in the drying-house
+before night."</p>
+
+<p>Everybody except that big young François, who
+had to do his military service in November, and who
+was driving the wagon, bent again over the hop
+roots. But at the same moment, from the copse on
+the border of the great forest, from among the shrubs
+and the clematis, which made a silky fringe to the
+mountain forests, a man's voice answered.</p>
+
+<p>What was happening? Who had heard them?
+They thought they knew the voice, which was strong
+and unequal, worn, but with touches of a youthful
+quality; and whisperings arose.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">189</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"It is he. He is not afraid!"</p>
+
+<p>The voice answered, in the same rugged tongue:</p>
+
+<p>"The black bow of the daughters of Alsace&mdash;has
+bound my heart with sorrow&mdash;has bound my heart
+with joy. It is a knot of love.</p>
+
+<p>"The black bow of the daughters of Alsace&mdash;is a
+bird with great wings. It can fly across the mountains&mdash;and
+look over them.</p>
+
+<p>"The black bow of the daughters of Alsace is a
+cross of mourning which we carry in memory of all
+those&mdash;whose soul was like our own soul."</p>
+
+<p>The voice had been recognised. When it had
+finished singing, the hop-pickers, men and women,
+began to talk to M. Ulrich, who, barely tolerated in
+Alsace, had nevertheless more freedom of language
+than the Alsatians who were German subjects. The
+noise of laughter and words exchanged grew louder
+and louder in the hop-field, so the master withdrew.</p>
+
+<p>M. Bastian, with his heavy, sure step, mounted to
+the edge of the forest whence came the voice, and
+plunged under the beeches. Some one had seen him
+coming and waited for him. M. Ulrich Biehler,
+seated on a rock starred with moss&mdash;bare headed,
+weary with having walked in the sun&mdash;had hoped,
+by singing, to make his old friend Xavier Bastian
+climb up to him. He was not mistaken.</p>
+
+<p>"I have a place for you here, hop-picker!" he
+cried from afar, pointing to a large block of stone
+which had rolled to the foot of the mountain, between
+two trees, and on which he was seated.</p>
+
+<p>Although they were friends, M. Ulrich and the
+Mayor of Alsheim saw each other but seldom. There
+was between them less intimacy than a community
+of opinions and of aspirations and of memories. They
+were chosen friends, and old Alsace counted them
+among her faithful ones. That was enough to make
+them feel the meeting was a happy one, and to make
+the signal understood. M. Ulrich had said to himself
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">190</a></span>
+that M. Bastian having set the workers to work
+would not be sorry to have a diversion. He had
+sung in answer to Juliette's song, and M. Bastian
+had come. Now the pale, fine face of the hermit of
+Heidenbruch reflected a mixture of pleasure in
+welcoming his friend and an anxiety difficult to
+conceal.</p>
+
+<p>"You still sing?" said M. Bastian, pressing M.
+Ulrich's hand. "You hunt, you run about the hills!"</p>
+
+<p>He sat down breathless on a stone, his feet in the
+ferns, and looking towards the descending slopes
+wooded with oaks and beeches and bushes.</p>
+
+<p>"That only in appearance. I am a walker, a
+forester, a wanderer. You, on the contrary, are the
+least travelled of men. I visit&mdash;you cultivate: these
+are at bottom two kinds of fidelities. Tell me, Xavier,
+may I speak to you of something which I have very
+much at heart?"</p>
+
+<p>The heavy face trembled, the thick lips moved, and
+one could see by the great change which took place
+in M. Bastian's face how sensitive he was. As he
+was of just as reticent a nature, he did not make any
+reply. He waited.</p>
+
+<p>"I am going to tell you about something which
+touches me as nearly as if it were a personal matter.
+He who begged me to see you is my dearest relative. I
+take the direct method with you, Xavier. Have you
+guessed that my nephew loves your daughter Odile?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Well?"</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly these two, who had been gazing into the
+distance for a while, looked at each other eye to eye,
+and they were afraid, one because of the refusal he
+read there&mdash;and the other because of the pain he was
+going to give.</p>
+
+<p>"No!" said the voice, grown harsh in order to
+dominate its emotion, which would have made it
+tremble. "I will not!"
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">191</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I expected that; but if I tell you that they love
+each other?"</p>
+
+<p>"That may be. I cannot!"</p>
+
+<p>"You have some very serious reason then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"What is it?"</p>
+
+<p>M. Bastian pointed through the trees to the house
+of the Oberlés.</p>
+
+<p>"To-day, in that house, they are expecting the
+visit of the Prefect of Strasburg."</p>
+
+<p>"I could not tell you, and I had to wait before
+speaking about it till every one knew it."</p>
+
+<p>"It is public property now. All the town of
+Alsheim has been told by the servants. They even say
+that M. von Kassewitz is coming to ask for the hand of
+Lucienne for his nephew, Lieutenant von Farnow."</p>
+
+<p>"I know it!"</p>
+
+<p>"And you would have it so?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes!"</p>
+
+<p>"That I should give my daughter to Jean Oberlé
+so that she should have a father-in-law who will be a
+governmental candidate in the coming elections and
+a brother-in-law who is a Prussian officer?"</p>
+
+<p>M. Ulrich kept calm under the indignant gaze of
+M. Bastian and answered:</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; these are terrible things for him, but it is
+not Jean's fault. Where will you find a man more
+worthy of you and of your daughter?"</p>
+
+<p>"What is he doing to oppose this marriage? He
+is here&mdash;his silence gives consent. He is weak."</p>
+
+<p>M. Ulrich stopped him with a movement.</p>
+
+<p>"No; he is strong!"</p>
+
+<p>"Not like you&mdash;you who knew how to close your
+house."</p>
+
+<p>"My house belongs to me."</p>
+
+<p>"And I have the right to say 'Not like me!' All
+these young people accept things too easily, my
+friend. I do not mix myself up with politics. I keep
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">192</a></span>
+silent. I plough my land. I am looked on with
+suspicion by the peasants, who no doubt like me, but
+who begin to find me 'compromising.' I am hated
+by Germans of every kind and colour. But, as God
+hears me, that only makes me drive my roots deeper
+in, and I do not change. I will die with all my old
+hatreds intact&mdash;do you understand&mdash;intact?"</p>
+
+<p>His eyes had a gleam in them such as a sharpshooter
+has when, with gun in hand, and sure that his
+hand will not tremble, he covers his enemy.</p>
+
+<p>"You stand for something in this generation,
+Xavier; but you must not be unjust. This man
+you refuse, because he is not like us, is not the less
+valiant for that."</p>
+
+<p>"That has to be seen."</p>
+
+<p>"Has he not declared that he will not enter the
+Government employ?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because the country pleases him better&mdash;and my
+daughter pleases him also!"</p>
+
+<p>"No; firstly because he is Alsatian."</p>
+
+<p>"Not like us, I will answer for that!"</p>
+
+<p>"In a new way. They are obliged to live in the
+midst of Germans. Their education is carried out in
+German schools, and their way of loving France
+leaves room for more honour and more strength of
+mind than was necessary in our time. Think, it is
+thirty years ago!"</p>
+
+<p>"Alas!"</p>
+
+<p>"They saw nothing of those times, they have only
+a traditional love, or a love which is of the imagination,
+or of family, and examples of forgetfulness are
+frequent around them!"</p>
+
+<p>"Jean has had, in truth, examples of that sort."</p>
+
+<p>"That is why you ought to be more just to him.
+Think that your daughter in marrying him will found
+here an Alsatian family&mdash;very powerful, very wealthy.
+The officer will not live in Alsheim, nor even long in
+Alsace. He will soon be only a name."
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">193</a></span></p>
+
+<p>M. Bastian placed his heavy hand on M. Ulrich's
+shoulder, and spoke in a tone which did not allow the
+discussion to be continued.</p>
+
+<p>"Listen, my friend, I have only one word. It
+cannot be, because I will not have that marriage:
+because all those of my generation, dead and living,
+would reproach me. And then, even if I yielded,
+Ulrich, there is a will near me stronger than mine,
+who will never say yes, do you understand, never!"</p>
+
+<p>M. Bastian slipped down among the ferns, and
+shrugging his shoulders, and shaking his head&mdash;like
+some one who will hear no more&mdash;went downwards
+to his day workers. When he had passed between
+the rows of the cut hops and reprimanded each of
+the workers, there was no more laughing, and the
+girls of Alsheim, and the farmer's sons, and the
+farmer himself, stooping under the burning sun, went
+on in silence with their work, which had been so
+joyously begun.</p>
+
+<p>Already M. Ulrich was going up to his hermitage
+on Sainte Odile, distressed, asking himself what serious
+effect the refusal of M. Bastian was going to have on
+Jean's destiny, and anxious to tell his nephew the
+news. Without hoping, without believing that there
+was any chance of it, he would try to make Odile's
+father give way, and plans hummed round him, like
+the gadflies in the pine woods, drunk with the sun,
+and following the traveller in his lonely climb. The
+streams were singing. There were flocks of thrushes,
+harbingers crossing the ravines, darting through
+the blue air to get to the vines and fruits of the
+plain. It was in vain&mdash;he was utterly downcast.
+He could think of nothing but of his nephew, so
+badly rewarded for his return to Alsheim. Between
+the trees and round the branches he gazed at the
+house of the Oberlés.</p>
+
+<p>Any one going into that house just then would
+have found it extraordinarily quiet. Every one there
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">194</a></span>
+was suffering. M. Philippe Oberlé, as usual had
+lunched in his room. Madame Oberlé, at the express
+wish of her husband, had consented to come out of
+her room when M. von Kassewitz should be announced.</p>
+
+<p>"All the same, I repeat," she said, "that I shall not
+go out of my way to entertain him. I will be there
+because by your orders I am bound to receive this
+person. But I shall not go beyond what is strictly
+necessary."</p>
+
+<p>"Right," said M. Oberlé, "Lucienne, Jean, and I
+will talk to him. That will suffice."</p>
+
+<p>And after his meal he had gone at once to his
+workroom, at the end of the park. Jean, who had
+shown no enthusiasm, had gone out, for his part,
+promising to return before three o'clock. Lucienne
+was alone in the big yellow drawing-room. Very
+well dressed in a grey princess dress, which had for
+its only ornament a belt buckle of two shades of
+gold, like the decorations in the dining-room; she was
+placing roses in crystal glasses and slender vases of
+transparent porcelain, which contrasted well with the
+hard, definite colour of the velvet furniture. Lucienne
+had the collectedness of a gambler who sees a game
+coming to an end, and knows she has won. She
+had herself, in two recent soirées at Strasburg carried
+the business through, which now wanted only the
+signatures of the contracting parties; the official
+candidature promised to M. Joseph Oberlé in the first
+vacant district.</p>
+
+<p>The visit of M. von Kassewitz was equivalent to
+the signing of the treaty. The opposing parties held
+their tongues, as Madame Oberlé held hers, or stood
+aside in silent sulkiness, like the grandfather.
+The young girl went from the mantelpiece to the
+gilt console, surmounted by a mirror, in which she saw
+herself reflected, and she thought the movement of
+her lips very pretty when she made them say
+"Monsieur the Prefect!" One thing irritated her, and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">195</a></span>
+checked the pride she felt in her victory: the absolute
+emptiness which was making itself felt around her.</p>
+
+<p>Even the servants seemed to have made up their
+minds not to be there when they were wanted. They
+did not answer the bell. After lunch M. Joseph
+Oberlé had been obliged to go into the servants' hall
+to find his father's valet, that good-tempered big
+Alsatian who looked upon himself as being at the
+beck and call of every one.</p>
+
+<p>"Victor, you will put on your livery to receive the
+gentleman who will come about three o'clock!"</p>
+
+<p>Victor had grown red and answered with difficulty:</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir!"</p>
+
+<p>"You must be careful to watch for the carriage,
+and to be at the bottom of the steps&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir."</p>
+
+<p>Since this promise had been given, which no doubt
+went very much against Victor's feelings&mdash;he had
+hid himself, and only came at the third or fourth
+call, quite flustered and pretending that he had not
+heard.</p>
+
+<p>The Prefect of Strasburg is coming. These words
+which Lucienne had spoken, Madame Oberlé thought
+over shut up in her room. They weighed, like a
+storm cloud, on the mind of the old protesting
+representative of Alsace&mdash;that old forester, Philippe
+Oberlé, who had given orders that he was to be left
+alone; they agitated the nervous fingers of M. Joseph
+Oberlé, who was writing in his room at the saw mills,
+and he left off writing in order to listen; they rang
+sadly, like the passing bell of something noble in
+Jean's heart taking refuge with the Bastians' farmer.
+They were the theme&mdash;the <i>leitmotiv</i> which recurred
+in twenty different ways, in the animated and sarcastic
+conversation of the hop-pickers.</p>
+
+<p>For these women and girls of the farm, and the
+day labourers who had worked in the morning in the
+hop-field, had assembled, since the mid-day meal in
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">196</a></span>
+the narrow, long yard of the Ramspachers' farm.
+Seated on chairs or stools, each one having on their
+right a hamper or a basket and on their left a heap
+of hops, they picked off the flowers and threw away
+the stripped stalks. They formed two lines&mdash;one
+along the stable walls and the other the length of the
+house. This made an avenue of fair heads and bodies
+in movement among the piles of leaves, which
+stretched from one woman to another and bound
+them together as it were with a garland. At the
+end, the cart door opened wide on to the square of
+the town of Alsheim, and allowed the gables of
+several houses situated opposite to be seen&mdash;with their
+wooden balconies and the flat tiles of their roofings.
+By this road every half hour fresh loads of hops
+arrived drawn by one of the farm horses. Old
+Ramspacher, the farmer, was at his post, in the
+enormous barn in front of the dwelling-house, and
+before which sat the first pickers, at work on the
+little hop cones.</p>
+
+<p>In this building, whose vast roof was supported
+by a wall on one side, on the other by Vosges pines,
+the greater part of the work of the farm was done,
+and much wealth was stored here. Here they trod
+the grapes; in the autumn and winter months they
+threshed corn. They kept all the implements of
+labour in the corner&mdash;the covered carts, planks and
+building materials, empty barrels, and a little hay.
+There were also many great wooden cases piled up,
+tiers of screens, on which they put the hops to dry
+every year. The farmer never allowed others to
+do this delicate work. So he was at his place, in
+front of the drying-room, where the first shelves
+were already full, and standing on a ladder he spread
+equal layers of the gathered hops, which his sons
+brought him in hampers.</p>
+
+<p>The heat of the afternoon, at the end of August,
+the odour of crushed leaves and flowers, which clung
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">197</a></span>
+to their hands intoxicated the women slightly. The
+laughter rose louder than in the hop-fields in the
+morning, and questions were asked and remarks made
+which called forth twenty answers. Sometimes it was
+the work which furnished a pretext for this fusillade
+of words. Sometimes it was a neighbour passing
+across the square all white with dust and sunshine;
+but mostly the talk was about two things: the visit
+of the Prefect and the probable marriage of Lucienne.</p>
+
+<p>The beautiful Juliette, the sacristan's daughter, had
+begun the conversation saying:</p>
+
+<p>"I tell you Victor told it to the mason's son: the
+Prefect is to arrive in half an hour. Do you think I
+shall move when he comes?"</p>
+
+<p>"He would see a very pretty girl," said Augustine
+Ramspacher, lifting up two hampers of hops. "It is
+only the ugly ones who will let themselves be seen."</p>
+
+<p>Ida, who had lifted up her blue-and-white-spotted
+dress, and then Octavie the cow-woman, who wore her
+hair plaited and rolled like a golden halo round her
+head, and Reine the daughter of the poor tailor, and
+others answered together laughing:</p>
+
+<p>"I shall not be seen then. Nor I, nor I!"</p>
+
+<p>And an old woman's voice, the only old woman
+among them, muttered:</p>
+
+<p>"I know I am as poor as Peter and Paul, but I
+would rather that he went to other folk's houses than
+to mine&mdash;the Prefect!"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly."</p>
+
+<p>They were all speaking freely. Words re-echoed
+from the walls and were lost amid bursts of laughter
+and the rustling of the broken and crushed leaves.
+In the barn in the half light, seated on a pile of
+beams, his chin in his hands, there was a witness who
+heard, and that witness was Jean Oberlé. But the
+inhabitants of Alsheim began to know the young
+man, who had lived among them for five months.
+They knew he was a good Alsatian. On the present
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">198</a></span>
+occasion they guessed that Jean had taken refuge
+there with the Bastians' tenant farmer because he
+disapproved the ambition to which his father was
+sacrificing so many things and so many persons.
+He had come in, under the pretext of resting and
+taking shelter from the sun; in reality because the
+triumphant presence of Lucienne was torture to him.
+And yet he knew nothing of the conversation which
+his uncle had had in the morning with M. Bastian.
+The thought of Odile returned to his unhappy mind
+and he drove it out that he might remain master of
+himself, for soon he would require all his powers of
+judgment and all his strength. At other moments
+he gazed vaguely at the hop-pickers and tried to
+interest himself in their work and their talk; often
+he thought he heard the sound of a carriage, and half
+rising, he remembered the promise he had made, to
+be at home when M. von Kassewitz arrived.</p>
+
+<p>Juliette's voice rose in decidedly spirited tones.</p>
+
+<p>"What does this Prefect of Strasburg want to
+come to Alsheim for? We get on so well without
+the Germans."</p>
+
+<p>"They have sworn to make themselves hated,"
+quickly added the farmer's elder son, who was giving
+out the hops to the women who had no more. "It
+seems that they are prohibiting the speaking of
+French as much as they possibly can."</p>
+
+<p>"A proof&mdash;my cousin, François Joseph Steiger,"
+said little Reine, the tailor's daughter. "A gendarme
+said he had heard him shout 'Vive la France!' in the
+inn. Those were, I believe, the only French words
+my cousin knew. That was enough&mdash;my cousin got
+two months in prison."</p>
+
+<p>"Your cousin called out more! But at <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'Albertchweiles'">Alberschweiler</ins>
+they have forbidden a singing society to
+execute anything in the French tongue."</p>
+
+<p>"And the French conjurer who came the other day
+to Strasburg? Do you know? It was in the newspaper.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">199</a></span>
+They let him pay the tax, hire the hall,
+print his advertisements, and then they said: 'You
+will do it in German, my good friend&mdash;or you will
+go!'"</p>
+
+<p>"What happened to M. Haas, the house-painter, is
+much worse."</p>
+
+<p>"What then?"</p>
+
+<p>"He knew that he could not paint an inscription
+in French on a shop any more. M. Haas would never&mdash;I
+know it&mdash;have painted a stroke of a brush in
+contravention of the law. But he thought he could
+at least put a coat of varnish on the sign he was
+painting, where he had painted a long time ago the
+word '<i>Chemiserie</i>.' They made him appear and
+threatened to take proceedings against him, because
+he was preserving the inscription with his varnish.
+Why, that was last October!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, oh, would not M. Hamm be pleased if the rain,
+the wind, and the thunder threw down the sign of
+the inn here, which is called: 'Le Pigeon blanc' as
+happened to 'La Cigogne.'"</p>
+
+<p>It was old Josephine the bilberry-picker who said
+to the farmer's wife, who at this moment appeared
+on the threshold of her house:</p>
+
+<p>"Sad Alsace! How gay she was when we were
+young! Wasn't she, Madame Ramspacher?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Now&mdash;for nothing&mdash;evictions, lawsuits, and
+prison! The police everywhere."</p>
+
+<p>"You had better keep silence!" said Ramspacher
+in a reproachful tone.</p>
+
+<p>The younger son Francis took his mother's
+side.</p>
+
+<p>"There are no traitors here. And then, how can
+one keep silence? They are too hard. That is why
+so many young men emigrate!"</p>
+
+<p>From his corner in the shadow, Jean looked at
+these young girls who were listening&mdash;with flashing
+eyes, some motionless and erect, others continuing to
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">200</a></span>
+bend and rise over their work of stripping the hop-plants.</p>
+
+<p>"Work then&mdash;instead of so much chattering!" said
+the master's voice.</p>
+
+<p>"One hundred and seventy unsubdued, and condemned
+by the tribunal at Saverne, in a single day,
+last January," said Juliette with a laugh that shook
+her hair. "One hundred and seventy!"</p>
+
+<p>Francis, the great careless boy, who was close by
+Jean Oberlé at this moment, turned a basketful of
+hops on the shelf, and bending towards him said:</p>
+
+<p>"It is at Grand Fontaine that one can easily get
+over the frontier," he said in low tones. "The best
+crossing, Monsieur Oberlé, is between Grande Fontaine
+and Les Miničres. The frontier is opposite, like a
+spur. That is the nearest part, but one has to take
+care of the Forest Guard and the Custom officials.
+Often they stop people to ask where they are going."</p>
+
+<p>Jean trembled. What did that mean? He began:</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you speak to...?"</p>
+
+<p>But the young peasant had turned away, and was
+going on with his work. Doubtless he had spoken
+for himself. He had trusted his plan to his melancholy
+and silent countryman, whom he would amuse,
+astonish, or sympathise with.</p>
+
+<p>But Jean had been touched by this confidence.</p>
+
+<p>A clear voice called out:</p>
+
+<p>"There is the carriage coming into the town. It
+is going to pass M. Bastian's avenue!"</p>
+
+<p>All the hop-pickers raised their heads. Little
+Franzele was standing up near the pillar which kept
+the door open&mdash;leaning the top of her body over the
+wall, her curly hair blown by the wind. She was
+looking to the right, whence came the sound of
+wheels. In the yard the women had stopped working.
+She murmured:</p>
+
+<p>"The Prefect, there he is&mdash;he is going to pass."</p>
+
+<p>The farmer, drawn from his work by the women's
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">201</a></span>
+sudden silence as much as by the child's voice, turned
+towards the yard where the hop-pickers were listening
+motionless to the noise of the wheels and the horses
+coming nearer. He commanded:</p>
+
+<p>"Shut the cart-door, Franzele!"</p>
+
+<p>He added, muttering:</p>
+
+<p>"I will not let him see how it is done here&mdash;in my
+place!"</p>
+
+<p>The little girl pushed-to one of the sides of the
+door, then curious, having stuck her head out again:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, how funny. Well, he cannot say that he
+saw many people. They have not disturbed themselves
+much on his account! There are only the
+German women of course. They are all there near
+'la Cigogne.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Will you shut that door?" replied the farmer
+angrily.</p>
+
+<p>This time he was obeyed. The second side of the
+door shut quickly against the first. The twenty
+persons present heard the noise of the carriage
+rolling in the silence of the town of Alsheim. There
+were eyes in all the shadowy corners behind the
+windows&mdash;but no one went outside their doors, and
+in the gardens the men who were digging the borders
+seemed so entirely absorbed in their work as to have
+heard nothing.</p>
+
+<p>When the carriage was about fifty yards past the
+farm, their imaginations were full of what it would
+be like at the Oberlés' farther on at the other end of
+the village, and taking up a handful of hop-stalks,
+the women and girls asked each other curiously what
+the son of M. Oberlé was going to do&mdash;and they
+looked stealthily towards the barn. He was no longer
+there.</p>
+
+<p>He had risen, that he might not break his word,
+and having run all the way, and pale in spite of his
+having run, he arrived at the gate of the kitchen
+garden at the very moment when the Prefect's
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">202</a></span>
+carriage, on the other side of the demesne, was
+passing through the park gates.</p>
+
+<p>All the household was ready. Lucienne and Madame
+Oberlé were seated near the mantelpiece. They did
+not speak to each other. The factory owner, who
+had returned from his office half-an-hour ago, had
+put on the coat he wore to go to Strasburg, and a
+white waistcoat&mdash;with his arms behind his back he
+watched the carriage coming round the lawn.</p>
+
+<p>The programme was carried out according to the
+plans arranged by him. The official personage who
+was just entering the grounds was bringing to
+M. Oberlé the assurance of German favour. For a
+moment of inflated pride which thrilled him M. Oberlé
+saw in imagination the palace of the Reichstag.</p>
+
+<p>"Monica," he said, turning round as breathless as
+after a long walk, "has your son returned?"</p>
+
+<p>Seated before him in the yellow chair near the
+fireplace, looking very thin, her features drawn with
+emotion, Madame Oberlé answered:</p>
+
+<p>"He will be here because he said so!"</p>
+
+<p>"The fact that he is not here is more certain still.
+And Count Kassewitz is coming&mdash;and Victor? I
+suppose he is at the steps to show him in, as I told
+him?"</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose so."</p>
+
+<p>M. Joseph Oberlé, furious at the constraint of his
+wife&mdash;at her disapproval, which he encountered even
+in this submission, crossed the room and pulled the
+old bell rope violently, and opening the door which
+led to the hall saw that Victor was not in his
+place.</p>
+
+<p>He had to draw back, for the sound of footsteps
+coming up were mingled with the sound of the bell.</p>
+
+<p>M. Joseph Oberlé placed himself near the fireplace
+facing the door&mdash;near his wife. Footsteps sounded
+on the gravel, on the granite of the steps. However,
+some one had come in answer to the bell.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">203</a></span>
+The door was pushed open the next moment and
+the Oberlés perceived at the same time that the old
+cook Salomé, white as wax, her mouth set, was
+opening the door without saying a word, and M. von
+Kassewitz close behind her was coming in.</p>
+
+<p>He was very tall, very broad shouldered, and clad in
+a tight-fitting frock-coat. His face was composed of
+two incongruous elements, a round bulging forehead,
+round cheeks, a round nose, then standing straight out
+from the skin in stiff locks, eyebrows, moustache, and
+short, pointed beard. This face of a German soldier
+composed of points and arches was animated by two
+piercing lively eyes, which ought to have been blue&mdash;for
+his hair was yellow&mdash;but which never showed
+clearly through the shadow of the spreading eyebrows,
+and because of the man's habit of screwing up his
+eyelids. His hair, sparse on the top, was brushed up
+well from the occiput to just above the ears.</p>
+
+<p>M. Joseph Oberlé met him and spoke in German.</p>
+
+<p>"M. Prefect, we are very greatly honoured by this
+visit. Really to have taken this trouble!"</p>
+
+<p>The official took the hand that M. Oberlé held out,
+and pressed it. But he did not look at him and he
+did not stop. His steps sounded heavily on the thick
+drawing-room carpet. He was looking at the thin
+apparition in mourning near the fireplace. And the
+enormous man bowed several times very stiffly.</p>
+
+<p>"The Count von Kassewitz," said M. Oberlé&mdash;for
+the Prefect had never been introduced to the mistress
+of the house.</p>
+
+<p>She made a slight movement of the head and said
+nothing. M. von Kassewitz drew himself up, waited
+a second, then playing his part and affecting good
+humour, which perhaps he did not feel, he greeted
+Lucienne, who had blushed, and was smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"I remember having seen Mademoiselle at His
+Excellency the Statthalter's," he said. "And truly
+Strasburg is some distance from Alsheim. But I am
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">204</a></span>
+of the opinion that there are some wonders which are
+better worth the journey than the ruins in the Vosges,
+M. Oberlé."</p>
+
+<p>He laughed with a satisfied air, and sat on the
+yellow couch with his back to the light, facing the
+fireplace. Then turning to the factory owner, who
+was seated near him he asked:</p>
+
+<p>"Is your son away?"</p>
+
+<p>M. Oberlé had been listening anxiously for a minute.
+He was able to say:</p>
+
+<p>"Here he is."</p>
+
+<p>The young man came in. The first person he saw
+was his mother. That made him hesitate. His eyes,
+young and impressionable, gave a nervous twitch as
+if they were hurt. Quickly he turned to the sofa,
+took the hand which the visitor offered him, and
+gravely but less embarrassed than his father, and
+with greater coolness he said in French:</p>
+
+<p>"I have just been for a walk. I had to run not to
+be late, for I promised my father I would be here
+when you came."</p>
+
+<p>"You are too kind," said the official, laughing.
+"We speak German with your father, but I am able
+to carry on a conversation in another tongue besides
+our national language."</p>
+
+<p>He went on in French, laying stress on the first
+syllables of the words.</p>
+
+<p>"I admired your park, Monsieur Oberlé, and even
+all the little country of Alsheim. It is very pretty.
+You are surrounded, I believe, by a refractory
+population&mdash;almost invisible; in any case, just now
+as I came through the village I hardly saw a living
+soul."</p>
+
+<p>"They are in the fields," said Madame Oberlé.</p>
+
+<p>"Who is the Mayor, then?"</p>
+
+<p>"M. Bastian."</p>
+
+<p>"I remember them: a family very much behind the
+times."
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">205</a></span></p>
+
+<p>His look was questioning, and he moved his heavy
+head towards the two women and Jean. Three
+answers came at once.</p>
+
+<p>"Behind the times, yes," said Lucienne&mdash;"they
+are, but such good people."</p>
+
+<p>"They are simply old-fashioned folk," said Madame
+Oberlé.</p>
+
+<p>Jean said:</p>
+
+<p>"Above all very worthy."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I know what that means."</p>
+
+<p>The Prefect made an evasive gesture.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, provided they go straight."</p>
+
+<p>The father saved the situation.</p>
+
+<p>"We have but few interesting things to show you,
+but perhaps you would like to see my works? They
+are full and animated, I assure you. There are one
+hundred workmen, and machines at work&mdash;pines sixty
+feet long under the branches, are reduced in three
+minutes to planks, or cut up as rafters. Would you
+care to see them?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, certainly."</p>
+
+<p>The conversation, thus turned in another direction
+at once became less constrained. The origin of the
+Oberlés' works, the Vosges woods, the comparison between
+the German manner of felling, by the Government,
+and the French system, by which the owners
+of a portion of a forest may fell the trees themselves
+under the supervision of the foresters&mdash;all these
+questions gave each a chance to speak. Lucienne
+became lively, Madame Oberlé, questioned by her
+husband, answered. Jean also spoke. The functionary
+congratulated himself on having come.</p>
+
+<p>When her father made a sign, Lucienne rose, to
+ring for the footman and to ask that some refreshment
+might be served. But she had not time to make a
+single step.</p>
+
+<p>The door opened, and Victor, the servant who had
+not been at his post a short time ago, appeared, very
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">206</a></span>
+red, very embarrassed, and lowering his eyes. On
+his left arm, holding himself as erect as possible, was
+the grandfather, M. Philippe Oberlé.</p>
+
+<p>The five persons talking were all standing. The
+servant stopped at the door and withdrew. The old
+man came in alone, leaning on his stick. M. Philippe
+Oberlé had put on his best clothes belonging to the
+time when he was in good health. He wore, unbuttoned,
+the frock-coat which was still decorated by
+the ribbon of the Legion of Honour. Intense feeling
+had transfigured him. One would have said that he
+was twenty years younger. He came forward taking
+short steps&mdash;his body bent a little forward, but his
+head held stiffly erect, and he looked at one man
+only, the German official standing by the side of the
+couch. His heavy jaw trembled and moved convulsively
+as if he were articulating words they could not
+hear.</p>
+
+<p>Was M. Joseph Oberlé mistaken, or did he wish to
+put him on the wrong scent? He turned to where
+M. von Kassewitz was standing, astonished and on his
+guard, and said:</p>
+
+<p>"My father has surprised us by coming down. I
+never expected he would take part in this."</p>
+
+<p>The eyes of the old deputy, rigid under their heavy
+lids, did not cease looking at the German, who
+kept his countenance and remained silent. When
+M. Philippe Oberlé was three feet from M. von Kassewitz
+he stopped. With his left hand, which was free,
+he then drew his slate from the pocket of his frock-coat,
+and held it out to the Count von Kassewitz: on
+it two lines were written. The Count bent forward
+and then drew himself up haughtily.</p>
+
+<p>"Sir!"</p>
+
+<p>Already M. Joseph Oberlé had seized the thin sheet
+of slate, and read these words, traced with remarkable
+decision:</p>
+
+<p>"I am in my own house, sir!"
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">207</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The eyes of the old Alsatian added:</p>
+
+<p>"Leave my house!" and they were no longer
+looking down, nor did they leave the enemy.</p>
+
+<p>"This is too much!" said M. Joseph Oberlé.
+"Father, how could you come downstairs to insult
+my guests? You will excuse him, sir; my father is
+old, over-excited, a little touched by age."</p>
+
+<p>"If you were younger, sir," said M. von Kassewitz
+in his turn, "we should not stop at this. You will
+do well to remember that you are also in my home, in
+Germany, on German territory, and that it is not
+well even at your age to insult authority."</p>
+
+<p>"Father," said Madame Oberlé, hastening to the
+old man to support him, "I beg of you&mdash;you are
+doing harm to yourself&mdash;this emotion is too much
+for you."</p>
+
+<p>An extraordinary thing happened. M. Philippe
+Oberlé, in his violent anger, had found strength
+to stand upright. He appeared gigantic. He was
+as tall as M. von Kassewitz. The veins on his temples
+swelled&mdash;the blood was in his cheeks, and his eyes
+were living once more. And at the same time the
+half-dead body was trembling and using up in involuntary
+movements its fragile and factitious life.
+He signed to Madame Oberlé to stand aside, and not
+to hold him up.</p>
+
+<p>Lucienne, grown pale, shrugged her shoulders and
+went towards M. von Kassewitz.</p>
+
+<p>"It is only an act in one of our family tragedies,
+monsieur. Do not take any notice of it and come to
+the works with us. Let me pass, grandfather."</p>
+
+<p>The Count took no notice, and she passed out
+between M. Philippe Oberlé and the functionary
+who said:</p>
+
+<p>"You are not responsible, mademoiselle, for the
+insult that has been offered to me. I understand the
+situation&mdash;I understand."</p>
+
+<p>His voice came with difficulty from his contracted
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">208</a></span>
+throat. Furious&mdash;half a head taller than any one
+there except M. Philippe Oberlé&mdash;M. von Kassewitz
+turned on his heel and went towards the door.</p>
+
+<p>"Come, I pray you," said M. Joseph Oberlé,
+standing aside to let the Prefect pass.</p>
+
+<p>Lucienne was already outside. Madame Oberlé, as
+ill from emotion as the old man, who refused her
+assistance, feeling her tears choke her, ran into the
+hall and up to her room, where she burst into sobs.</p>
+
+<p>In the drawing-room Jean was alone with the old
+chief, who had just driven out the stranger. He
+drew near and said:</p>
+
+<p>"Grandfather, what have you done?"</p>
+
+<p>He wanted to say: It is a terrible insult. My
+father will never forgive it. The family is completely
+broken up. He would have said all that. But he
+raised his eyes to the old fighter, so near the end,
+still showing fight. He saw now that the grandfather
+was gazing fixedly at him; that his anger had reached
+its height; that his chest was moving violently; that
+the face grimaced and twisted. And suddenly, in the
+yellow drawing-room, an extraordinary voice, a hoarse
+voice, powerful and husky, cried out in a kind of
+nervous gallop:</p>
+
+<p>"Go away! Go away! Go away! Go away!"</p>
+
+<p>The voice rose to a piercing note. Then it broke,
+and with his mouth still open, the old man reeled
+and fell on the floor. The voice had sounded to the
+inmost recesses of the house. This voice that no
+one ever heard now, Madame Oberlé had recognised
+it, and through the open door of her room she had
+been able to catch the words. It was only a cry of
+rage and suffering, or the contrary to M. Joseph
+Oberlé, when the terrible sound of the words, which
+could not be distinguished or guessed at, reached
+him down two-thirds of the garden path. He had
+turned for a moment, with a frown&mdash;while the
+foremen and German workmen of the factory greeted
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">209</a></span>
+M. von Kassewitz with their cheers&mdash;then he went on
+towards them.</p>
+
+<p>Madame Oberlé was the first to run to the drawing-room,
+then Victor, then old Salome, as white as a
+sheet, crying with uplifted hands:</p>
+
+<p>"Was not that M. Philippe I heard?"</p>
+
+<p>Then the coachman and the gardener ran in,
+hesitating to come forward but curious to see this
+distressing scene. They found Jean and his mother
+kneeling near M. Philippe Oberlé, who was breathing
+with difficulty, and was in a state of complete prostration.
+His effort, his emotion, and his indignation
+had used up the strength of the old man. They
+raised him up, and sat him in a chair, and each one
+tried to revive him. For a quarter of an hour there
+was going and coming between the first floor and the
+dining-room. They fetched vinegar, salts, and ether.</p>
+
+<p>"I was afraid that master would have an attack;
+he has been beside himself all the morning. Ah,
+there he is moving his eyes a little. His hands are
+not so cold.</p>
+
+<p>Across the park there came a cry of "Long live the
+Prefect!" It entered the drawing-room wafted on
+the warm breeze, where such words had never been
+heard before. M. Philippe Oberlé did not seem to
+hear them. But after some minutes he made a sign
+that he wished to be taken to his room.</p>
+
+<p>Some one came up the steps quickly, and before
+coming in asked:</p>
+
+<p>"What, again! What are those cries? Ah! my
+father!"</p>
+
+<p>He changed his tone and said:</p>
+
+<p>"I thought it was you, Monica&mdash;that you had a
+nervous attack. But then who screamed like that?"</p>
+
+<p>"He!"</p>
+
+<p>"He?" said M. Oberlé; "that is not possible!"</p>
+
+<p>He did not dare to ask the question again. His
+father, now standing, supported by Jean and by his
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">210</a></span>
+servant, trembling and wavering, moved across the
+room.</p>
+
+<p>"Jean," said Madame Oberlé, "see to everything.
+Do not leave your grandfather; I am coming up."</p>
+
+<p>Her husband had kept her back. She wished to
+get Jean away from this. As soon as she was alone
+with M. Oberlé on the staircase they heard the noise
+of footsteps and the rustling of materials, and voices
+saying:</p>
+
+<p>"Hold him up&mdash;take care in turning."</p>
+
+<p>"What did he call out?" asked M. Oberlé.</p>
+
+<p>"He called out: 'Go away! Go away!' Those are
+words that he often uses, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"The only ones he had at his disposal to show his
+hatred. Did he say nothing else?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. I came down at once and I found him on the
+floor. Jean was near him."</p>
+
+<p>"Happily M. von Kassewitz did not witness this
+second act. The first was enough. In truth, the
+whole household was leagued together to make this
+visit&mdash;such an honour for us&mdash;an occasion of offence
+and scandal: my father; Victor, who was not ashamed
+to be an accomplice of the delirious old man; Jean,
+who was impertinent; you&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I did not think you could have had to complain
+of me!"</p>
+
+<p>"Of you the very first! It is you who are the soul
+of this resistance, which I <i>will</i> overcome. I shall
+overcome it! I answer for that."</p>
+
+<p>"My poor friend," she said, clasping her hands;
+"you are still set on that!"</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly."</p>
+
+<p>"You cannot overcome everything, alas!"</p>
+
+<p>"That is what we are going to see."</p>
+
+<p>Madame Oberlé did not answer and went upstairs
+quickly. A new anxiety, stronger than the fear of
+her husband's threats, tortured her now.</p>
+
+<p>"What did my father-in-law wish to say?" she
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">211</a></span>
+asked herself. "The old man is not delirious. He
+remembers; he foresees; he watches over the house;
+he always thinks things out carefully. If only
+Jean did not understand it as I understand it!"</p>
+
+<p>At the top of the stairs she met her son, who was
+coming out of the grandfather's room.</p>
+
+<p>"Well?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing serious, I hope&mdash;he is better&mdash;he wishes
+to be alone."</p>
+
+<p>"And you?" questioned the mother, taking her
+son's hand, and leading him towards the room he
+used. "And you?"</p>
+
+<p>"How? I?"</p>
+
+<p>When he had shut the door behind her, she placed
+herself before him, and her face quite white in the
+light of the window, her eyes fixed on the eyes of her
+child:</p>
+
+<p>"You quite understood&mdash;did you not&mdash;what grandfather
+wished to say?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>She tried to smile, and it was heart-breaking to see
+this effort of a tortured soul.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. He cried: 'Go away!' It is a word he
+often used to say to strangers. He was addressing
+M. von Kassewitz. You do not think so?"</p>
+
+<p>Jean shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"But, my darling, he could not 'address others so!'"</p>
+
+<p>"Pardon; he meant it for me."</p>
+
+<p>"You are mad! You are the best friends in the
+world, you and your grandfather."</p>
+
+<p>"Just so."</p>
+
+<p>"He did not wish to turn you out of the room?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"Then?"</p>
+
+<p>"He was ordering me to leave the house."</p>
+
+<p>"Jean!"</p>
+
+<p>"And for all that, the poor man was delighted to
+see me come back to it."
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">212</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Jean would not look at his mother now, because
+tears had gushed from Madame Oberlé's eyes, because
+she had come close to him, because she had taken
+his hands.</p>
+
+<p>"No, Jean, no; he could not have meant that, I
+assure you; you do not understand. In any case,
+you will not do it! Say that you will never do it."</p>
+
+<p>She waited for the answer, which did not come.</p>
+
+<p>"Jean, for pity's sake answer me! Promise me
+that you will not leave us! Oh! what would the
+house be without my son now? I have only you&mdash;you
+do not think I am miserable enough then? Jean,
+look at me!"</p>
+
+<p>He could not wholly resist her. She saw the eyes
+of her son looking at her tenderly.</p>
+
+<p>"I love you with all my heart," said Jean.</p>
+
+<p>"I know it; but do not go away!"</p>
+
+<p>"I pity you and respect you."</p>
+
+<p>"Do not go away!"</p>
+
+<p>And as he said no more she moved away.</p>
+
+<p>"You will promise nothing. You are hard&mdash;you
+also are like&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She was going to say "Like your father."</p>
+
+<p>Jean thought: "I can give her some weeks of
+peace; I owe them to her." And trying to smile in
+his turn said:</p>
+
+<p>"I promise you, mamma, to be at St. Nicholas's
+Barracks on October 1st&mdash;I promise you. Are you
+pleased?"</p>
+
+<p>She shook her head. But he, kissing her on the
+brow, not wishing to say anything more, left her in
+haste.</p>
+
+<hr class="c5" />
+
+<p>The town of Alsheim was occupying itself with the
+scene which had taken place at M. Oberlé's. Through
+the torrid evening heat, amidst the fertile dust of the
+cut wheat, of the pollen of flowers, of dried moss
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">213</a></span>
+which was blown from one field to another, the men
+came home on foot; the children and young people
+came on horseback, and the tails of the horses were
+gold, or silver, or black, or fire-coloured in the
+burning light which the setting sun cast over the
+shoulder of the Vosges. Women were waiting for
+their husbands on the thresholds, and when they drew
+near, went to meet them in their haste to spread such
+important news.</p>
+
+<p>"You do not know what has happened at the
+works. They will speak about it for a long time!
+It seems that old M. Philippe found his voice in his
+anger, and that he drove the Prussian out!"</p>
+
+<p>Many of the peasants said:</p>
+
+<p>"You will speak of that at home, wife, when the
+door is shut!"</p>
+
+<p>Many remarked with anxiety the agitation of their
+neighbours, and said:</p>
+
+<p>"This will end in a visit from the gendarmes!"</p>
+
+<p>At M. Bastian's farm the women and young
+girls were finishing their hop-picking. They were
+chattering, still laughing, or anxious, according to
+their age. The farmer had forbidden them to reopen
+the door looking on to the village street. He
+went on, always prudent in spite of his seeming
+joviality, to spread out the baskets of hop flowers,
+shining with fresh pollen. The oxen and the horses,
+passing near the yard, breathed in the air and stretched
+their necks.</p>
+
+<p>And one at a time the women got up, shook their
+aprons, and weary, stretched their youthful arms,
+yawning at the freshness of the cool puffs of air which
+came over the roof, then started on their more or less
+distant way to home and supper.</p>
+
+<p>At the Oberlés' house the dinner-bell rang. The
+meal was the shortest and the least gay that the
+wainscoting and delicately tinted paintings had ever
+witnessed.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">214</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Very few words were exchanged.</p>
+
+<p>Lucienne was thinking of the new difficulty in the
+way of her projected marriage and of the violent
+irritation of M. von Kassewitz; Jean, of the hell that
+this house of the family had become; M. Oberlé, of
+his ambitions probably ruined; Madame Monica, of
+the possible departure of her son. Towards the end
+of dinner, at the moment when the servant was about
+to withdraw, M. Oberlé began to say, as if he were
+continuing a conversation:</p>
+
+<p>"I am not accustomed, you know, my dear, to give
+in to violence: it exasperates me, that is all. I am
+then resolved to do two things&mdash;first to build another
+house in the timber-yard, where I shall be in my
+own home, then to hasten on Lucienne's marriage
+with Lieutenant von Farnow. Neither you nor my
+father nor any one can stop me. And I have just
+written to him about it."</p>
+
+<p>M. Oberlé looked at each of them&mdash;his wife, son,
+and daughter&mdash;with the same expression of defiance.
+He added:</p>
+
+<p>"These young people must be allowed to see each
+other and to talk to each other freely, betrothed as
+they are."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," said Madame Oberlé, "such things&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"They are so!" he answered, "by my will, and
+dating from this evening. Nothing will alter it,
+nothing. I cannot let them meet here, unfortunately.
+My father would plan some fresh scandal&mdash;or you,"
+and he pointed to his son; "or you," and he pointed
+to his wife.</p>
+
+<p>"You are mistaken," said Madame Oberlé. "I
+suffer cruelly on account of this arrangement, but I
+shall make no scandal which will nullify what you
+have decided upon."</p>
+
+<p>"Then," said M. Oberlé, "you have the chance to
+prove your words. I was not going to ask you to do
+anything, and I had decided to take Lucienne to
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">215</a></span>
+Strasburg to the house of a third person, who would
+have let them meet in her drawing-room."</p>
+
+<p>"I have never deserved that."</p>
+
+<p>"Will you then agree to accompany your daughter?"</p>
+
+<p>She thought for a moment, shut her eyes, and
+said:</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly."</p>
+
+<p>There was a look of surprise in her husband's eyes,
+and in Jean's, and also in Lucienne's.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall be delighted; for my arrangement did not
+quite suit my fancy. It is more natural that you
+should take your daughter. But what rendezvous
+do you intend to choose?"</p>
+
+<p>Madame Monica answered:</p>
+
+<p>"My house at Obernai."</p>
+
+<p>A movement of stupefaction made the father
+and son both straighten themselves. The house at
+Obernai? The home of the Biehlers? The son at
+least understood the sacrifice which the mother was
+making, and he rose and kissed her tenderly.</p>
+
+<p>M. Oberlé himself said:</p>
+
+<p>"That is right, Monica&mdash;very right. And when
+will it be convenient to you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Just the time to let M. de Farnow know about it.
+You will fix the day and the hour&mdash;write to him when
+he answers you."</p>
+
+<p>Lucienne, in spite of her want of tenderness, drew
+closer to her mother that evening. In the little
+drawing-room, where she worked at crochet for two
+hours, she sat near Madame Oberlé, and with her
+watchful eyes she followed, or tried to follow, the
+thoughts on the lined face so mobile and still so
+expressive. But often one can only partly read what
+is passing in a mind. Neither Lucienne nor Jean
+guessed the reason which had so quickly prompted
+Madame Oberlé's act of self-sacrifice.</p>
+
+<p class="p4"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">216</a></span></p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XIII</h3>
+
+<p class="center font95"><b>THE RAMPARTS OF OBERNAI</b></p>
+
+<p class="p2">Ten days later, Lucienne and her mother had just
+entered the family house where Madame Oberlé had
+spent all her childhood, the home of the Biehlers,
+which lifted its three stories of windows with little
+green panes, and its fortified gable above the
+ramparts of Obernai, between two houses of the
+sixteenth century&mdash;just like it.</p>
+
+<p>Madame Oberlé had gone upstairs, saying to the
+caretaker:</p>
+
+<p>"You will receive a gentleman presently who will
+ask for me."</p>
+
+<p>In the large room on the first floor which she
+entered, one of the few rooms which were still
+furnished, she had seen her parents live and die; the
+walnut-wood bed, the brown porcelain stove, the
+chairs covered with woollen velvet which repeated
+on every seat and every back the same basket of
+flowers, the crucifix framed under raised glass, the
+two views of Italy brought back from a journey in
+1837, all remained in the same places and in the
+same order as in the old days. Instinctively in
+crossing the threshold she sought the holy water
+stoup hanging near the lintel, where the old people,
+when they went into the room, moistened their fingers
+as on the threshold of a holy abode.</p>
+
+<p>The two women went towards the window. Madame
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">217</a></span>
+Oberlé wore the same black dress she had put on to
+receive the Prefect of Strasburg. Lucienne had put
+on a large brimmed hat of grey straw, trimmed with
+feathers of the same shade, as if to cover her fair hair
+with a veil of shadow. Her mother thought her
+beautiful&mdash;and did not say so. She would have
+hastened to say so if the betrothed had not been he
+whom they expected, and if the sight of the house,
+and the memory of the good Alsatian folk who had
+lived in it, had not made the pain she already felt
+greater.</p>
+
+<p>She leant against the windows and looked down
+into the garden full of box-trees clipped into rounded
+shapes, and flower borders outlined by box, and the
+winding, narrow paths where she had played, grown
+up, and dreamed. Beyond the garden there was a
+walk made on the town ramparts, and between the
+chestnuts planted there one could see the blue plain.</p>
+
+<p>Lucienne, who had not spoken since the arrival at
+Obernai, guessing that she would have disturbed a
+being who was asking herself whether she could
+continue and complete her sacrifice, came quite close
+to her mother, and with that intelligence which always
+took everyone's fancy the first time they heard it,
+but less the second time:</p>
+
+<p>"You must suffer, mamma," she said. "With your
+ideas, what you are doing is almost heroic!"</p>
+
+<p>The mother did not look up, but her eyelids fluttered
+more, and quickly.</p>
+
+<p>"You are doing it as a wifely duty, and because of
+that I admire you. I do not believe I could do what
+you are doing&mdash;give up my individuality to such an
+extent."</p>
+
+<p>She did not think she was being cruel.</p>
+
+<p>"And you wish to be married?" asked the mother,
+raising her head quickly.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, yes; but we do not now look upon marriage
+quite as you do."
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">218</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The mother saw from Lucienne's smile that she
+would be contending with a fixed idea, and she felt
+that the hour for discussion was badly chosen. She
+kept silence.</p>
+
+<p>"I am grateful to you," continued the young girl.
+Then after a moment of hesitation:</p>
+
+<p>"Nevertheless, you had another reason besides
+obeying my father when you agreed to come here&mdash;here
+to receive M. von Farnow."</p>
+
+<p>She let her eyes wander round the room, and
+brought them back to the woman with smooth hair&mdash;that
+worn-out and suffering woman&mdash;who was her
+mother. There was no hesitation.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"I was sure of it. Can you tell me what it is?"</p>
+
+<p>"Presently."</p>
+
+<p>"Before M. von Farnow?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>Keen annoyance changed the expression of
+Lucienne's face; it grew hard.</p>
+
+<p>"Although we do not agree with each other very
+well, surely you are not capable of trying to turn
+my betrothed against me?"</p>
+
+<p>Tears appeared in the corners of Madame Oberlé's
+eyelids.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh Lucienne!"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I do not believe it. It is something important?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Does it concern me?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; not you."</p>
+
+<p>The young girl opened her mouth to continue, then
+listened, became a little pale, and turned completely
+towards the door, while her mother turned only half-round
+in the same direction. Some one was coming
+upstairs. Wilhelm von Farnow, preceded by the
+caretaker, who accompanied him only as far as the
+landing, saw Madame Oberlé through the opening of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">219</a></span>
+the door, and as if on a military parade, he drew himself
+up and crossed the room quickly, and bowed his
+haughty head first to the mother, then to the young
+girl.</p>
+
+<p>He was extremely well dressed in civilian clothes.
+His face was drawn and pallid with emotion. He
+said gravely in French:</p>
+
+<p>"I thank you, madame!"</p>
+
+<p>Then he looked at Lucienne, and in his unsmiling
+blue eyes there was a gleam of proud joy.</p>
+
+<p>The young girl smiled.</p>
+
+<p>Madame Oberlé felt a shudder of aversion, which
+she tried to repress. She looked straight into the
+steel-blue eyes of Wilhelm von Farnow, who stood
+motionless in the same attitude he would have taken
+under arms and before some great chief.</p>
+
+<p>"You must not thank me. I play no part in what
+is happening. My husband and my daughter have
+decided everything."</p>
+
+<p>He bowed again.</p>
+
+<p>"If I were free I should refuse your race, your
+religion, your army&mdash;which are not mine. You see
+I speak to you frankly. I am determined to tell you
+that you owe me nothing, but also that I harbour no
+unjust animosity against you. I even believe that
+you are a very good soldier and an estimable man.
+I am so convinced of it that I am going to confide to
+you an anxiety which tortures me."</p>
+
+<p>She hesitated a moment and continued:</p>
+
+<p>"We had at Alsheim a terrible scene when Count
+Kassewitz came to the house."</p>
+
+<p>"Count Kassewitz told me about it, madame. He
+even advised me to give up the idea of marrying
+your daughter. But I shall not do that. To make
+me give her up nothing short of&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He began to laugh&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing short of an order from the Emperor
+would make me! I am a good German, as you say.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">220</a></span>
+I do not easily give up what I have won. And Count
+Kassewitz is only my uncle."</p>
+
+<p>"What you do not know is that my father-in-law,
+for the first time for many, many years, in his
+exasperation, in the excess of his grief, has spoken.
+He cried out to Jean: 'Go away! Go away!' I
+heard the words. I ran quickly. Well, sir, what
+moved me most was not seeing M. Philippe Oberlé
+senseless, stretched upon the floor; it was my son's
+expression, and it is my conviction that at that
+moment he resolved to obey and to leave Alsace."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," said Farnow, "that would be bad."</p>
+
+<p>He cast a glance at the fair Lucienne, and saw that
+she was shaking her blond head in sign of denial.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, bad," continued the mother without understanding
+in what sense Farnow used the word.
+"What an old age for me in my divided house&mdash;without
+my daughter, whom you are going to take
+away; without my son, who will have gone away.
+You are astonished, perhaps, that I should tell you an
+anxiety of this sort?"</p>
+
+<p>He made a gesture which might mean anything.</p>
+
+<p>"It is because," the mother continued more quickly,
+"I have no one to advise me; no help to hope for&mdash;under
+the circumstances. Understand clearly. To
+whom shall I go? To my husband? He would be
+furious? He would start to work and we should find
+that by his influence Jean would be incorporated in
+a German regiment in a week's time&mdash;away in the
+north or the east. My brother? He would rather
+insist on my son leaving Alsace. You see, monsieur,
+you are the only one who can do anything."</p>
+
+<p>"What exactly?"</p>
+
+<p>"But much. Jean has promised me that he will
+join the regiment. You can arrange that he shall be
+received and welcomed, and not discouraged. You
+can assure him protection, society, comrades&mdash;you
+have known him a long time. You can prevent his
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">221</a></span>
+giving way to melancholy ideas, and stop him if he
+were again tempted to carry out such a plan."</p>
+
+<p>The lieutenant, much disturbed, frowned, and the
+expression of his face changed at the last words.
+Then he said:</p>
+
+<p>"Up to the first of October you have your son's
+promise&mdash;after that I will look after him."</p>
+
+<p>Then speaking to himself, and again occupied with
+an idea, which he did not express entirely:</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said, "very bad&mdash;it must not be."</p>
+
+<p>Lucienne heard it.</p>
+
+<p>"So much the worse," said she. "I betray my
+brother's secret, but he will forgive me when he
+knows that I betrayed him to calm mamma. You
+can be easy, mamma, Jean will not leave Alsace."</p>
+
+<p>"Because?"</p>
+
+<p>"He loves."</p>
+
+<p>"Where then?"</p>
+
+<p>"At Alsheim!"</p>
+
+<p>"Whom?"</p>
+
+<p>"Odile Bastian."</p>
+
+<p>Madame Oberlé asked absolutely amazed:</p>
+
+<p>"Is it true?"</p>
+
+<p>"As true as we are here. He told me everything."</p>
+
+<p>The mother closed her eyes, and, choking with
+halting breath:</p>
+
+<p>"God be praised. A little hope rises in my heart.
+Let me cry&mdash;indeed I must!"</p>
+
+<p>She pointed to the room, which was also open on
+the other side of the landing and was lighted by a
+large bay window, through which a tree could be
+seen.</p>
+
+<p>Farnow bowed, showing Lucienne that he was
+following her.</p>
+
+<p>And the girl moved on ahead, passing through the
+room where her ancestors had loved Alsace so much.</p>
+
+<p>Madame Oberlé turned away; sitting near the
+window she leaned her head against the panes where
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">222</a></span>
+as a child she had seen the sleet and the ice form
+into ferns, and the sun, and the rain, and the vibrating
+airs of summer-time, and all the land of Alsace.</p>
+
+<p>"Odile Bastian! Odile!" repeated the poor woman.
+The bright face, the smile, the dresses of the young
+girl, the corner of Alsheim where she lived&mdash;a whole
+poem of beauty and moral health rose in the mother's
+mind; and with an effort she held to it jealously, in
+order to forget the other love-affair on account of
+which she had come here.</p>
+
+<p>"Why did not Jean confide in me?" she thought.
+"This is a kind of compensation for the other. It
+reassures me. Jean will not leave us, since the
+strongest of ties binds him to the country. Perhaps
+we shall succeed in overcoming my husband's
+obstinacy. I will make him see that the sacrifice we
+are making, Jean and I, in accepting this German&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile laughter came from the next room,
+unfurnished except for the two chairs on which
+Lucienne and Farnow were sitting. Lucienne, with
+an elbow on the balustrade of the open window, the
+lieutenant a little behind gazing at her, and speaking
+with an extraordinary fervour; sometimes there was
+laughter. This laughter hurt Madame Oberlé, but she
+did not turn round. She still saw in the changing
+blue of the Alsatian fields the consoling image evoked
+by Lucienne.</p>
+
+<p>Wilhelm von Farnow was speaking during this
+time, and was using to the best advantage this hour,
+which he knew would be short, in which he was
+permitted to learn to know Lucienne. She was
+listening to him as if dreaming, looking out across
+the roofs, but really attentive, and accentuating her
+answers with a smile and a little grimace. The
+German said:</p>
+
+<p>"You are a glorious conquest. You will be a
+queen among the officers of my regiment, and already
+there is a woman of French family, but born in
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">223</a></span>
+Austria, and she is ugly. There is an Italian, and
+some Germans, and some Englishwomen. You unite
+in yourself all their separate gifts&mdash;beauty, wit,
+brilliancy, German culture, and French spontaneity.
+As soon as we are married I shall present you in the
+highest German society. How did you develop in
+Alsheim?"</p>
+
+<p>Her nature was still proud rather than tender, and
+these flatteries pleased her.</p>
+
+<hr class="c5" />
+
+<p>At this hour, profiting by the absence of M. Joseph
+Oberlé at Barr, M. Ulrich had gone up to see his
+nephew Jean. The days were drawing near when
+the young man would go to the barracks. It was
+necessary to tell him about the unsuccessful meeting
+with Odile Bastian's father. M. Ulrich, after having
+hesitated a long time, finding it harder to destroy
+young love than to start for a war, went to see his
+nephew and told him everything.</p>
+
+<p>They talked for an hour, or rather the uncle talked
+in monologue, and tried to console Jean, who had let
+him see his grief, and had wept bitterly.</p>
+
+<p>"Weep, my dear boy," said the uncle. "At this
+moment your mother is assisting at the first interview
+between Lucienne and the other. I confess I do not
+understand her. Weep, but don't let yourself be cast
+down. To-morrow you must be brave. Think, in
+three weeks you will be in the barracks. They must
+not see you crying. Well, the year will soon pass,
+and you will come back to us&mdash;and who knows?"</p>
+
+<p>Jean passed his hand over his eyes and said
+resolutely:</p>
+
+<p>"No, uncle."</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?"</p>
+
+<p>At the same place where in the preceding winter
+the two men had talked so joyously of the future,
+they were once more seated at the two ends of the
+sofa.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">224</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Outside, daylight was fading away and the air
+was warm. M. Ulrich found suddenly on Jean's
+sorrowful face the energetic expression which had
+so forcibly struck him on the former occasion, and
+had so delighted him. The Vosges-coloured eyes,
+with brows close together, were full of changing
+gleams of light, and yet the eyes were steady.</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Jean; "it is necessary that you should
+know&mdash;you and one other to whom I will tell it. I
+shall not do my military service here."</p>
+
+<p>"Where will you do it?"</p>
+
+<p>"In France."</p>
+
+<p>"How can you say that? Are you serious?"</p>
+
+<p>"As serious as it is possible to be."</p>
+
+<p>"And you go away at once?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; after I have joined the corps."</p>
+
+<p>M. Ulrich lifted his hands:</p>
+
+<p>"But you are mad. It will be the most difficult
+and most dangerous thing to do. You are mad!"</p>
+
+<p>He began to walk up and down the room&mdash;from
+the window to the wall. His emotion found vent in
+emphatic gestures, but he took care to speak gently
+for fear of being heard by the people of the house.</p>
+
+<p>"Why after? For, after all, that is the first thing
+that comes into my mind in face of such an idea, and
+why?"</p>
+
+<p>"I had intended to go away before joining the
+regiment," said the young man quietly. "But
+mamma guessed at something. She made me swear
+that I would join. So I shall join. Do not try to
+dissuade me. It is unreasonable, but I promised."</p>
+
+<p>M. Ulrich shrugged his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; the question of time is a serious point, but
+it is not only that. The serious thing is the resolution.
+Who made you take it? Is it because your grandfather
+called out 'Go away!' that you have decided
+to go?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; he thought as I think, that is all."
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">225</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Is it the refusal of my friend Bastian which
+decided you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not more than the other. If he had said yes I
+should have had to tell him what I have told you
+this evening&mdash;I will live neither in Germany nor in
+Alsace."</p>
+
+<p>"Then your sister's marriage?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; that blow alone would have been enough
+to drive me away. What would my life be like at
+Alsheim now? Have you thought about that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Be careful, Jean. You forsake your post as an
+Alsatian!"</p>
+
+<p>"No; I can do nothing for Alsace! I could never
+gain the confidence of Alsatians now: with my father
+compromised, and my sister married to a Prussian."</p>
+
+<p>"They will say you deserted!"</p>
+
+<p>"Let them come to tell me so then, when I shall be
+serving with my regiment in France!"</p>
+
+<p>"And your mother&mdash;you are going to leave your
+mother alone here?"</p>
+
+<p>"That is the great objection, after all, the only
+great one, for the present, but my mother cannot
+ask me to let my life be sacrificed and made useless
+as hers has been. Her next feeling later on will be
+one of approval, because I have freed myself from
+the intolerable yoke which has lain so heavily on
+her. Yes, she will forgive me. And then&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Jean pointed to the jagged green mountains.</p>
+
+<p>"And then, there is dear France, as you say. It is
+she who attracts me. It is she who spoke to me
+first!"</p>
+
+<p>"You child!" cried M. Ulrich.</p>
+
+<p>He placed himself before the young man, who
+remained seated, and who was almost smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"A nation must be fine indeed who, after thirty
+years, can evoke such a love as yours! Where are
+the people one would regret in the same way? Oh!
+blessed race which speaks again in you!"
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">226</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He stopped a moment.</p>
+
+<p>"However, I cannot leave you in ignorance of the
+kind of difficulties and disillusions you are going to
+encounter. It is my duty. Jean, my Jean, when you
+have passed the frontier and claimed the qualification
+of Frenchman according to the law, and finished your
+year's military service.&mdash;What will you do?"</p>
+
+<p>"I shall always be able to earn my bread."</p>
+
+<p>"Do not count too much on that. Do not think
+that the French will welcome you with favour
+because you are Alsatian. They have perhaps forgotten
+that we&mdash;&mdash;In any case, they are like those
+who owe a very old pension. Do not imagine that
+they will help you over there more than any one
+else."</p>
+
+<p>His nephew interrupted him:</p>
+
+<p>"My mind is made up&mdash;whatever happens. Do not
+speak to me about it any more, will you?"</p>
+
+<p>Then Uncle Ulrich&mdash;who was caressing his grey,
+pointed beard as if to get out his words spoken
+against the dear land, words that were coming out
+with such difficulty&mdash;was silent, and looked at his
+nephew a long time with his smile of complicity,
+which grew and spread. And he finished by saying:</p>
+
+<p>"Now that I have done my duty and have not
+succeeded, I have the right to acknowledge, Jean,
+that sometimes I had this same idea. What would
+you say if I followed you to France?"</p>
+
+<p>"You?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not immediately. The only interest I had in living
+here was in seeing you growing up and continuing
+the tradition. That is all shattered. Do you know
+what will be one of the best means of insuring yourself
+against a cold welcome?"</p>
+
+<p>Jean was too agitated by the gravity of the
+immediate resolution to take up time in talking
+about future plans.</p>
+
+<p>"Listen, Uncle Ulrich, in a few days I shall want
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">227</a></span>
+you. I have told you about my decision precisely
+that you might help me."</p>
+
+<p>He rose, went towards the library, which was by
+the entrance-door, took a staff officer's map and came,
+unfolding it, towards the sofa.</p>
+
+<p>"Sit down again by me, uncle, and let us do some
+geography together!"</p>
+
+<p>He spread on his knees the map of the frontier of
+Lower Alsace.</p>
+
+<p>"I have made up my mind to go this way," he
+said. "There will be a few inquiries to be made."</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Ulrich nodded his head in sign of approval,
+interested as if it were some plan for a hunt, or an
+approaching battle.</p>
+
+<p>"Good place," he said, "Grande Fontaine, les
+Miničres. It seems to me that that is the nearest
+frontier line to Strasburg. Who told you this?"</p>
+
+<p>"François Ramspacher's second son."</p>
+
+<p>"You can rely on it. You will take the train."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Where to?"</p>
+
+<p>"As far as Schirmeck, I think."</p>
+
+<p>"No; that is too near the frontier, and it is too
+important a station. In your place I should get out
+at the station before that, at Russ Hersbach."</p>
+
+<p>"Good! There I take a carriage ordered beforehand&mdash;I
+go to Grande Fontaine&mdash;I dash into the
+forest."</p>
+
+<p>"We dash, you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"Are you coming?"</p>
+
+<p>The two men looked at each other, proud of each
+other.</p>
+
+<p>"Really," said M. Ulrich, "this astonishes you?
+It is my trade. Pathfinder that I am, I am going
+first to reconnoitre the land, then when I shall have
+done the wood so thoroughly that I can find my way
+through it even by night, I will tell you if the plan is
+a good one, and at the hour agreed upon you will
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">228</a></span>
+find me there. Be careful to dress like a tourist: soft
+hat, gaiters, not an ounce of baggage."</p>
+
+<p>"Quite so."</p>
+
+<p>M. Ulrich again scrutinised this handsome Jean
+who was leaving for ever the land of the Oberlés, the
+Biehlers, and all their ancestors.</p>
+
+<p>All the same, how sad it is, in spite of the joy of the
+danger.</p>
+
+<p>"Bah!" said Jean, trying to laugh, "I shall see
+the Rhine at both ends&mdash;there where it is free."</p>
+
+<p>M. Ulrich embraced him.</p>
+
+<p>"Courage, my boy, we shall meet soon. Take care
+not to let any one guess your plan. Who is it you
+are going to tell?"</p>
+
+<p>"M. Bastian."</p>
+
+<p>The uncle approved, and already on the threshold,
+pointing to the next room which M. Philippe Oberlé
+never left now:</p>
+
+<p>"The poor man! There is more honour in his half
+of a human personality than in all the others together.
+Good-bye, Jean!"</p>
+
+<hr class="c5" />
+
+<p>Some hours passed and Jean went to the office of
+the works as usual. But his mind was so distracted
+that work was impossible. The employees who wished
+to speak to him noticed it. One of the foremen could
+not help saying to the clerks in the writing department,
+Germans like himself:</p>
+
+<p>"The German cavalry is making ravages here: the
+master looks half mad."</p>
+
+<p>The same patriotic feeling made them all laugh
+silently.</p>
+
+<p>Then the dinner bell rang. Jean dreaded meeting
+his mother and Lucienne. Lucienne held her brother
+back as she was entering the dining-room, and in the
+half-light tenderly embraced him, holding him closely
+to her. Like most engaged people, it was probably
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">229</a></span>
+a little of the other she was embracing without
+knowing it. However, the thought at least was for
+Jean. She murmured:</p>
+
+<p>"I saw him at Obernai for a long time. He pleases
+me very much, because he is proud, like me. He has
+promised me to protect you in the regiment. But do
+not let us speak of him at dinner. It will be better
+not to. Mamma has been very kind&mdash;the poor thing
+touched me. She can do no more. Jean, I was
+obliged to reassure her by telling her your secret, and
+I told her that you will not leave Alsace, because you
+love Odile. Will you forgive me?"</p>
+
+<p>She took her brother's arm, and leaving the hall
+went into the dining-room, where M. and Madame
+Oberlé were seated already&mdash;silent.</p>
+
+<p>"My poor dear, in this house every joy is paid
+for by the sorrow of others. Look! I alone am
+happy!"</p>
+
+<p>The dinner was very short. M. Oberlé immediately
+after led his daughter into the billiard-room because
+he wanted to question her. The mother remained a
+moment at the table near her son, who was now her
+neighbour. As soon as she was alone with him, the
+constraint fell like a veil from her face. The mother
+turned towards her child, admired him, smiled at him,
+and said in the confidential tone she knew so well
+how to use:</p>
+
+<p>"I can do no more, my dear. I am completely
+done up and must go to bed. But I will confess that
+amidst my suffering a while ago I had one joy.
+Imagine that till just then I believed most firmly that
+you were going to leave us."</p>
+
+<p>Jean started.</p>
+
+<p>"I do not believe it now; do not be afraid! I am
+reassured. Your sister has told me in secret that
+I shall have some day a little Alsatian for a daughter-in-law.
+That will do me so much good. I understand
+that you could not tell me anything yet, while so
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">230</a></span>
+much has been happening. And then it is still new&mdash;isn't
+it? Why are you trembling like that? I tell
+you, Jean, that I ask nothing from you now, and
+that I have entirely lost my fears&mdash;I love you so
+much."</p>
+
+<p>She also embraced Jean. She also pressed him to
+her breast. But she had no tenderness in her soul
+except that which she was expressing.</p>
+
+<p>She remembered the child in the cradle, nights and
+days of long ago, anxieties, dreams, precautions, and
+prayers of which he had been the object, and she
+thought:</p>
+
+<p>"All that is nothing compared with what I would
+always do for him!"</p>
+
+<p>"When she had disappeared, and he had heard the
+noise she made opening the invalid grandfather's
+door, to whom she never missed wishing good night,
+Jean rose and went out. He went through the fields
+to the trees which surrounded the Bastians' house,
+went into the park and, hidden there, remained some
+time watching the light which filtered through the
+shutters of the large drawing-room. Voices spoke,
+now one, now another. He recognised the tone but
+could not distinguish the words. There were pauses
+between the slowly spoken words, and Jean imagined
+that they were sad. The temptation came to him to
+go round those few yards of frontage and enter
+the drawing-room boldly. He thought: "Now that
+I have decided to live out of Alsace; now that
+they have refused me because of my father's attitude
+and because of Lucienne's marriage, I have no longer
+the right to question Odile. I shall go away without
+knowing if she also suffers as I suffer. But can I
+not see her in her own home for the last time, in the
+intimacy of the lamplight which brings the three of
+them together? I will not write to her. I will not
+try to speak to her, but I must see her; I shall
+carry away a last look of her&mdash;a last remembrance,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">231</a></span>
+and she will guess that at least I am deserving of
+pity."</p>
+
+<p>He hesitated however. This evening he felt too
+unhappy and too weak. From now to the first of
+October, would he not have the time to return? A
+step came from the garden side. Jean looked again
+at the thin blade of light which escaped from the
+room where Odile was sitting, and cut the night
+in two; and he withdrew.</p>
+
+<p class="p4"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">232</a></span></p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XIV</h3>
+
+<p class="center font95"><b>THE LAST EVENING</b></p>
+
+<p class="p2">The last evening had come. Jean was to take at
+Obernai a night train for Strasburg, so as to be in
+the barracks of St. Nicholas the next morning at
+seven o'clock, the regulation hour. His uniform,
+ordered of a Strasburg tailor, as was usual for the
+one-year service men, was waiting for him, blue and
+yellow, folded on two chairs, in the room which a
+month ago Madame Oberlé had taken, facing the
+barracks of St. Nicholas, about the middle of the rue
+des Balayeurs. After dinner he said to his mother:
+"Let me go out alone, so that I can say good-bye to
+the Alsheim country I shall not see again for a long
+time."</p>
+
+<p>She smiled. M. Joseph Oberlé answered:</p>
+
+<p>"My dear fellow, you will not see me again; I have
+bills falling due to-morrow, and I must work in my
+office. And besides, I do not care about useless sentiment.
+Well, perhaps you will not find it easy to get
+leave before two months. I dare say not, but that
+will only make you the better pleased to come home.
+Come! Good-bye."</p>
+
+<p>More affectionately than he would have believed
+it possible he embraced him, and with a word from
+Lucienne in her clear, young voice, "Soon," he went
+out.</p>
+
+<p>The night air was laden with moisture to a remarkable
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">233</a></span>
+degree: not a cloud. A crescent moon, stars in
+thousands; but between heaven and earth a veil of mist
+was spread which allowed the light to penetrate, but
+dispersed it in such a manner that there was no object
+really in shadow, and none which showed brightly.
+Everything was bathed in a pearly atmosphere. It
+was warm to breathe. "How sweet my Alsace is!"
+said Jean, when he had opened the door of the
+kitchen garden, and found himself behind the village
+houses, facing the plain, on which the moonlight was
+sleeping, blotted here and there with the shadows of
+an apple-tree or a walnut. An immense languor
+escaped from the soil, into which the first rains of
+autumn had sunk. The perfumes of stubble and
+ploughed land mixed with the odours from all kinds
+of vegetation come to their fullness of growth and
+aroma. The mountain was sending out gently to the
+valley the odour of pine pollen on the breeze, and
+the mint and the dying strawberries and bilberries,
+and its juniper berries crushed by the feet of passers-by
+and flocks. Jean breathed in the odour of Alsace;
+he thought he could recognise the exquisite perfume
+of that little mountain which is near Colmar, called
+Florimont, where the dittany grows, and he thought,
+"It is the last time. Never again! Never again!"</p>
+
+<p>There were no glittering points of light on the
+roofs; he followed the line of them on the left of the
+path: they seemed to have joined fraternal hands
+round the church, and under each Jean could picture
+a face known and friendly. Such were his thoughts
+for a while as he walked on. But as soon as he saw,
+grey in the middle of the fields, the big clump of
+trees which hid M. Bastian's house, every other
+thought fled. Arrived at the farm where the younger
+son had said to him, "It is by Grande Fontaine that
+you must cross the frontier," he went into the cherry
+avenue, and he still remembered and found the white
+gate. No one was passing. Besides, what did it
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">234</a></span>
+matter? Jean opened the lattice gate, went in, and
+walked on the grass border, even with the great
+trees, to the window of the drawing-room, which was
+lighted, then going round the house, came to the door
+which opened on the side opposite the village of
+Alsheim.</p>
+
+<p>He waited an instant, went into the vestibule, and
+opened the door of the large room where the Bastian
+family sat every evening. They were all there in the
+light of the lamps, just as Jean had imagined. The
+father was reading the paper. The two women on
+the other side of the brown table laden with white
+linen unfolded, were embroidering with initials the
+towels which were going into the Bastian linen
+press. The door had opened with no other noise
+than that of the pad brushing against the parquet.
+However, all was so calm round the dwelling and in
+the room, that they turned their eyes to see who was
+coming in. There was a moment of uncertainty for
+M. Bastian, and hesitation for Jean. He had fixed his
+gaze first of all on Odile. He had seen how she also
+had suffered, and that she was the first, the only one
+who recognised him, and how she grew pale, and that
+in her anguish, her raised hand, her breath, her glance,
+were arrested. The linen Odile was sewing slipped
+from her hands without her being able to make the
+slightest movement to lift it up.</p>
+
+<p>It was perhaps by this sign that M. Bastian
+recognised the visitor. Emotion seized him immediately.</p>
+
+<p>"What?" he asked gently, "is it you, Jean? No
+one showed you in. What have you come for?"</p>
+
+<p>He slowly put his paper down on the table without
+ceasing to scrutinise the young man who was standing
+in the shadow, on the same spot, a step or two
+from the door.</p>
+
+<p>"I have come to say good-bye," said Jean.</p>
+
+<p>But his voice was so full of pain that M. Bastian
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">235</a></span>
+understood something unknown, tragic, had entered
+his house. He rose, saying, "Why, yes, to-morrow
+will be the first of October. You are going to the
+barracks, my poor boy. No doubt you wish to speak
+to me?"</p>
+
+<p>Already M. Bastian had advanced, had held out his
+hand, and the young man, drawing him back into the
+darkest corner of the room, had answered in a very
+low voice, his eyes looking into the eyes of Odile's
+father. Madame Bastian gazed into the shadow,
+where they made an indistinct group.</p>
+
+<p>"I am leaving," Jean murmured, "and I shall
+never come back, M. Bastian; that is why I took the
+liberty of coming."</p>
+
+<p>He felt the rough hand of the Alsatian tremble.
+There was an exchange of secret and rapid dialogue
+between the men, while the two anxious women rose
+from their chairs, and with their hands leaning on
+the table, bent forward.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you say? You will come back in a year?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I am going to join the regiment because I
+promised to. But I shall leave it."</p>
+
+<p>"You will leave it?"</p>
+
+<p>"The day after to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>"Where are you going?"</p>
+
+<p>"To France!"</p>
+
+<p>"For ever?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>The old Alsatian turned aside for a moment. "Talk
+on, you women, talk on; we have business to
+discuss."</p>
+
+<p>They moved away, whilst he, breathless as though
+with running, cried: "Be careful what you do; be
+prudent; don't let yourself be caught."</p>
+
+<p>He placed both hands on Jean's shoulders. "I must
+stay: that's my way, you see, of loving Alsace; there
+is no better. I live here, and here I die. But for
+you, my boy, things are different, I understand&mdash;don't
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">236</a></span>
+let the women guess; it's too serious. Does any one
+know at your home?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"Keep your secret," and then, lowering his voice,
+"You wanted to see her once more. I don't blame
+you, since you will never meet again."</p>
+
+<p>Jean nodded as though to say "Yes, I had to see
+her once more."</p>
+
+<p>"Look at her a minute, and then go. Stay where
+you are&mdash;look over my shoulder."</p>
+
+<p>Over M. Bastian's shoulder Jean could see that
+the troubled look in Odile's eyes had grown to terror.
+She met his gaze fearlessly; she had no thought but
+for the dialogue which she could not hear, the mystery
+in which she felt she had some part, and her
+face betrayed her anguish.</p>
+
+<p>"What are they saying? Is it bad news again?
+Is it better? No; not better, they are not both
+looking my way."</p>
+
+<p>Her mother was still paler than her daughter.</p>
+
+<p>"Farewell, my boy," said M. Bastian in low tones.
+"I loved you.... I could not act differently ...
+but I think highly of you; I will remember you."</p>
+
+<p>Overcome by emotion, the old Alsatian silently
+pressed Jean's hand and let it fall. As to Jean,
+trembling and dazed, he walked to the door, looking
+back for the last time. He was going then&mdash;in one
+minute he would be gone, never to return to Alsheim.</p>
+
+<p>"Au revoir, madame," he said.</p>
+
+<p>He would have liked to say au revoir to Odile, but
+sobs prevented the words.</p>
+
+<p>He gained the shadow of the corridor; they heard
+him hurrying away.</p>
+
+<p>"What does it mean?" demanded Madame Bastian.
+"Xavier, you are hiding something from us."</p>
+
+<p>The old Alsatian sobbed aloud; he threw precaution
+to the winds&mdash;she had guessed.</p>
+
+<p>"Odile," she cried, "run and say good-bye to him."
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">237</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Odile was already across the room; she caught Jean
+up at the corner.</p>
+
+<p>"I beg of you to tell me why you are so miserable,"
+she cried.</p>
+
+<p>He turned, determined to be silent, to keep his vow.
+She was quite close to him; he opened his arms; she
+threw herself into them.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh God," she cried, "you are leaving; I know
+it&mdash;you are going."</p>
+
+<p>He kissed her hair tenderly, a lifelong farewell,
+turned the corner, and fled from her.</p>
+
+<p class="p4"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">238</a></span></p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XV</h3>
+
+<p class="center font95"><b>JOINING THE REGIMENT</b></p>
+
+<p class="p2">At a quarter to seven, Jean Oberlé, wearing a jacket
+and round cap, walked by the stable of the old French
+barracks of St. Nicholas, built on the site of a convent,
+now called by the Germans "Nikolaus Kaserne."
+He reached the iron gate, saluted the officer, exchanged
+a few words with him, and advanced towards a
+group of about a dozen young men, volunteers for
+a year's service, who were standing at the end of
+the courtyard, under the clock. Cavalry men in
+undress&mdash;light blue tunic with yellow braid, black
+trousers, and flat caps&mdash;moved here and there over
+vast, level, dusty grounds. A detachment of cavalry,
+lance at shoulder, had taken up their station to the
+left by one of the stables, waiting their officer's
+command to take the road.</p>
+
+<p>"Herr Sergeant," said Jean, approaching the non-commissioned
+officer, carefully dressed, but of vulgar
+appearance, who, with a protecting and pretentious
+manner, was waiting for him by the group of volunteers.
+"I am one of the volunteers for the year."</p>
+
+<p>The sergeant, who had very long black moustaches,
+which he never ceased twirling between the thumb
+and first finger, asked his christian and surname,
+and compared them with the names and surnames on
+the list he held in his hand.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">239</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, secretly intimidated by the supposed
+wealth of those he received, eager to please them,
+but anxious lest they should discover it, the sergeant
+looked the volunteer up and down, as though seeking
+some physical defect, anything in fact which might
+make this Alsatian civilian ridiculous in the eyes of
+a non-commissioned officer.</p>
+
+<p>"Join the others," he said, when his examination
+was finished.</p>
+
+<p>The others were for the most part Germans, who,
+judging by the different types, had come from all
+parts of the Empire. They had dressed carefully,
+so as to show their comrades, volunteers like themselves,
+and the soldiers in the barracks, that in civil
+life they were men who belonged to wealthy families.</p>
+
+<p>They wore patent leather shoes, kid gloves, yellow
+or tan, elegant ties, valuable neck-pins. Each man
+introduced himself to his future comrades. "Allow
+me to introduce myself: my name is Furbach, my
+name is Blossmann." Jean knew none of them. He
+merely bowed without giving his name. What did
+it matter to him who was to be their comrade for
+this one day only?</p>
+
+<p>He took his place to the left of the group, his mind
+far away from the St. Nicholas barrack, while the
+whispered question, "Who is he&mdash;an Alsatian?"
+went the round of his comrades.</p>
+
+<p>The easy-going smiled amiably, others put themselves
+on the defensive, and with the rivalry of racial
+instinct, drew themselves up and fixed their hard blue
+eyes upon the new-comer with an unflinching stare.</p>
+
+<p>Two other volunteers arrived, and the sergeant,
+as the clock struck, preceded the fifteen young men
+up the staircase, and marshalled them into a room on
+the second floor, where the medical examination was
+to take place. At eight o'clock the volunteers were
+again in the courtyard, no longer grouped as the fancy
+took them, but drawn up in two files, the sergeant in
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">240</a></span>
+attendance. They were awaiting the colonel. Jean's
+neighbour was a tall, beardless youth, son of a manufacturer
+of Fribourg, with bright eyes, and smooth
+cheeks, which bore, however, two scars, one near the
+nose, and one under the right eye, souvenirs of his
+duels as a student. Seeing Jean Oberlé's dreamy, reserved
+look, he put it down to timidity caused by his
+new surroundings, and took upon himself the office
+of guide.</p>
+
+<p>Whilst the Alsatian, his arms behind his back, his
+pale, strong face turned to the gate, watched the
+people of Strasburg crossing the street in the October
+sun, his companion endeavoured to arouse his interest
+in the inhabitants of the barracks.</p>
+
+<p>"You were wrong not to do as I did: I got introductions
+to several officers, and even know several of
+the chief quartermasters. There, do you see the
+<i>wachtmeister</i> coming out of the stable; that's Stubel,
+hard drinker, great eater, good sort; that other one
+who is watching us from the end of the courtyard,
+the man with a little red moustache, do you see?
+That's Gottfried Hamm&mdash;a bad sort."</p>
+
+<p>"You know him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Attention!" called the sergeant. "Eyes right!",
+He himself marched ten quick steps forward, halted
+with head erect, his arms hanging straight at each
+side, his left hand gripping his sabre below the
+guard. He had caught sight of an officer advancing
+towards them with deliberate step, wrapped in his
+grey cloak, the mere sight of whom had scattered
+some twenty hussars, who had been leaning against
+the walls sunning themselves. The colonel stopped
+before the first file of young men, the hope of the
+German reserve army. He was sanguine, bustling,
+and energetic, a very good cavalry-man, broad-shouldered,
+with thin legs, hair almost black, and
+eyes fierce in the interests of the service.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">241</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"These, Colonel," said the sergeant, "are the
+volunteers for a year's service."</p>
+
+<p>The colonel frowned immediately, and fixing his
+eyes on each of these young men in turn, said
+severely:</p>
+
+<p>"You are privileged. You are dispensed from
+more than a year's service. Be worthy of it. Be
+an example to the soldiers; remember that you will
+be their chiefs later. No breaking of rules, no
+larking, no wearing of civilian dress. I shall punish
+severely."</p>
+
+<p>He asked for the list of volunteers. Seeing Jean's
+name he mentally connected it with Lieutenant von
+Farnow's.</p>
+
+<p>"Volunteer Oberlé," he called out.</p>
+
+<p>Oberlé stepped out of the ranks. Without relaxing
+the severity of his expression, the colonel fixed his
+eyes for a few moments on the young man's face,
+thinking to himself that here was the brother of the
+Lucienne Oberlé whose hand he had allowed Lieutenant
+Farnow to ask in marriage.</p>
+
+<p>"That's right," he said; and saluting rapidly he
+walked away, his grey cloak swelling with the north
+wind.</p>
+
+<p>As he disappeared, a lieutenant in the 1st regiment,
+adjutant-major of the Rhenish Hussars, a well-made,
+distinguished-looking man, bearing himself in
+the correct military style, a perfect man of the world,
+came towards the group of volunteers, and read an
+order assigning to each one his appointed place in
+such and such a company and squadron. Jean was
+to join the 3rd company of the 2nd squadron.</p>
+
+<p>"No luck," murmured his neighbour: "that's Gottfried
+Hamm's company."</p>
+
+<p>Henceforward the fifteen volunteers were part of
+the army; each one had his allotted place in that
+well-disciplined multitude, their responsible chiefs,
+the right to demand a uniform from such and such a
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">242</a></span>
+depot, a horse from such and such a stable. To this
+they now turned their attention. Jean and his
+chance companion, son of a librarian of Leipzig,
+made their way to the top floor of the barrack,
+entered the clothing-stores and received their uniforms,
+leaving behind various articles, such as cavalry
+cloaks and pairs of boots, which the <i>kammer-sergeant</i>
+was pleased to accept for himself as a token of
+welcome, or undertook to remit to certain non-commissioned
+officers of the company. It was a
+long business, and did not finish till past ten. Then
+there was a visit to the principal brusher's room,
+where there was the little wardrobe of white
+wood, used henceforth in common by the volunteer
+and the soldier; and there was still the visit to the
+stable sergeant, whose duty it was to assign to each
+his horse and second brusher; then another to the
+regimental tailor; it was past midday when Jean
+was able to leave the barracks and lunch hastily.</p>
+
+<p>For this first day the volunteers were dispensed
+from returning to barracks at one o'clock. It was
+only after the horses had been groomed that they
+made their appearance simultaneously as arranged
+between themselves, radiant in their shining new
+uniforms, before the curious gaze of the cavalry,
+and the jealous scrutiny of the non-commissioned
+officers who examined, as they passed, the cut and
+quality of their uniforms, the style of their collars
+and braid, the lustre of their shining boots. Among
+the young men there was only one who remained a
+stranger to the self-complacency of the others. He
+was thinking of a telegram which he should have
+received by now, of which the terms of the pre-arranged
+code floated before his eyes all the afternoon.
+This was his only thought. Anxiety at not
+hearing news of his uncle Ulrich's departure, nervousness
+mixed with a certain defiance which, in anticipation
+of the morrow, he mentally hurled at the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">243</a></span>
+authority to which he at present bowed, prevented
+the young man from feeling fatigue. It was half-past
+eight before the exercises for man and horse
+were concluded, and then some of the volunteers
+were so tired that they sought their beds, supperless.
+Jean did likewise, but for a different reason. He
+went at once to the Rue des Balayeurs.</p>
+
+<p>The landlady met him at the door:</p>
+
+<p>"There is a telegram for you, M. Oberlé."</p>
+
+<p>Jean went to his room, lit a candle, and read the
+unsigned telegram awaiting him:</p>
+
+<p>"All is well."</p>
+
+<p>This meant that all was ready for next day, that
+M. Ulrich had made all necessary preparations. The
+dice were cast; on the 2nd October, in a few hours,
+Jean would leave the barracks of Alsace. Although
+he never hesitated for a moment, yet, upon reading
+the words which settled his fate, the young man
+was overcome by emotion. The reality of separation
+entered his soul more bitterly, and being physically
+weary, he wept.</p>
+
+<p>He had thrown himself on his bed fully dressed,
+his face buried in his pillow; he thought of all his
+friends who remained behind in Alsace, whilst he
+was an exile for ever; he could hear their exclamations
+of pity or indignation when the news reached Alsheim;
+he saw the girl he loved, the radiant Odile of Easter
+Eve, become the despairing woman who had clung to
+him in the moment of farewell, guessing all, yet
+begging for an answer he could not give. All this
+was necessary, irreparable. The night passed slowly.
+Silence reigned in the streets. Jean realised that he
+would soon need all his moral energy, and endeavoured
+to lay aside vain visions and regrets, repeating to
+himself over and over again the plans settled between
+himself and his uncle at their last interview, which
+he was to carry out in every detail to-day.</p>
+
+<p>Yes, to-day, for the neighbouring cocks were
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">244</a></span>
+beginning to crow. It was not possible to leave by
+an early train. The rendezvous at the barracks was
+fixed for four o'clock, while the first train for
+Schirmeck left Strasburg at 5.48; he would not
+reach Russ-Hersbach until after seven, and to take
+it was a great risk. The absence of a volunteer
+would be noticed in less than three hours, and the
+alarm given. Uncle Ulrich and Jean had come to the
+conclusion that the most sure means of crossing
+the frontier without arousing suspicion was to take
+the train which left Strasburg at 12.10 a.m., that is to
+say, whilst the volunteers were at lunch.</p>
+
+<p>"I have been over the ground to make sure," said
+M. Ulrich: "I am sure of my calculations. You will
+reach Russ-Hersbach at twenty-one minutes past one,
+a trap will take us to Schirmeck in a quarter of an
+hour. We turn to the right and reach Grande Fontaine
+half an hour later. There we leave the trap, and,
+thanks to our good legs, we can reach French ground
+by two forty-five or fifty. There I leave you and
+return."</p>
+
+<p>It was important to catch the 12.10 train, which
+would be an easy matter, as the volunteers were
+usually free by eleven.</p>
+
+<p>Jean fell asleep at last, but not for long. Before
+four in the morning he was again at the barracks.</p>
+
+<p>The short repose he had taken had restored his
+strength of will. Like most energetic people, Jean
+was nervous beforehand, but when the moment of
+action came difficulties vanished. While the horses
+were being groomed, and during the exercises, which
+lasted till close on eleven, he was perfectly calm.
+His attitude was even less reserved and detached
+than on the previous day, and his Saxon comrade
+remarked upon it.</p>
+
+<p>"Already at home?" he inquired.</p>
+
+<p>Jean smiled. He looked upon buildings, officers,
+and soldiers, all the pomp of the German army, with
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">245</a></span>
+the same feelings as a school-boy set at liberty looks
+on the professors and pupils of his college. He
+already felt detached from his surroundings, and
+observed with a certain amused curiosity the scenes
+he would never see again.</p>
+
+<p>About eleven he saw at the head of a detachment
+of Hussars, Lieutenant Farnow ride into the barracks,
+superb in his youth and military splendour. The
+horses were splashed with mud from their ride, and
+the men, tired out, only awaited the signal to halt,
+that they might curse the day's exercises. Not in the
+least weary, Farnow rode into the courtyard with as
+much pleasure as though he had been invited to a
+hunting party, and was expecting the signal to start.
+"There's my sister's future husband," thought Jean;
+"we shall never see one another again, and if war
+breaks out, he is my enemy."</p>
+
+<p>He saw the vision of a tall cavalry chief, charging
+across a dusty plain, rising in his stirrups, nostrils
+distended, shouting out orders. Farnow, not suspecting
+the distraction he was causing the young
+volunteer, just let his blue eyes linger a minute on
+the latter's face. He moved off, followed by his men,
+to the farther side of the courtyard. A brief word
+of command was heard, then the clashing of arms,
+and silence. The exercises were prolonged another
+half hour, to satisfy the instructor's zeal. At half-past
+eleven Jean was rushing up the staircase,
+knowing that there was barely time to catch the
+train, when one of the men of his company called
+out:</p>
+
+<p>"There's no time to go out; we have a review at
+midday: it's the captain's orders."</p>
+
+<p>Jean continued on up the stairs, not paying the
+slightest attention to this obstacle raised at the last
+minute. His mind was made up. He was going to
+leave. He would meet his uncle at Russ-Hersbach,
+who would be waiting there with a carriage. Jean's
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">246</a></span>
+one thought was to reach the station. He changed
+hurriedly, and mixing with a group of men belonging
+to other companies, and who had no reason to remain
+in barracks, he had no difficulty in getting away.
+When he was in the street, some yards away from the
+guard-house, on the pavement of the rue des Balayeurs
+he began to run. The clock stood at seventeen
+minutes to twelve. Was there time to run the three
+hundred yards which lay between him and his apartments,
+change into civilian dress and catch the 12.10?
+It was some distance to the station. On the other
+hand there was great risk in attempting to cross
+the frontier in uniform. While he was running
+Jean thought it would be simple to change in the
+train or at Russ-Hersbach. Entering the hall, he
+called breathlessly to his landlady:</p>
+
+<p>"I am in a great hurry. Will you call a cab? I
+will be down in a minute."</p>
+
+<p>Three minutes later he ran down carrying a bag
+into which he had thrown his civilian clothes, which
+he had left ready on his bed. He jumped into the
+cab, giving as address, "Rue de la Mésange," but at
+the next corner he called out: "Drive with all speed
+to the station, coachman."</p>
+
+<p>He reached the station a minute before the time,
+got his ticket for Russ-Hersbach, and jumped into a
+first-class compartment, which contained two other
+passengers. A minute later the train had entered
+the tunnel under the fortifications, reappeared, and
+steamed away to the west, across the plains of
+Alsace.</p>
+
+<p>At the same moment the captain, who was holding
+the review in the courtyard, caught sight of one of
+the volunteers attached to his company, and turning
+to the <i>wachtmeister</i> said: "Where is the other?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have not seen him, Captain," Hamm replied,
+and turning to the young Saxon, Oberlé's comrade:
+"Do you know where he is?"
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">247</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"He went out after the exercises, sir, and has not
+returned."</p>
+
+<p>"I won't punish him this time," growled the
+captain; "no doubt he misunderstood, but speak to
+him in my name when he returns, Hamm; don't
+forget."</p>
+
+<p>There was no immediate alarm, but when the men
+again assembled at one o'clock for the grooming of
+the horses, which went on every afternoon from one
+to two o'clock, Jean's absence could not fail to be
+noticed. The whole length of the wall outside the
+stables, horses tethered to iron rings were being
+brushed down by men, amongst whom were the
+volunteers receiving a lesson in the art. The
+sergeants looked on nonchalantly when the <i>wachtmeister</i>
+of the 3rd Company came out of his office,
+and made his way to the south side of the court,
+where Oberlé should have been. He bit his red
+moustache as his eyes wandered up and down the
+ranks.</p>
+
+<p>"Oberlé has not come back?" he asked. The same
+man as before replied:</p>
+
+<p>"When he left the barracks he ran towards his
+apartments."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you see him in the mess-room?"</p>
+
+<p>"He did not lunch with us."</p>
+
+<p>"That'll do," said the <i>wachtmeister</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Hamm turned away briskly. The expression of
+his face and eyes showed that he considered the
+situation serious. Serious for Oberlé, but equally
+serious for himself. Neither the captain nor the lieutenant
+was in barracks at the moment. If there
+was trouble the captain would not fail to ask why he
+had not been warned. Hamm crossed the courtyard,
+thinking over what he ought to do, and recalling a
+remark of the brigadier of Obernai. When Gottfried
+was at Obernai a fortnight before, he had said to
+him: "You are going to have Oberlé's son in your
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">248</a></span>
+regiment. Keep an eye on him. I shall be surprised
+if he does not create some disturbance. He is the
+counterpart of his grandfather, a madman who hates
+Germans, and who is quite capable of any folly."</p>
+
+<p>But before taking zealous action it was necessary
+to know some details. This was easy: the rue des
+Balayeurs faced the gateway. Hamm brushed his
+blue tunic with his hand, left the barracks, and made
+his way to a large house on the left with green
+shutters.</p>
+
+<p>"Left in a cab, before midday, carrying a bag,"
+was the answer Jean's landlady gave him.</p>
+
+<p>"What address did he give?"</p>
+
+<p>"Rue de la Mésange."</p>
+
+<p>"Any number?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know; anyway I heard none."</p>
+
+<p>Hamm's suspicions became more definite. The
+<i>wachtmeister</i> no longer hesitated. He hastened to
+the captain's quarters in the Herderstrasse.</p>
+
+<p>The captain was out.</p>
+
+<p>Disappointed and warm from his sharp walk, Hamm
+took a short cut to the barracks, through the University
+gardens. He suddenly remembered that close
+by in the rue Grandidier, lived Lieutenant Farnow.
+It is true the lieutenant did not belong to the 2nd
+squadron, but Hamm knew of his engagement. It
+had been talked of among the officers. He made his
+way to the superb stone house and mounted to the
+first floor.</p>
+
+<p>"The lieutenant is dressing," replied the orderly to
+his question.</p>
+
+<p>Von Farnow in shirt and trousers was dressing
+before paying certain calls, and going to the officers'
+casino. In trousers and shirt he was leaning over his
+toilet-table with its bevelled glass, washing his face.
+The room was perfumed with eau-de-cologne, brushes
+and manicure set were strewn round him. He turned
+as the door opened, his face all wet.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">249</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"What is the matter, Hamm?" he cried, seizing a
+towel.</p>
+
+<p>"I took upon myself to call upon you, lieutenant,
+as the captain is not there, and Oberlé&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oberlé? What has he done?" Farnow interrupted
+nervously.</p>
+
+<p>"He has not put in an appearance since half-past
+eleven this morning."</p>
+
+<p>Farnow, who was drying his face, threw down the
+towel violently on the table, and approached the
+non-commissioned officer. He remembered Madame
+Oberlé's fears. "He thinks as I do," thought Hamm.</p>
+
+<p>"Has not come back? Have you been to the rue
+des Balayeurs?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, lieutenant; he left the house in a cab at ten
+minutes to twelve."</p>
+
+<p>The young lieutenant felt as though death's icy
+hand was on his heart. He closed his eyes for a
+moment, and with a violent effort regained his composure.</p>
+
+<p>"There is only one thing to do, Hamm," he said.
+He was deadly pale, but not a muscle of his face
+quivered. "You must warn your captain, and he will
+do what is prescribed in such cases."</p>
+
+<p>Farnow turned calmly, and looked at the ornamental
+clock on his desk.</p>
+
+<p>"One-forty&mdash;you must be quick."</p>
+
+<p>The <i>wachtmeister</i> saluted and withdrew.</p>
+
+<p>The lieutenant ran to the adjoining study, and
+asked to be connected with the Strasburg station.
+Ten minutes later the telephone bell rang, and he
+learnt that a volunteer of the 9th Hussars, in uniform,
+had reached the station at the last moment with a
+valise portmanteau and taken a first-class ticket to
+Russ-Hersbach.</p>
+
+<p>"It's impossible," exclaimed Farnow, throwing himself
+on to the sofa; "there must be some mistake
+Russ-Hersbach is almost on the frontier. Jean would
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">250</a></span>
+not desert&mdash;he is in love; he must be at Alsheim&mdash;he
+must at least have wanted to see Odile again. I must
+find out."</p>
+
+<p>"Hermann," he called, rapping with his knuckles
+on the mahogany table.</p>
+
+<p>The orderly, a stolid German, opened the door.</p>
+
+<p>"Saddle my horse and yours immediately."</p>
+
+<p>Farnow was soon ready; he hastened downstairs,
+found the horses waiting, crossed Strasburg, and
+once past the fortifications, spurred his horse to a
+sharp trot.</p>
+
+<p>As he neared Alsheim, Jean's desertion seemed to
+him more credible. Every detail of his conversation
+with Madame Oberlé came back to him, and other
+reasons as well for believing the calamity against
+which his imperious will was fighting desperately.
+"He does not understand Germany; he was glorying
+in it at Councillor Brausig's. And then his disunited
+family&mdash;a disunion increased by my engagement.
+But then he is himself engaged, or almost;
+and characters like his, French characters, must be
+dominated by love. No; I shall find him there&mdash;or
+have news of him."</p>
+
+<p>It was warm; the long dusty road stretched from
+village to village, without shade, a thin line between
+the fields, now bare of their crops. The sky hung
+over them like brass, on the horizon banks of motionless
+clouds rose above the Vosges, throwing out rays
+of light. The horses, covered with sweat, continued
+to gallop. Under the scattered walnut-trees, among
+the stubble, children raised their switches and shouted
+as the riders passed them.</p>
+
+<p>"Is the lieutenant crazy?" thought Hermann; "he
+is going faster and faster."</p>
+
+<p>Farnow's anguish increased as he drew nearer his
+destination. "If I do not find him," he murmured,
+"supposing he has&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Obernai was passed on the right. A sign-post at
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">251</a></span>
+the cross roads pointed to Alsheim, and soon the
+blue roof of the Oberlés' house appeared among the
+green.</p>
+
+<p>"Lucienne, Lucienne, Lucienne!"</p>
+
+<p>The house seemed to slumber in the heavy heat of
+the autumn day, the silence being broken only by a
+feeble, monotonous voice. Seated near grandfather
+Oberlé's chair, in the room which the invalid could
+never hope to leave, Madame Oberlé was reading
+aloud the <i>Journal d'Alsace</i>, which the postman had
+just delivered.</p>
+
+<p>Through the open window her voice could be
+heard murmuring as though engaged in the rhythmic
+recital of the rosary. In the billiard-room above,
+that which was still called Jean's room, M. Joseph
+Oberlé was dozing behind the curtain, on his knees
+lay several letters, and a copy of the <i>Strasburger Post</i>.
+At the end of the room Lucienne could be seen writing
+at a Louis XVI. desk.</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur? Monsieur Oberlé?"</p>
+
+<p>Joseph Oberlé jumped up and threw open the door,
+which was ajar, meeting the concierge running towards
+him.</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you call me; you know I don't like&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He remained speaking with the man for a minute,
+and returned smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"My Lucienne, Herr von Farnow is waiting for
+you at the park gate."</p>
+
+<p>She rose, blushing.</p>
+
+<p>"Why doesn't he come in?"</p>
+
+<p>"It appears that he is on horseback, and in a great
+hurry. Perhaps he dares not. Go and fetch him,
+my darling; tell him from me that there shall be
+no disturbance, that I will prevent any further
+scenes."</p>
+
+<p>With a gesture he implied that he would bolt all
+the doors sooner, especially that of the room whence
+came the monotonous voice reading the paper.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">252</a></span></p>
+
+<p>She looked in the glass, arranging her hair. He
+repeated:</p>
+
+<p>"Run, my treasure; he is asking for you. If you
+don't return quickly I'll come for you."</p>
+
+<p>She nodded, and ran down the steps two at a time.
+She walked rapidly down the avenue, happy, yet
+troubled, her mouth slightly open, her eyes seeking
+Farnow.</p>
+
+<p>At the end of the avenue she caught sight of the
+two steaming horses on the road held by the orderly,
+and almost at the same moment the lieutenant came
+towards her.</p>
+
+<p>Farnow's usually pale face was flushed, his expression
+troubled; he hastened, but with no sign of joy,
+towards Lucienne, who came half running to meet
+him, trying to laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"How are you, Wilhelm? What a nice surprise!"</p>
+
+<p>The lieutenant raised his hat, but made no reply.
+He took her hand, and drew her aside; he did not
+raise it to his lips; no accustomed words of admiration
+came from him; his eyes were hard and feverish,
+and he drew her near the wood-yard close by.</p>
+
+<p>Lucienne continued to smile bravely, though her
+heart was heavy with painful dread.</p>
+
+<p>"Where are you taking me? Who is this churlish
+friend, who won't even say good day? You, so
+particular&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Come, we shan't be seen here," he said; he drew
+her behind a pile of wood into a kind of retreat
+formed by three unequal piles of planks. Farnow
+dropped Lucienne's hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Is Jean here? Be careful; is he at Alsheim?"</p>
+
+<p>His eyes expressed his anguish, his manner an
+imperious will struggling against calamity.</p>
+
+<p>"No; he is not here," replied Lucienne simply.</p>
+
+<p>"You expect him, then?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"Then we are lost, mademoiselle, lost!"
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">253</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Mademoiselle?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; if he is not here he has deserted."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" The young girl recoiled, supporting herself
+against the wood, her eyes haggard, her arms
+outstretched.</p>
+
+<p>"Deserted? Lost? Can't you see that you are
+killing me with such words? Do you really mean
+Jean? Deserted! Are you sure?"</p>
+
+<p>"Since he is not here, I am convinced of it. He
+took a ticket for Russ-Hersbach&mdash;do you understand,
+Russ-Hersbach? He must be across the frontier. He
+left Strasburg more than three hours ago." He
+laughed harshly, angrily, beside himself with misery.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you remember? He swore to your mother
+he would go to the barracks. He did go. To-day
+the time for his promise expired, and he deserted.
+And now...."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes ... now?"</p>
+
+<p>Lucienne asked no proof. She believed it. Her
+bosom heaved; she let go her hold on the wood, and
+joined her hands beseechingly. She was obliged to
+repeat her question; Farnow stood motionless, grief-stricken.
+"What shall you do now, Wilhelm?"</p>
+
+<p>Farnow drew himself up in his dusty uniform; his
+brow was contracted.</p>
+
+<p>"I must leave you," he said in a low voice."</p>
+
+<p>"Leave me, because my brother has deserted?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"But this is madness!"</p>
+
+<p>"It is my duty as a soldier."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you do not love me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Love you. Ah!... But honour forbids me to
+marry you. I cannot become the brother-in-law of a
+deserter. I am an officer, a von Farnow!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, cease to be an officer and continue to love
+me," cried Lucienne, holding out her arms to the rigid
+figure in blue. "Wilhelm, true honour consists in
+loving me, Lucienne Oberlé, in keeping the promise
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">254</a></span>
+you made me! Leave my brother to go his own way,
+but don't spoil our two lives."</p>
+
+<p>Farnow could scarcely speak; the veins of his neck
+were swollen with his efforts for self-control.</p>
+
+<p>"There is worse to come," he said at last, "you
+must know the truth, Lucienne. I must denounce
+him."</p>
+
+<p>"Denounce him? Jean? You cannot. I forbid
+you!" cried Lucienne with a gesture of horror.</p>
+
+<p>"I must do so. Military law compels me to do so."</p>
+
+<p>"It is not true!&mdash;it is too cruel."</p>
+
+<p>"I will prove it to you. Hermann!"</p>
+
+<p>Hermann came forward in amazement.</p>
+
+<p>"Listen. What is the article of the law relating
+to any person who has knowledge of a plan of
+desertion?"</p>
+
+<p>The soldier collected his thoughts, and recited:</p>
+
+<p>"Any one who shall have credible knowledge of a
+plan of desertion, when there is still time to frustrate
+it, and who does not give information thereof to his
+superiors, is liable to be imprisoned for ten months,
+and during war for three years."</p>
+
+<p>"Quick! To horse!" cried Farnow. "We must
+start.</p>
+
+<p>"Farewell, Lucienne."</p>
+
+<p>She ran forward and seized his arm.</p>
+
+<p>"No, no, you must not go; I shall not let you."</p>
+
+<p>He gazed a moment on her tear-stained face, where
+ardent love and sorrow were mingled.</p>
+
+<p>"You must not go! Do you hear?" she repeated.</p>
+
+<p>Farnow lifted her from the ground, pressed her
+against his breast and kissed her passionately. By
+the despairing violence of his kiss, Lucienne realised
+it was indeed farewell.</p>
+
+<p>He put her from him brusquely, ran to the gate,
+leapt to the saddle, and galloped away in the direction
+of Obernai.</p>
+
+<p class="p4"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">255</a></span></p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XVI</h3>
+
+<p class="center font95"><b>IN THE FOREST OF THE MINIČRES</b></p>
+
+<p class="p2">Night was falling, but Jean was still on German
+soil. He was sleeping, worn out with fatigue; he lay
+stretched upon a bed of moss and fir cones, while
+M. Ulrich watched, on the look out for fresh danger,
+still trembling from the danger he had just escaped.
+The two men had crept into a space between two
+stacks of branches left by the wood-cutters, who had
+been thinning the fir-tree plantation. The branches,
+still green, stretched from one stack to the other,
+making their hiding-place more secure. A storm of
+wind blew across the mountain, but otherwise no
+sound could be heard upon the heights.</p>
+
+<p>Two hours must have passed since Jean and his
+uncle had taken refuge in their hiding-place.</p>
+
+<p>When the train reached Russ-Hersbach, M. Ulrich
+had at once seen and said that the moment for Jean
+to change his uniform had passed. Even such a
+little thing as that would have excited too much
+attention in that frontier province, peopled by visible
+and invisible watchers, where the stones listen and
+the fir-trees are spies. He threw the valise to the
+coachman of the landau engaged three days previously
+at Schirmeck.</p>
+
+<p>"Here's some useless luggage," he cried, "fortunately
+it's not heavy. Drive quickly, coachman."</p>
+
+<p>The carriage crossed the poverty-stricken village,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">256</a></span>
+reached the town of Schirmeck, and quitting there
+the principal valley turned to the right into the
+narrow winding valley leading to Grande Fontaine.
+No suspicious glances followed the travellers, but
+witnesses of their passing increased. And this was
+serious. Although Jean was sitting with his back to
+the driver, partially hidden by the blinds and partially
+by the cloak which M. Ulrich had thrown over him,
+yet there was no doubt the uniform of the 9th Hussars
+had been seen by two gendarmes in the streets of
+Schirmeck, by workmen on the road, and by the
+douanier who was smoking and had continued to
+smoke his pipe so tranquilly, sitting under the trees
+on the left of the first bridge by which one entered
+Grande Fontaine.</p>
+
+<p>Every moment M. Ulrich thought, "Now the alarm
+will be given! Perhaps it has been already, and
+one of the state's innumerable agents will come up,
+question us, and insist upon our following them whatever
+we may say."</p>
+
+<p>He did not tell Jean of his anxiety, and the young
+man, excited by the spirit of adventure, was quite
+different to the Jean of yesterday.</p>
+
+<p>In spite of the steepness and stoniness of the path
+by the mountain stream, the horses made good
+headway, and soon the houses of Grande Fontaine
+came into sight. The beech-wood of Donon, all
+velvety and golden and crowned with firs, rose in
+front of them. At 2.15 the carriage stopped in the
+middle of the village, in a kind of sloping square,
+where a spring of water flows into a huge stone
+trough. The travellers got out, for here the carriage
+road ended.</p>
+
+<p>"Wait for us at the inn of Rémy Naeger," said
+M. Ulrich; "we will go for a walk, and return in
+an hour. Drink a bottle of Molsheim wine at my
+expense, and give the horse a double portion of
+oats."
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">257</a></span></p>
+
+<p>M. Ulrich and Jean, leaving on the right the path
+which mounts to Donon, immediately took the path
+to the left, a narrow road with houses, gardens, and
+hedges on either side, which connects Grande Fontaine
+with the last village of the upper valley, that of
+the Miničres.</p>
+
+<p>They had scarcely gone two hundred yards when
+they caught sight of the keeper of Mathiskop coming
+out of his house, in his green uniform and
+Tyrolese hat, descending towards them. Seeing that
+the man would be obliged to pass them on the road
+M. Ulrich was afraid.</p>
+
+<p>"There is a uniform, Jean, which I don't care to
+meet at present. Let us go by the forest."</p>
+
+<p>The forest was on the left. They were the fir
+woods of Mathiskop, and farther on those of the Corbeille,
+thickly wooded slopes rising higher and higher,
+where a hiding-place would be easy to discover.
+Jean and his uncle jumped the hedge, crossed some
+yards of meadow, and entered the shadow of the fir
+wood. It was none too soon; the military authorities
+had given the alarm; warning had been telephoned
+to all the different posts to keep a look out for the
+deserter Oberlé. The keeper they had seen had not
+yet received the warning, and passed out of sight,
+but M. Ulrich, by means of his old field-glass of Jena
+days, could see that there was excitement in the
+usually quiet valley, where a number of douaniers
+and gendarmes could be seen hurrying about. They
+also hurried to the Mathiskop forest, and the chase
+commenced.</p>
+
+<p>M. Ulrich and Jean were not captured, but they
+had been sighted; they were tracked from wood
+to wood for more than an hour, and were prevented
+from reaching the frontier, to do which they
+would have been compelled to cross the open valley.
+M. Ulrich had the happy idea of climbing to the top
+of a stack of wood and letting himself down into the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">258</a></span>
+opening between two stacks, Jean followed his example.
+This had been their salvation, the gendarmes
+beat about the wood for some time, and then made
+off in the direction of Glacimont.</p>
+
+<p>Night was falling, and Jean slept. Banks of clouds
+rose before the wind, and hastened the darkness. A
+flight of crows crossed their hiding-place, brushing
+the tree tops. The flapping of their wings woke
+M. Ulrich from the reverie into which he had fallen
+while contemplating his nephew dressed in the uniform
+of a German soldier, lying stretched on Alsatian soil.
+He rose and gingerly climbed to the top of the stack.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, uncle," asked Jean, waking up, "what do
+you see?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing, no gendarme's helmet, no douanier's
+cap," whispered M. Ulrich. "I think they have lost
+the scent; but with such persons one cannot be sure."</p>
+
+<p>"And the valley of the Miničres?"</p>
+
+<p>"Appears to be deserted, my friend. No one on
+the roads, no one in the fields. The keeper himself
+must have gone home to supper&mdash;there is smoke
+coming from his chimney. How do you feel, boy&mdash;valiant?"</p>
+
+<p>"If we are pursued, you'll soon see."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think we shall be. But the hour has come,
+my boy."</p>
+
+<p>He added after a short interval, whilst he pretended
+to listen: "Come up whilst we lay some plan of
+campaign."</p>
+
+<p>"You see below the village of the Miničres?" asked
+M. Ulrich, as Jean's head appeared above the branches
+and turned towards the west.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"In spite of the mist and the darkness, can you
+make out that on the other side the mountain is
+covered partly with fir- and partly with beech-trees?"</p>
+
+<p>"I guess it."</p>
+
+<p>"We are going to make a half circle to avoid the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">259</a></span>
+gardens and fields of the Miničres, and when we are
+just opposite that spot, you will only have to descend
+two hundred yards and you will be in France."</p>
+
+<p>Jean made no answer.</p>
+
+<p>"That's the spot I marked out for you. See that
+you recognise it. Over there round Raon-sur-Plaine,
+the Germans have kept all the forests for themselves;
+the barren lands they have left to France. On the
+opposite side, facing us, there is an extensive strip of
+meadow land which is French territory. I even saw
+a deserted farmhouse, abandoned before the war,
+I suppose. I'll go first."</p>
+
+<p>"Excuse me, I'll go first."</p>
+
+<p>"No; I assure you, my boy, that the danger is
+equally great behind. I must be guide. I go first;
+we'll avoid the pathways, and I will lead you carefully
+to a point where you have only one thing to do:
+go straight ahead and cross a road, then a few yards
+of underwood, and beyond is French soil."</p>
+
+<p>M. Ulrich embraced Jean silently and quickly; he
+did not wish to lose control of himself, when all
+depended on calmness.</p>
+
+<p>"Come," he said.</p>
+
+<p>They commenced the descent under cover of the tall
+fir-trees which commenced just there. The slope was
+strewn with obstacles, against which Jean or his
+uncle frequently stumbled, moss-covered stones, fallen
+and rotten trunks, broken branches, like claws
+stretched out in the darkness to bar the way. Every
+moment M. Ulrich stopped to listen and would
+frequently look round, to make sure that Jean's tall
+form was close behind him&mdash;it was too dark to see his
+face.</p>
+
+<p>"They'll be checkmated, uncle," whispered Jean.</p>
+
+<p>"Not too fast, my Jean; we are not yet safe."</p>
+
+<p>Still under cover, the fugitives reached the meadows
+of the Miničres, and began to ascend the mountain
+opposite, but without quitting cover.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">260</a></span></p>
+
+<p>When M. Ulrich reached the summit he stopped
+and sniffed the wind, which blew more freely through
+the young trees.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you smell the air of France?" he murmured,
+in spite of the danger of talking.</p>
+
+<p>A plain stretched in front of them, but was invisible;
+they could distinguish the trees, which seemed like
+stationary smoke below, and above were the scurrying
+clouds. M. Ulrich cautiously began the descent,
+listening eagerly. An owl flew by. They had to
+make their way a short distance through a prickly
+undergrowth which clung to their clothes.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly a voice in the forest called:</p>
+
+<p>"Halt!"</p>
+
+<p>M. Ulrich stooped, his hand on Jean's shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't move," he whispered quickly. "I'll call
+them off, by turning towards the Miničres. As soon
+as they follow me, get up, run off, cross the road and
+then the little coppice&mdash;it's a straight line in front of
+you. Adieu."</p>
+
+<p>He rose up, took a few steps cautiously, and then
+made off quickly through the woods.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Halt! Halt!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>A report rang out, and as the noise died away
+under the branches M. Ulrich's voice, already some
+distance off, called:</p>
+
+<p>"Missed."</p>
+
+<p>At the same moment Jean Oberlé made a rush for
+the frontier. Head lowered, seeing nothing, his
+elbows squared, his chest lashed by the branches, he
+ran with all his might. He passed within a few
+inches of a man lying in ambush. The branches
+were pushed aside, a whistle was blown, Jean redoubled
+his efforts. He reached the road unawares;
+another report rang out on the edge of the wood.
+Jean rolled over on the edge of the copse. Cries
+arose:</p>
+
+<p>"Here he is! Here he is! Come."
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">261</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Jean jumped up instantly and dived into the wood.
+He thought he had stumbled over a rut. He leapt
+into the copse. But his legs shook under him. He
+felt with anguish a growing faintness overcoming
+him. The cries of his pursuers rang in his ears,
+everything swam before his eyes. He came upon an
+open space, felt the fresh wind on his face and lost
+consciousness.</p>
+
+<hr class="c5" />
+
+<p>Late at night he came to his senses. A storm was
+raging over the forest; he saw that he was lying on a
+bed of green boughs, in an empty room of the disused
+farm, lit by a small lantern. A man was bending
+over him. Jean realised that it was a French keeper.
+His first sensation of fear was dissipated by the man's
+welcome smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Were other shots fired?" he inquired.</p>
+
+<p>"No, no others."</p>
+
+<p>"So much the better; then Uncle Ulrich is safe&mdash;he
+accompanied me to the frontier. I was in the
+army, but I have come to be a soldier in our own
+land."</p>
+
+<p>Jean saw that his tunic had been taken off and
+that there was blood on his shirt. It hurt him to
+breathe.</p>
+
+<p>"What's wrong with me?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"You were hit in the shoulder," said the man, who
+would have wept if he had not been too ashamed to
+do so. "It'll heal; fortunately, my comrade and I
+were making our rounds when you stumbled into
+the field. The doctor will be here at break of day&mdash;don't
+be alarmed, my comrade has gone to fetch him.
+Who are you?"</p>
+
+<p>Half conscious, Jean Oberlé replied: "Alsace&mdash;&mdash;"
+but he could scarcely speak.</p>
+
+<p>Rain was falling heavily; it hammered upon roof
+and doors, upon the trees and rocks surrounding the
+house. The tops of the trees shook and twisted in
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">262</a></span>
+the storm like seaweed tossed upon the bosom of the
+ocean. The murmur of a million voices rose in
+harmony over the mountains, and thundered upon
+the night.</p>
+
+<p>The wounded man listened&mdash;in his weakened state
+what did he hear? He smiled:</p>
+
+<p>"It is France," he murmured; "she sings to me,"
+and he fell back with closed eyes awaiting the
+dawn.</p>
+
+<p class="p4 center"><i><small>Printed by Hazell, Watson &amp; Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury, England.</small></i></p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Children of Alsace, by René Bazin
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
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author	Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org>	2025-10-14 20:02:45 -0700
committer	Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org>	2025-10-14 20:02:45 -0700
commit	8259fdf44d29b181d328ef2d317af84540ab5492 (patch)
tree	2d6f5742d0b40c3cb1d090ce6a46e6b2742243a3