The Downfall (La Débâcle). Emile Zola
the old woman appeared to increase in stature. She raised her spare, tragic figure, draped in a shred of a dress, to its full height; and waving her long arm from west to east with so comprehensive a gesture that it seemed to embrace the entire heavens, she shouted: 'The Rhine is not there, you cowards—the Rhine is over there. Cowards! cowards!'
At last they were resuming their march, and Maurice, whose glance at this moment fell upon Jean's face, saw that the corporal's eyes were full of tears. He was thunderstruck, and his own suffering was increased at the thought that even this brutish peasant had felt the insult—an unmerited one, but to which they must needs submit. Everything then seemed to crumble away in Maurice's poor, aching head, and, overcome both by physical and moral suffering, he could never remember how he had finished the march.
The Seventh Army Corps had required an entire day to cover the fourteen or fifteen miles separating Dannemarie from Belfort; and night was again falling and it was very late when the troops were able to prepare their bivouacs under the walls of the fortress, on the very spot whence they had started four days previously to march against the enemy. Despite the lateness of the hour and their great weariness, the men insisted on lighting their fires and cooking their soupe. It was the first time, for four days, that they had something warm to swallow. And squatting around the fires in the freshening night air, they were all dipping their noses into their basins, and grunts of content were rising on all sides, when a rumour circulated, burst upon, spread through, and stupefied the camp. Two fresh telegrams had arrived at brief intervals. The Prussians had not crossed the Rhine at Markolsheim, and there was no longer a single Prussian at Huningen. The passage of the Rhine at Markolsheim, the pontoon bridge thrown across the river at night, thanks to powerful electric lights—all those alarming stories were mere dreams, the unaccountable hallucinations of the sub-prefect of Schelestadt. As for the army corps that threatened Huningen, the famous army corps of the Black Forest, which had made all Alsace tremble, this was composed of a petty detachment of Wurtembergers—two battalions of foot and a squadron of horse—who by skilful tactics, repeated marching and counter-marching, sudden and unforeseen apparitions, had created a belief in the presence of thirty or forty thousand men. To think the Dannemarie Viaduct had narrowly escaped being blown up that morning! Twenty leagues of prosperous country had been ravaged through an idiotic panic, for no reason whatever; and at thought of all they had seen that dreadful day—the inhabitants flying in terror, driving their cattle into the mountains, and the stream of furniture-laden vehicles flowing towards the town amid a troop of women and children—the soldiers felt thoroughly enraged, and vented their anger in exasperated jeers.
'It's altogether too funny,' stammered Loubet, with his mouth full, as he flourished his spoon. 'So that was the enemy we were taken to fight? There was nobody at all. Twelve leagues forward and twelve back, and not even a mouse anywhere. All that for nothing—for the mere pleasure of getting in a funk!'
Then Chouteau, who was noisily cleaning his basin, soundly rated the generals without naming them: 'The hogs! What idiots they are! As timid as hares. As they bolted like that when there was nobody, what would they have done had they found a real army in front of them?'
Another armful of wood had been flung on the fire that they might enjoy themselves around the tall leaping flame, and Lapoulle, whilst warming his legs, with an air of ecstasy, burst into an idiotic laugh at Chouteau's remarks, though he could not understand them; whereupon Jean, who had hitherto turned a deaf ear to the chatter, ventured to say paternally: 'Can't you be quiet? If you were overheard there might be some unpleasantness.' He, himself, with his simple common sense, was disgusted with the stupidity of the commanders. Still, he must enforce respect, and as Chouteau continued growling, he stopped him by saying, 'Silence! Here's the lieutenant. Address yourself to him if you have any remark to make.'
Maurice, who sat apart from the others in silence, had lowered his head. This was the end of everything! They were only at the beginning of the war, but it was all over. The indiscipline and mutinous behaviour of the men at the very first reverse had already turned the army into a mere mob without a tie to bind it together, but thoroughly demoralised and ripe for every catastrophe. They, beneath Belfort, had not seen a single Prussian, yet they were already beaten.
The monotonous days that followed were fraught with uneasiness and the tedium of waiting. To occupy the time of his men General Douay made them toil at the defensive works of the fortress, which were still far from completed. They turned up the soil and split the rocks. Meanwhile, no news came. Where was MacMahon? What was taking place under Metz? The most extravagant rumours circulated; only a few Paris newspapers reached the troops, and these, by their contradictory statements, increased the black anxiety amid which they were struggling. Twice had the general written asking for orders, and without even receiving an answer. However, on August 12, the Seventh Corps was at last completed by the arrival of its third division from Italy.[10] Still even now the general only had two divisions with him, for the first one, beaten at Frœschweiler, had been carried off in the rout, and it was not known where the current had cast it. At last, after a week of abandonment, of complete separation from the rest of France, a telegram brought orders for departure. The men were delighted, anything was preferable to the blank life they were leading. And whilst they were getting ready speculations were indulged in. No one knew where they were going. Some said they were to be sent to Strasburg to defend it, while others talked of a bold dash into the Black Forest to intercept the Prussian line of retreat.
Next morning the 106th was among the first regiments to start, packed in cattle trucks. The one in which Jean's squad found itself installed was so full that Loubet pretended there wasn't even room to sneeze. Rations, as usual, had been distributed amid great disorder, and the men, having received in brandy what they ought to have received in food, were nearly all drunk—drunk with a violent, brawling intoxication which vented itself in obscene songs. As the train travelled on they could no longer see one another, owing to the smoke of their pipes, which filled the truck as with fog. It was also unbearably hot there, owing to the fermentation of all these closely packed bodies, and as they sped along vociferous cries poured out of the black flying vehicle, drowning the sound of the wheels, and dying away afar off in the mournful country. It was only on reaching Langres that the men realised they were being taken back to Paris.
'Ah! Thunder!' repeated Chouteau, who, by the might of his glib tongue, already reigned undisputed master of his little corner, 'sure enough, we shall be drawn up at Charentonneau to prevent Bismarck from taking a nap at the Tuileries.'
The others roared, thinking this very droll, though they could not say why. However, the slightest incidents of the journey—the sight of some peasants posted beside the line, of the groups of anxious people who, in the hope of obtaining news, were waiting at the smaller stations for the trains to pass, the view, too, of all that region of France scared and quivering in presence of the invasion—sufficed to provoke hooting, shouting, and deafening laughter. And in the gust of wind that swept by as the engine forged onward, amid the rapid view they obtained of the train enveloped in smoke and noise, those that had hastened to the stations received full in the face the howls of these men, all food for powder, who were being carried along at express speed. At one station, however, where they stopped, three well-dressed ladies, rich bourgeoises of the town, who distributed bowls of broth to the soldiers, met with great success. The men cried as they thanked them, and kissed their hands.
But farther on, the filthy songs and the savage yells burst forth again. Shortly after passing Chaumont the train met another one full of some artillerymen who were no doubt being taken to Metz. Speed had just been slackened, and the soldiers of the two trains fraternised amid a fearful clamour. It was, however, the artillerymen, doubtless more intoxicated than the others, who carried off the palm by shaking their fists out of the trucks and raising this cry with such despairing violence that it drowned everything else: 'To the slaughter! slaughter! slaughter!'
It seemed as if a great chill, an icy wind from a charnel-house were passing by. There was a sudden brief silence, amid which one heard Loubet jeering: 'The comrades are not gay.'
'But they are in the right,' rejoined Chouteau, in his tavern-orator's voice; 'it's disgusting to send a lot of brave chaps to get their heads cracked on account of some dirty business they don't know a word about.' And he continued