International Short Stories: French - Various
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"La Vendee has a head."
TONTON
BY A. CHENEVIERE
There are men who seem born to be soldiers. They have the face, the
bearing, the gesture, the quality of mind. But there are others who have
been forced to become so, in spite of themselves and of the rebellion of
reason and the heart, through a rash deed, a disappointment in love, or
simply because their destiny demanded it, being sons of soldiers and
gentlemen. Such is the case of my friend Captain Robert de X----. And I
said to him one summer evening, under the great trees of his terrace,
which is washed by the green and sluggish Marne:
"Yes, old fellow, you are sensitive. What the deuce would you have done on
a campaign where you were obliged to shoot, to strike down with a sabre
and to kill? And then, too, you have never fought except against the
Arabs, and that is quite another thing."
He smiled, a little sadly. His handsome mouth, with its blond mustache,
was almost like that of a youth. His blue eyes were dreamy for an instant,
then little by little he began to confide to me his thought, his
recollections and all that was mystic and poetic in his soldier's heart.
"You know we are soldiers in my family. We have a marshal of France and
two officers who died on the field of honor. I have perhaps obeyed a law
of heredity. I believe rather that my imagination has carried me away. I
saw war through my reveries of epic poetry. In my fancy I dwelt only upon
the intoxication of victory, the triumphant flourish of trumpets and women
throwing flowers to the victor. And then I loved the sonorous words of the
great captains, the dramatic representations of martial glory. My father
was in the third regiment of zouaves, the one which was hewn in pieces at
Reichshofen, in the Niedervald, and which in 1859 at Palestro, made that
famous charge against the Austrians and hurled them into the great canal.
It was superb; without them the Italian divisions would have been lost.
Victor Emmanuel marched with the zouaves. After this affair, while still
deeply moved, not by fear but with admiration for this regiment of demons
and heroes, he embraced their old colonel and declared that he would be
proud, were he not a king, to join the regiment. Then the zouaves
acclaimed him corporal of the Third. And for a long time on the
anniversary festival of St. Palestro, when the roll was called, they
shouted 'Corporal of the first squad, in the first company of the first
battalion, Victor Emmanuel,' and a rough old sergeant solemnly responded:
'Sent as long into Italy.'
"That is the way my father talked to us, and by these recitals, a soldier
was made of a dreamy child. But later, what a disillusion! Where is the
poetry of battle? I have never made any campaign except in Africa, but
that has been enough for me. And I believe the army surgeon is right, who
said to me one day: 'If instantaneous photographs could be taken after a
battle, and millions of copies made and scattered through the world, there
would be no more war. The people would refuse to take part in it.'
"Africa, yes, I have suffered there. On one occasion I was sent to the
south, six hundred kilometres from Oran, beyond the oasis of Fignig, to
destroy a tribe of rebels.... On this expedition we had a pretty serious
affair with a military chief of the great desert, called Bon-Arredji. We
killed nearly all of the tribe, and seized nearly fifteen hundred sheep;
in short, it was a complete success. We also captured the wives and
children of the chief. A dreadful thing happened at that time, under my
very eyes! A woman was fleeing, pursued by a black mounted soldier. She
turned around and shot at him with a revolver. The horse-soldier was
furious, and struck her down with one stroke of his sabre. I did not have
the time to interfere. I dismounted from my horse to take the woman up.
She was dead, and almost decapitated. I uttered not one word of reproach
to the Turkish soldier, who smiled fiercely, and turned back.
"I placed the poor body sadly on the sand, and was going to remount my
horse, when I perceived, a few steps back, behind a thicket, a little girl
five or six years old. I recognized at once that she was a Touareg, of
white race, notwithstanding her tawny color. I approached her. Perhaps she
was not afraid of me, because I was white like herself. I took her on the
saddle with me, without resistance on her part, and returned slowly to the
place where we were to camp for the night. I expected to place her under
the care of the women whom we had taken prisoners, and were carrying away
with us. But all refused, saying that she was a vile little Touareg,
belonging to a race which carries misfortune with it and brings forth only
traitors.
"I was greatly embarrassed. I would not abandon the child.... I felt
somewhat responsible for the crime, having been one of those who had
directed the massacre. I had made an orphan! I must take her part. One of
the prisoners of the band had said to me (I understand a little of the
gibberish of these people) that if I left the little one to these women
they would kill her because she was the daughter of a Touareg, whom the
chief had preferred to them, and that they hated the petted, spoiled
child, whom he had given rich clothes and jewels. What was to be done?
"I had a wide-awake orderly, a certain Michel of Batignolles. I called him
and said to him: 'Take care of the little one.' 'Very well, Captain, I
will take her in charge.' He then petted the child, made her sociable, and
led her away with him, and two hours later he had manufactured a little
cradle for her out of biscuit boxes which are used on the march for making
coffins. In the evening Michel put her to bed in it. He had christened her
'Tonton,' an abbreviation of Touareg. In the morning the cradle was bound
on an ass, and behold Tonton following the column with the baggage, in the
convoy of the rear guard, under the indulgent eye of Michel.
"This lasted for days and weeks. In the evening at the halting place,
Tonton was brought into my tent, with the goat, which furnished her the
greater part of her meals, and her inseparable friend, a large chameleon,
captured by Michel, and responding or not responding to the name of
Achilles.
"Ah, well! old fellow, you may believe me or not; but it gave me pleasure
to see the little one sleeping in her cradle, during the short night full
of alarm, when I felt the weariness of living, the dull sadness of seeing
my companions dying, one by one, leaving the caravan; the enervation of
the perpetual state of alertness, always attacking or being attacked, for
weeks and months. I, with the gentle instincts of a civilized man, was
forced to order the beheading of spies and traitors, the binding of women
in chains and the kidnapping of children, to raid the herds, to make of
myself an Attila. And this had to be done without a moment of wavering,
and I the cold and gentle Celt, whom you know, remained there, under the
scorching African sun. Then what repose of soul, what strange meditations
were mine, when free at last, at night, in my sombre tent, around which
death might be prowling, I could watch the little Touareg, saved by me,
sleeping in her cradle by the side of her chameleon lizard. Ridiculous, is
it not? But, go there and lead the life of a brute, of a plunderer and
assassin, and you will see how at times your civilized imagination will
wander away to take refuge from itself.
"I could have rid myself of
Tonton. In an oasis we met some rebels, bearing a flag of truce, and
exchanged the women for guns and ammunition. I kept the little one,
notwithstanding the five months of march we must make, before returning to
Tlemcen. She had grown gentle, was inclined to be mischievous, but was
yielding and almost affectionate with me. She ate with the rest, never
wanting to sit down, but running from one to another around the table. She
had proud little manners, as if she knew herself to be a daughter of the
chief's favorite, obeying only the officers and treating Michel with an
amusing scorn. All this was to have a sad ending. One day I did not find
the chameleon in the cradle, though I remembered to have seen it there the
evening before. I had even taken it in my hands and caressed it before
Tonton, who had just gone to bed. Then I had given it back to her and gone
out. Accordingly I questioned her. She took me by the hand, and leading me
to the camp fire, showed me the charred skeleton of the chameleon,
explaining to me, as best she could, that she had thrown it in the fire,
because I had petted it! Oh! women! women! And she gave a horrible
imitation of the lizard, writhing in the midst of the flames, and she
smiled with delighted eyes. I was indignant. I seized her by the arm,
shook her a little, and finished by boxing her ears.
"My dear fellow, from that day she appeared not to know me. Tonton and I
sulked; we were angry. However, one morning, as I felt the sun was going
to be terrible, I went myself to the baggage before the loading for
departure, and arranged a sheltering awning over the cradle. Then to make
peace, I embraced my little friend. But as soon as we were on the march,
she furiously tore off the canvas with which I had covered the cradle.
Michel put it all in place again, and there was a new revolt. In short, it
was necessary to yield because she wanted to be able to lean outside of
her box, under the fiery sun, to look at the head of the column, of which
I had the command. I saw this on arriving at the resting place. Then
Michel brought her under my tent. She had not yet fallen asleep, but
followed with her eyes all of my movements, with a grave air, without a
smile, or gleam of mischief.
"She refused to eat and drink; the next day she was ill, with sunken eyes
and body burning with fever. When the major wished to give her medicine
she refused to take it and ground her teeth together to keep from
swallowing.
"There remained still six days' march before arriving at Oran. I wanted to
give her into the care of the nuns. She died before I could do so, very
suddenly, with a severe attack of meningitis. She never wanted to see me
again. She was buried under a clump of African shrubs near Geryville, in
her little campaign cradle. And do you know what was found in her cradle?
The charred skeleton of the poor chameleon, which had been the indirect
cause of her death. Before leaving the bivouac, where she had committed
her crime, she had picked it out of the glowing embers, and brought it
into the cradle, and that is why her little fingers were burned. Since the
beginning of the meningitis the major had never been able to explain the
cause of these burns."
Robert was silent for an instant, then murmured: "Poor little one! I feel
remorseful. If I had not given her that blow.... who knows?... she would
perhaps be living still....
"My story is sad, is it not? Ah, well, it is still the sweetest of my
African memories. War is beautiful! Eh?"
And Robert shrugged his shoulders....
THE LAST LESSON
BY ALPHONSE DAUDET
I started for school very late that morning and was in great dread of a
scolding, especially because M. Hamel had said that he would question us
on participles, and I did not know the first word about them. For a moment
I thought of running away and spending the day out of doors. It was so
warm, so bright! The birds were chirping at the edge of the woods; and in
the open field back of the saw-mill the Prussian soldiers were drilling.
It was all much more tempting than the rule for participles, but I had the
strength to resist, and hurried off to school.
When I passed the town hall there was a crowd in front of the
bulletin-board. For the last two years all our bad news had come from
there--the lost battles, the draft, the orders of the commanding
officer--and I thought to myself, without stopping:
"What can be the matter now?"
Then, as I hurried by as fast as I could go, the blacksmith, Wachter, who
was there, with his apprentice, reading the bulletin, called after me:
"Don't go so fast, bub; you'll get to your school in plenty of time!"
I thought he was making fun of me, and reached M. Hamel's little garden
all out of breath.
Usually, when school began, there was a great bustle, which could be heard
out in the street, the opening and closing of desks, lessons repeated in
unison, very loud, with our hands over our ears to understand better, and
the teacher's great ruler rapping on the table. But now it was all so
still! I had counted on the commotion to get to my desk without being
seen; but, of course, that day everything had to be as quiet as Sunday
morning. Through the window I saw my classmates, already in their places,
and M. Hamel walking up and down with his terrible iron ruler under his
arm. I had to open the door and go in before everybody. You can imagine
how I blushed and how frightened I was.
But nothing happened, M. Hamel saw me and said very kindly:
"Go to your place quickly, little Franz. We were beginning without you."
I jumped over the bench and sat down at my desk. Not till then, when I had
got a little over my fright, did I see that our teacher had on his
beautiful green coat, his frilled shirt, and the little black silk cap,
all embroidered, that he never wore except on inspection and prize days.
Besides, the whole school seemed so strange and solemn. But the thing that
surprised me most was to see, on the back benches that were always empty,
the village people sitting quietly like ourselves; old Hauser, with his
three-cornered hat, the former mayor, the former postmaster, and several
others besides. Everybody looked sad; and Hauser had brought an old
primer, thumbed at the edges, and he held it open on his knees with his
great spectacles lying across the pages.
While I was wondering about it all, M. Hamel mounted his chair, and, in
the same grave and gentle tone which he had used to me, said:
"My children, this is the last lesson I shall give you. The order has come
from Berlin to teach only German in the schools of Alsace and Lorraine.
The new master comes to-morrow. This is your last French lesson. I want
you to be very attentive."
What a thunder-clap these words were to me!
Oh, the wretches; that was what they had put up at the town-hall!
My last French lesson! Why, I hardly knew how to write! I should never
learn any more! I must stop there, then! Oh, how sorry I was for not
learning my lessons, for seeking birds' eggs, or going sliding on the
Saar! My books, that had seemed such a nuisance a while ago, so heavy to
carry, my grammar, and my history of the saints, were old friends now that
I couldn't give up. And M. Hamel, too; the idea that he was going away,
that I should never see him again, made me forget all about his ruler and
how cranky he was.
Poor man! It was in honor of this last lesson that he had put on his fine
Sunday-clothes, and now I understood why the old men of the village were
sitting there in the back of the room. It was because they were sorry,
too, that they had not gone to school more. It was their way of thanking
our master for his forty years of faithful service and of showing their
respect for the country that was theirs no more.
While I was thinking of all this, I heard my name called. It was my turn
to recite. What would I not have given to be able to say that dreadful
rule for the participle all through, very loud and clear, and without one
mistake? But I got mixed up on the first words and stood there, holding on
to my desk, my heart beating, and not daring to look up. I heard M. Hamel
say to me:
"I won't scold you, little Franz; you must feel bad enough. See how it is!
Every day we have said to ourselves: 'Bah! I've plenty of time. I'll learn
it to-morrow.' And now you see where we've come out. Ah, that's the great
trouble with Alsace; she puts off learning till to-morrow. Now those
fellows out there will have the right to say to you: 'How is it; you
pretend to be Frenchmen, and yet you can neither speak nor write your own
language?' But you are not the worst, poor little Franz. We've all a great
deal to reproach ourselves with.
"Your parents were not anxious enough to have you learn. They preferred to
put you to work on a farm or at the mills, so as to have a little more
money. And I? I've been to blame also. Have I not often sent you to water
my flowers instead of learning your lessons? And when I wanted to go
fishing, did I not just give you a holiday?"
Then, from one thing to another, M. Hamel went on to talk of the French
language, saying that it was the most beautiful language in the world--the
clearest, the most logical; that we must guard it among us and never
forget it, because when a people are enslaved, as long as they hold fast
to their language it is as if they had the key to their prison. Then he
opened a grammar and read us our lesson. I was amazed to see how well I
understood it. All he said seemed so easy, so easy! I think, too, that I
had never listened so carefully, and that he had never explained
everything with so much patience. It seemed almost as if the poor man
wanted to give us all he knew before going away, and to put it all into
our heads at one stroke.
After the grammar, we had a lesson in writing. That day M. Hamel had new
copies for us, written in a beautiful round hand: France, Alsace, France,
Alsace. They looked like little flags floating everywhere in the
school-room, hung from the rod at the top of our desks. You ought to have
seen how every one set to work, and how quiet it was! The only sound was
the scratching of the pens over the paper. Once some beetles flew in; but
nobody paid any attention to them, not even the littlest ones, who worked
right on tracing their fish-hooks, as if that was French, too. On the roof
the pigeons cooed very low, and I thought to myself:
"Will they make them sing in German, even the pigeons?"
Whenever I looked up from my writing I saw M. Hamel sitting motionless in
his chair and gazing first at one thing, then at another, as if he wanted
to fix in his mind just how everything looked in that little school-room.
Fancy! For forty years he had been there in the same place, with his
garden outside the window and his class in front of him, just like that.
Only the desks and benches had been worn smooth; the walnut-trees in the
garden were taller, and the hop-vine, that he had planted himself twined
about the windows to the roof. How it must have broken his heart to leave
it all, poor man; to hear his sister moving about in the room above,
packing their trunks! For they must leave the country next day.
But he had the courage to hear every lesson to the very last. After the
writing, we had a lesson in history, and then the babies chanted their ba,
be, bi, bo, bu. Down there at the back of the room old Hauser had put on
his spectacles and, holding his primer in both hands, spelled the letters
with them. You could see that he, too, was crying; his voice trembled with
emotion, and it was so funny to hear him that we all wanted to laugh and
cry. Ah, how well I remember it, that last lesson!
All at once the church-clock struck twelve. Then the Angelus. At the same
moment the trumpets of the Prussians, returning from drill, sounded under
our windows. M. Hamel stood up, very pale, in his chair. I never saw him
look so tall.
"My friends," said he, "I--I--" But something choked him. He could not go
on.
Then he turned to the blackboard, took a piece of chalk, and, bearing on
with all his might, he wrote as large as he could:
"Vive La France!"
Then he stopped and leaned his head against the wall, and, without a word,
he made a gesture to us with his hand; "School is dismissed--you may go."
CROISILLES
BY ALFRED DE MUSSET
I
At the beginning of the reign of Louis XV., a young man named Croisilles,
son of a goldsmith, was returning from Paris to Havre, his native town. He
had been intrusted by his father with the transaction of some business,
and his trip to the great city having turned out satisfactorily, the joy
of bringing good news caused him to walk the sixty leagues more gaily and
briskly than was his wont; for, though he had a rather large sum of money
in his pocket, he travelled on foot for pleasure. He was a good-tempered
fellow, and not without wit, but so very thoughtless and flighty that
people looked upon him as being rather weak-minded. His doublet buttoned
awry, his periwig flying to the wind, his hat under his arm, he followed
the banks of the Seine, at times finding enjoyment in his own thoughts and
again indulging in snatches of song; up at daybreak, supping at wayside
inns, and always charmed with this stroll of his through one of the most
beautiful regions of France. Plundering the apple-trees of Normandy on his
way, he puzzled his brain to find rhymes (for all these rattlepates are
more or less poets), and tried hard to turn out a madrigal for a certain
fair damsel of his native place. She was no less than a daughter of a
fermier-general, Mademoiselle Godeau, the pearl of Havre, a rich heiress,
and much courted. Croisilles was not received at M. Godeau's otherwise
than in a casual sort of way, that is to say, he had sometimes himself
taken there articles of jewelry purchased at his father's. M. Godeau,
whose somewhat vulgar surname ill-fitted his immense fortune, avenged
himself by his arrogance for the stigma of his birth, and showed himself
on all occasions enormously and pitilessly rich. He certainly was not the
man to allow the son of a goldsmith to enter his drawing-room; but, as
Mademoiselle Godeau had the most beautiful eyes in the world, and
Croisilles was not ill-favored, and as nothing can prevent a fine fellow
from falling in love with a pretty girl, Croisilles adored Mademoiselle
Godeau, who did not seem vexed thereat. Thus was he thinking of her as he
turned his steps toward Havre; and, as he had never reflected seriously
upon anything, instead of thinking of the invincible obstacles which
separated him from his lady-love, he busied himself only with finding a
rhyme for the Christian name she bore. Mademoiselle Godeau was called
Julie, and the rhyme was found easily enough. So Croisilles, having
reached Honfleur, embarked with a satisfied heart, his money and his
madrigal in his pocket, and as soon as he jumped ashore ran to the
paternal house.
He found the shop closed, and knocked again and again, not without
astonishment and apprehension, for it was not a holiday; but nobody came.
He called his father, but in vain. He went to a neighbor's to ask what had
happened; instead of replying, the neighbor turned away, as though not
wishing to recognize him. Croisilles repeated his questions; he learned
that his father, his affairs having long been in an embarrassed condition,
had just become bankrupt, and had fled to America, abandoning to his
creditors all that he possessed.
Not realizing as yet the extent of his misfortune, Croisilles felt
overwhelmed by the thought that he might never again see his father. It
seemed to him incredible that he should be thus suddenly abandoned; he
tried to force an entrance into the store; but was given to understand
that the official seals had been affixed; so he sat down on a stone, and
giving way to his grief, began to weep piteously, deaf to the consolations
of those around him, never ceasing to call his father's name, though he
knew him to be already far away. At last he rose, ashamed at seeing a
crowd about him, and, in the most profound despair, turned his steps
towards the harbor.
On reaching the pier, he walked straight before him like a man in a
trance, who knows neither where he is going nor what is to become of him.
He saw himself irretrievably lost, possessing no longer a shelter, no
means of rescue and, of course, no longer any friends. Alone, wandering on
the sea-shore, he felt tempted to drown himself, then and there. Just at
the moment when, yielding to this thought, he was advancing to the edge of
a high cliff, an old servant named Jean, who had served his family for a
number of years, arrived on the scene.
"Ah! my poor Jean!" he exclaimed, "you know all that has happened since I
went away. Is it possible that my father could leave us without warning,
without farewell?"
"He is gone," answered Jean, "but indeed not without saying good-bye to
you."
At the same time he drew from his pocket a letter, which he gave to his
young master. Croisilles recognized the handwriting of his father, and,
before opening the letter, kissed it rapturously; but it contained only a
few words. Instead of feeling his trouble softened, it seemed to the young
man still harder to bear. Honorable until then, and known as such, the old
gentleman, ruined by an unforeseen disaster (the bankruptcy of a partner),
had left for his son nothing but a few commonplace words of consolation,
and no hope, except, perhaps, that vague hope without aim or reason which
constitutes, it is said, the last possession one loses.