Read the book: «The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse», page 14
CHAPTER III
THE RETREAT
War had extended one of its antennae even to the avenue Victor Hugo. It was a silent war in which the enemy, bland, shapeless and gelatinous, seemed constantly to be escaping from the hands only to renew hostilities a little later on.
“I have Germany in my own house,” growled Marcelo Desnoyers.
“Germany” was Dona Elena, the wife of von Hartrott. Why had not her son—that professor of inexhaustible sufficiency whom he now believed to have been a spy—taken her home with him? For what sentimental caprice had she wished to stay with her sister, losing the opportunity of returning to Berlin before the frontiers were closed?
The presence of this woman in his home was the cause of many compunctions and alarms. Fortunately, the chauffeur and all the men-servants were in the army. The two chinas received an order in a threatening tone. They must be very careful when talking to the French maids—not the slightest allusion to the nationality of Dona Elena’s husband nor to the residence of her family. Dona Elena was an Argentinian. But in spite of the silence of the maids, Don Marcelo was always in fear of some outburst of exalted patriotism, and that his wife’s sister might suddenly find herself confined in a concentration camp under suspicion of having dealings with the enemy.
Frau von Hartrott made his uneasiness worse. Instead of keeping a discreet silence, she was constantly introducing discord into the home with her opinions.
During the first days of the war, she kept herself locked in her room, joining the family only when summoned to the dining room. With tightly puckered mouth and an absent-minded air, she would then seat herself at the table, pretending not to hear Don Marcelo’s verbal outpourings of enthusiasm. He enjoyed describing the departure of the troops, the moving scenes in the streets and at the stations, commenting on events with an optimism sure of the first news of the war. Two things were beyond all discussion. The bayonet was the secret of the French, and the Germans were shuddering with terror before its fatal, glistening point. . . . The ‘75 cannon had proved itself a unique jewel, its shots being absolutely sure. He was really feeling sorry for the enemy’s artillery since its projectiles so seldom exploded even when well aimed. . . . Furthermore, the French troops had entered victoriously into Alsace; many little towns were already theirs.
“Now it is as it was in the ‘70’s,” he would exult, brandishing his fork and waving his napkin. “We are going to kick them back to the other side of the Rhine—kick them! . . . That’s the word.”
Chichi always agreed gleefully while Dona Elena was raising her eyes to heaven, as though silently calling upon somebody hidden in the ceiling to bear witness to such errors and blasphemies.
The kind Dona Luisa always sought her out afterwards in the retirement of her room, believing it necessary to give sisterly counsel to one living so far from home. The Romantica did not maintain her austere silence before the sister who had always venerated her superior instruction; so now the poor lady was overwhelmed with accounts of the stupendous forces of Germany, enunciated with all the authority of a wife of a great Teutonic patriot, and a mother of an almost celebrated professor. According to her graphic picture, millions of men were now surging forth in enormous streams, thousands of cannons were filing by, and tremendous mortars like monstrous turrets. And towering above all this vast machinery of destruction was a man who alone was worth an army, a being who knew everything and could do everything, handsome, intelligent, and infallible as a god—the Emperor.
“The French just don’t know what’s ahead of them,” declared Dona Elena. “We are going to annihilate them. It is merely a matter of two weeks. Before August is ended, the Emperor will have entered Paris.”
Senora Desnoyers was so greatly impressed by these dire prophecies that she could not hide them from her family. Chichi waxed indignant at her mother’s credulity and her aunt’s Germanism. Martial fervor was flaming up in the former Peoncito. Ay, if the women could only go to war! . . . She enjoyed picturing herself on horseback in command of a regiment of dragoons, charging the enemy with other Amazons as dashing and buxom as she. Then her fondness for skating would predominate over her tastes for the cavalry, and she would long to be an Alpine hunter, a diable bleu among those who slid on long runners, with musket slung across the back and alpenstock in hand, over the snowy slopes of the Vosges.
But the government did not appreciate the valorous women, and she could obtain no other part in the war but to admire the uniform of her true-love, Rene Lacour, converted into a soldier. The senator’s son certainly looked beautiful. He was tall and fair, of a rather feminine type recalling his dead mother. In his fiancee’s opinion, Rene was just “a little sugar soldier.” At first she had been very proud to walk the streets by the side of this warrior, believing that his uniform had greatly augmented his personal charm, but little by little a revulsion of feeling was clouding her joy. The senatorial prince was nothing but a common soldier. His illustrious father, fearful that the war might cut off forever the dynasty of the Lacours, indispensable to the welfare of the State, had had his son mustered into the auxiliary service of the army. By this arrangement, his heir need not leave Paris, ranking about as high as those who were kneading the bread or mending the soldiers’ cloaks. Only by going to the front could he claim—as a student of the Ecole Centrale—his title of sub-lieutenant in the Artillery Reserves.
“What happiness for me that you have to stay in Paris! How delighted I am that you are just a private! . . .”
And yet, at the same time, Chichi was thinking enviously of her friends whose lovers and brothers were officers. They could parade the streets, escorted by a gold-trimmed kepis that attracted the notice of the passers-by and the respectful salute of the lower ranks.
Each time that Dona Luisa, terrified by the forecasts of her sister, undertook to communicate her dismay to her daughter, the girl would rage up and down, exclaiming:—
“What lies my aunt tells you! . . . Since her husband is a German, she sees everything as he wishes it to be. Papa knows more; Rene’s father is better informed about these things. We are going to give them a thorough hiding! What fun it will be when they hit my uncle and all my snippy cousins in Berlin! . . .”
“Hush,” groaned her mother. “Do not talk such nonsense. The war has turned you as crazy as your father.”
The good lady was scandalized at hearing the outburst of savage desires that the mere mention of the Kaiser always aroused in her daughter. In times of peace, Chichi had rather admired this personage. “He’s not so bad-looking,” she had commented, “but with a very ordinary smile.” Now all her wrath was concentrated upon him. The thousands of women that were weeping through his fault! The mothers without sons, the wives without husbands, the poor children left in the burning towns! . . . Ah, the vile wretch! . . . And she would brandish her knife of the old Peoncito days—a dagger with silver handle and sheath richly chased, a gift that her grandfather had exhumed from some forgotten souvenirs of his childhood in an old valise. The very first German that she came across was doomed to death. Dona Luisa was terrified to find her flourishing this weapon before her dressing mirror. She was no longer yearning to be a cavalryman nor a diable bleu. She would be entirely content if they would leave her, alone in some closed space with the detested monster. In just five minutes she would settle the universal conflict.
“Defend yourself, Boche,” she would shriek, standing at guard as in her childhood she had seen the peons doing on the ranch.
And with a knife-thrust above and below, she would pierce his imperial vitals. Immediately there resounded in her imagination, shouts of joy, the gigantic sigh of millions of women freed at last from the bloody nightmare—thanks to her playing the role of Judith or Charlotte Corday, or a blend of all the heroic women who had killed for the common weal. Her savage fury made her continue her imaginary slaughter, dagger in hand. Second stroke!—the Crown Prince rolling to one side and his head to the other. A rain of dagger thrusts!—all the invincible generals of whom her aunt had been boasting fleeing with their insides in their hands—and bringing up the rear, that fawning lackey who wished to receive the same things as those of highest rank—the uncle from Berlin. . . . Ay, if she could only get the chance to make these longings a reality!
“You are mad,” protested her mother. “Completely mad! How can a ladylike girl talk in such a way?” . . .
Surprising her niece in the ecstasy of these delirious ravings, Dona Elena would raise her eyes to heaven, abstaining thenceforth from communicating her opinions, reserving them wholly for the mother.
Don Marcelo’s indignation took another bound when his wife repeated to him the news from her sister. All a lie! . . . The war was progressing finely. On the Eastern frontier the French troops had advanced through the interior of Alsace and Lorraine.
“But—Belgium is invaded, isn’t it?” asked Dona Luisa. “And those poor Belgians?”
Desnoyers retorted indignantly.
“That invasion of Belgium is treason. . . . And a treason never amounts to anything among decent people.”
He said it in all good faith as though war were a duel in which the traitor was henceforth ruled out and unable to continue his outrages. Besides, the heroic resistance of Belgium was nourishing the most absurd illusions in his heart. The Belgians were certainly supernatural men destined to the most stupendous achievements. . . . And to think that heretofore he had never taken this plucky little nation into account! . . . For several days, he considered Liege a holy city before whose walls the Teutonic power would be completely confounded. Upon the fall of Liege, his unquenchable faith sought another handle. There were still remaining many other Lieges in the interior. The Germans might force their way further in; then we would see how many of them ever succeeded in getting out. The entry into Brussels did not disquiet him. An unprotected city! . . . Its surrender was a foregone conclusion. Now the Belgians would be better able to defend Antwerp. Neither did the advance of the Germans toward the French frontier alarm him at all. In vain his sister-in-law, with malicious brevity, mentioned in the dining-room the progress of the invasion, so confusedly outlined in the daily papers. The Germans were already at the frontier.
“And what of that?” yelled Don Marcelo. “Soon they will meet someone to talk to! Joffre is going to meet them. Our armies are in the East, in the very place where they ought to be, on the true frontier, at the door of their home. But they have to deal with a treacherous and cowardly opponent that instead of marching face to face, leaps the walls of the corral like sheep-stealers. . . . Their underhand tricks won’t do them any good, though! The French are already in Belgium and adjusting the accounts of the Germans. We shall smash them so effectually that never again will they be able to disturb the peace of the world. And that accursed individual with the rampant moustache we are going to put in a cage, and exhibit in the place de la Concorde!”
Inspired by the paternal braggadocio, Chichi also launched forth exultingly an imaginary series of avenging torments and insults as a complement to this Imperial Exhibition.
These allusions to the Emperor aggravated Frau von Hartrott more than anything else. In the first days of the war, her sister had surprised her weeping before the newspaper caricatures and leaflets sold in the streets.
“Such an excellent man . . . so knightly . . . such a good father to his family! He wasn’t to blame for anything. It was his enemies who forced him to assume the offensive.”
Her veneration for exalted personages was making her take the attacks upon this admired grandee as though they were directed against her own family.
One night in the dining room, she abandoned her tragic silence. Certain sarcasms, shot by Desnoyers at her hero, brought the tears to her eyes, and this sentimental indulgence turned her thoughts upon her sons who were undoubtedly taking part in the invasion.
Her brother-in-law was longing for the extermination of all the enemy. “May every barbarian be exterminated! . . . every one of the bandits in pointed helmets who have just burned Louvain and other towns, shooting defenceless peasants, old men, women and children!”
“You forget that I am a mother,” sobbed Frau von Hartrott. “You forget that among those whose extermination you are imploring, are my sons.”
Her violent weeping made Desnoyers realize more than ever the abyss yawning between him and this woman lodged in his own house. His resentment, however, overleapt family considerations. . . . She might weep for her sons all she wanted to; that was her right. But these sons were aggressors and wantonly doing evil. It was the other mothers who were inspiring his pity—those who were living tranquilly in their smiling little Belgian towns when their sons were suddenly shot down, their daughters violated and their houses burned to the ground.
As though this description of the horrors of war were a fresh insult to her, Dona Elena wept harder than ever. What falsehoods! The Kaiser was an excellent man. His soldiers were gentlemen, the German army was a model of civilization and goodness. Her husband had belonged to this army, her sons were marching in its ranks. And she knew her sons—well-bred and incapable of wrong-doing. These Belgian calumnies she could no longer listen to . . . and, with dramatic abandon, she flung herself into the arms of her sister.
Senor Desnoyers raged against the fate that condemned him to live under the same roof with this woman. What an unfortunate complication for the family! . . . and the frontiers were closed, making it impossible to get rid of her!
“Very well, then,” he thundered. “Let us talk no more about it. We shall never reach an understanding, for we belong to two different worlds. It’s a great pity that you can’t go back to your own people.”
After that, he refrained from mentioning the war in his sister-in-law’s presence. Chichi was the only one keeping up her aggressive and noisy enthusiasm. Upon reading in the papers the news of the shootings, sackings, burning of cities, and the dolorous flight of those who had seen their all reduced to ashes, she again felt the necessity of assuming the role of lady-assassin. Ay, if she could only once get her hands on one of those bandits! . . . What did the men amount to anyway if they couldn’t exterminate the whole lot? . . .
Then she would look at Rene in his exquisitely fresh uniform, sweet-mannered and smiling as though all war meant to him was a mere change of attire, and she would exclaim enigmatically:
“What luck that you will never have to go to the front! . . . How fine that you don’t run any risks!”
And her lover would accept these words as but another proof of her affectionate interest.
One day Don Marcelo was able to appreciate the horrors of the war without leaving Paris. Three thousand Belgian refugees were quartered provisionally in the circus before being distributed among the provinces. When Desnoyers entered this place, he saw in the vestibule the same posters which had been flaunting their spectacular gayeties when he had visited it a few months before with his family.
Now he noticed the odor from a sick and miserable multitude crowded together—like the exhalation from a prison or poorhouse infirmary. He saw a throng that seemed crazy or stupefied with grief. They did not know exactly where they were; they had come thither, they didn’t know how. The terrible spectacle of the invasion was still so persistent in their minds that it left room for no other impression. They were still seeing the helmeted men in their peaceful hamlets, their homes in flames, the soldiery firing upon those who were fleeing, the mutilated women done to death by incessant adulterous assault, the old men burned alive, the children stabbed in their cradles by human beasts inflamed by alcohol and license. . . . Some of the octogenarians were weeping as they told how the soldiers of a civilized nation were cutting off the breasts from the women in order to nail them to the doors, how they had passed around as a trophy a new-born babe spiked on a bayonet, how they had shot aged men in the very armchair in which they were huddled in their sorrowful weakness, torturing them first with their jests and taunts.
They had fled blindly, pursued by fire and shot, as crazed with terror as the people of the middle ages trying not to be ridden down by the hordes of galloping Huns and Mongols. And this flight had been across the country in its loveliest festal array, in the most productive of months, when the earth was bristling with ears of grain, when the August sky was most brilliant, and when the birds were greeting the opulent harvest with their glad songs!
In that circus, filled with the wandering crowds, the immense crime was living again. The children were crying with a sound like the bleating of lambs; the men were looking wildly around with terrified eyes; the frenzied women were howling like the insane. Families had become separated in the terror of flight. A mother of five little ones now had but one. The parents, as they realized the number missing, were thinking with anguish of those who had disappeared. Would they ever find them again? . . . Or were they already dead? . . .
Don Marcelo returned home, grinding his teeth and waving his cane in an alarming manner. Ah, the bandits! . . . If only his sister-in-law could change her sex! Why wasn’t she a man? . . . It would be better still if she could suddenly assume the form of her husband, von Hartrott. What an interesting interview the two brothers-in-law would have! . . .
The war was awakening religious sentiment in the men and increasing the devotion of the women. The churches were filled. Dona Luisa was no longer confining herself to those of her neighborhood. With the courage induced by extraordinary events, she was traversing Paris afoot and going from the Madeleine to Notre Dame, or to the Sacre Coeur on the heights of Montmartre. Religious festivals were now thronged like popular assemblies. The preachers were tribunes. Patriotic enthusiasm interrupted many sermon with applause.
Each morning on opening the papers, before reading the war news, Senora Desnoyers would hunt other notices. “Where was Father Amette going to be to-day?” Then, under the arched vaultings of that temple, would she unite her voice with the devout chorus imploring supernatural intervention. “Lord, save France!” Patriotic religiosity was putting Sainte Genevieve at the head of the favored ones, so from all these fiestas, Dona Luisa, tremulous with faith, would return in expectation of a miracle similar to that which the patron saint of Paris had worked before the invading hordes of Attila.
Dona Elena was also visiting the churches, but those nearest the house. Her brother-in-law saw her one afternoon entering Saint-Honoree d’Eylau. The building was filled with the faithful, and on the altar was a sheaf of flags—France and the allied nations. The imploring crowd was not composed entirely of women. Desnoyers saw men of his age, pompous and grave, moving their lips and fixing steadfast eyes on the altar on which were reflected like lost stars, the flames of the candles. And again he felt envy. They were fathers who were recalling their childhood prayers, thinking of their sons in battle. Don Marcelo, who had always considered religion with indifference, suddenly recognized the necessity of faith. He wanted to pray like the others, with a vague, indefinite supplication, including all beings who were struggling and dying for a land that he had not tried to defend.
He was scandalized to see von Hartrott’s wife kneeling among these people raising her eyes to the cross in a look of anguished entreaty. She was begging heaven to protect her husband, the German who perhaps at this moment was concentrating all his devilish faculties on the best organization for crushing the weak; she was praying for her sons, officers of the King of Prussia, who revolver in hand were entering villages and farmlands, driving before them a horror-stricken crowd, leaving behind them fire and death. And these orisons were going to mingle with those of the mothers who were praying for the youth trying to check the onslaught of the barbarians—with the petitions of these earnest men, rigid in their tragic grief! . . .
He had to make a great effort not to protest aloud, and he left the church. His sister-in-law had no right to kneel there among those people.
“They ought to put her out!” he growled indignantly. “She is compromising God with her absurd entreaties.”
But in spite of his annoyance, he had to endure her living in his household, and at the same time had taken great pains to prevent her nationality being known outside.
It was a severe trial for Don Marcelo to be obliged to keep silent when at table with his family. He had to avoid the hysterics of his sister-in-law who promptly burst into sighs and sobs at the slightest allusion to her hero; and he feared equally the complaints of his wife, always ready to defend her sister, as though she were the victim. . . . That a man in his own home should have to curb his tongue and speak tactfully! . . .
The only satisfaction permitted him was to announce the military moves. The French had entered Belgium. “It appears that the Boches have had a good set-back.” The slightest clash of cavalry, a simple encounter with the advance troops, he would glorify as a decisive victory. “In Lorraine, too, we are making great headway!” . . . But suddenly the fountain of his bubbling optimism seemed to become choked up. To judge from the periodicals, nothing extraordinary was occurring. They continued publishing war-stories so as to keep enthusiasm at fever-heat, but nothing definite. The Government, too, was issuing communications of vague and rhetorical verbosity. Desnoyers became alarmed, his instinct warning him of danger. “There is something wrong,” he thought. “There’s a spring broken somewhere!”
This lack of encouraging news coincided exactly with the sudden rise in Dona Elena’s spirits. With whom had that woman been talking? Whom did she meet when she was on the street? . . . Without dropping her pose as a martyr, with the same woebegone look and drooping mouth, she was talking, and talking treacherously. The torment of Don Marcelo in being obliged to listen to the enemy harbored within his gates! . . . The French had been vanquished in Lorraine and in Belgium at the same time. A body of the army had deserted the colors; many prisoners, many cannon were captured. “Lies! German exaggerations!” howled Desnoyers. And Chichi with the derisive ha-ha’s of an insolent girl, drowned out the triumphant communications of the aunt from Berlin. “I don’t know, of course,” said the unwelcome lodger with mock humility. “Perhaps it is not authentic. I have heard it said.” Her host was furious. Where had she heard it said? Who was giving her such news? . . .
And in order to ventilate his wrath, he broke forth into tirades against the enemy’s espionage, against the carelessness of the police force in permitting so many Germans to remain hidden in Paris. Then he suddenly became quiet, thinking of his own behavior in this line. He, too, was involuntarily contributing toward the maintenance and support of the foe.
The fall of the ministry and the constitution of a government of national defense made it apparent that something very important must have taken place. The alarms and tears of Dona Luisa increased his nervousness. The good lady was no longer returning from the churches, cheered and strengthened. Her confidential talks with her sister were filling her with a terror that she tried in vain to communicate to her husband. “All is lost. . . . Elena is the only one that knows the truth.”
Desnoyers went in search of Senator Lacour. He would know all the ministers; no one could be better informed. “Yes, my friend,” said the important man sadly. “Two great losses at Morhange and Charleroi, at the East and the North. The enemy is going to invade French soil! . . . But our army is intact, and will retreat in good order. Good fortune may still be ours. A great calamity, but all is not lost.”
Preparations for the defense of Paris were being pushed forward . . . rather late. The forts were supplying themselves with new cannon. Houses, built in the danger zone in the piping times of peace, were now disappearing under the blows of the official demolition. The trees on the outer avenues were being felled in order to enlarge the horizon. Barricades of sacks of earth and tree trunks were heaped at the doors of the old walls. The curious were skirting the suburbs in order to gaze at the recently dug trenches and the barbed wire fences. The Bois de Boulogne was filled with herds of cattle. Near heaps of dry alfalfa steers and sheep were grouped in the green meadows. Protection against famine was uppermost in the minds of a people still remembering the suffering of 1870. Every night, the street lighting was less and less. The sky, on the other hand, was streaked incessantly by the shafts from the searchlights. Fear of aerial invasion was increasing the public uneasiness. Timid people were speaking of Zeppelins, attributing to them irresistible powers, with all the exaggeration that accompanies mysterious dangers.
In her panic, Dona Luisa greatly distressed her husband, who was passing the days in continual alarm, yet trying to put heart into his trembling and anxious wife. “They are going to come, Marcelo; my heart tells me so. The girl! . . . the girl!” She was accepting blindly all the statements made by her sister, the only thing that comforted her being the chivalry and discipline of those troops to which her nephews belonged. The news of the atrocities committed against the women of Belgium were received with the same credulity as the enemy’s advances announced by Elena. “Our girl, Marcelo. . . . Our girl!” And the girl, object of so much solicitude, would laugh with the assurance of vigorous youth on hearing of her mother’s anxiety. “Just let the shameless fellows come! I shall take great pleasure in seeing them face to face!” And she clenched her right hand as though it already clutched the avenging knife.
The father became tired of this situation. He still had one of his monumental automobiles that an outside chauffeur could manage. Senator Lacour obtained the necessary passports and Desnoyers gave his wife her orders in a tone that admitted of no remonstrance. They must go to Biarritz or to some of the summer resorts in the north of Spain. Almost all the South American families had already gone in the same direction. Dona Luisa tried to object. It was impossible for her to separate herself from her husband. Never before, in their many years of married life, had they once been separated. But a harsh negative from Don Marcelo cut her pleadings short. He would remain. Then the poor senora ran to the rue de la Pompe. Her son! . . . Julio scarcely listened to his mother. Ay! he, too, would stay. So finally the imposing automobile lumbered toward the South carrying Dona Luisa, her sister who hailed with delight this withdrawal before the admired troops of the Emperor, and Chichi, pleased that the war was necessitating an excursion to the fashionable beaches frequented by her friends.
Don Marcelo was at last alone. The two coppery maids had followed by rail the flight of their mistresses. At first the old man felt a little bewildered by this solitude, which obliged him to eat uncomfortable meals in a restaurant and pass the nights in enormous and deserted rooms still bearing traces of their former occupants. The other apartments in the building had also been vacated. All the tenants were foreigners, who had discreetly decamped, or French families surprised by the war when summering at their country seats.
Instinctively he turned his steps toward the rue de la Pompe gazing from afar at the studio windows. What was his son doing? . . . Undoubtedly continuing his gay and useless life. Such men only existed for their own selfish folly.
Desnoyers felt satisfied with the stand he had taken. To follow the family would be sheer cowardice. The memory of his youthful flight to South America was sufficient martyrdom; he would finish his life with all the compensating bravery that he could muster. “No, they will not come,” he said repeatedly, with the optimism of enthusiasm. “I have a presentiment that they will never reach Paris. And even if they DO come!” . . . The absence of his family brought him a joyous valor and a sense of bold youthfulness. Although his age might prevent his going to war in the open air, he could still fire a gun, immovable in a trench, without fear of death. Let them come! . . . He was longing for the struggle with the anxiety of a punctilious business man wishing to cancel a former debt as soon as possible.
In the streets of Paris he met many groups of fugitives. They were from the North and East of France, and had escaped before the German advance. Of all the tales told by this despondent crowd—not knowing where to go and dependent upon the charity of the people—he was most impressed with those dealing with the disregard of property. Shootings and assassinations made him clench his fists, with threats of vengeance; but the robberies authorized by the heads, the wholesale sackings by superior order, followed by fire, appeared to him so unheard-of that he was silent with stupefaction, his speech seeming to be temporarily paralyzed. And a people with laws could wage war in this fashion, like a tribe of Indians going to combat in order to rob! . . . His adoration of property rights made him beside himself with wrath at these sacrileges.
