Complete Original Short Stories of Guy De Maupassant. Guy de Maupassant
She gave the Germans her jug of cider.
Then she and her mother supped apart, at the other end of the kitchen.
The soldiers had finished eating, and were all six falling asleep as they sat round the table. Every now and then a forehead fell with a thud on the board, and the man, awakened suddenly, sat upright again.
Berthine said to the officer:
“Go and lie down, all of you, round the fire. There's lots of room for six. I'm going up to my room with my mother.”
And the two women went upstairs. They could be heard locking the door and walking about overhead for a time; then they were silent.
The Prussians lay down on the floor, with their feet to the fire and their heads resting on their rolled-up cloaks. Soon all six snored loudly and uninterruptedly in six different keys.
They had been sleeping for some time when a shot rang out so loudly that it seemed directed against the very walls of the house. The soldiers rose hastily. Two-then three-more shots were fired.
The door opened hastily, and Berthine appeared, barefooted and only half dressed, with her candle in her hand and a scared look on her face.
“There are the French,” she stammered; “at least two hundred of them. If they find you here they'll burn the house down. For God's sake, hurry down into the cellar, and don't make a sound, whatever you do. If you make any noise we are lost.”
“We'll go, we'll go,” replied the terrified officer. “Which is the way?”
The young woman hurriedly raised the small, square trap-door, and the six men disappeared one after another down the narrow, winding staircase, feeling their way as they went.
But as soon as the spike of the last helmet was out of sight Berthine lowered the heavy oaken lid—thick as a wall, hard as steel, furnished with the hinges and bolts of a prison cell—shot the two heavy bolts, and began to laugh long and silently, possessed with a mad longing to dance above the heads of her prisoners.
They made no sound, inclosed in the cellar as in a strong-box, obtaining air only from a small, iron-barred vent-hole.
Berthine lighted her fire again, hung the pot over it, and prepared more soup, saying to herself:
“Father will be tired to-night.”
Then she sat and waited. The heavy pendulum of the clock swung to and fro with a monotonous tick.
Every now and then the young woman cast an impatient glance at the dial-a glance which seemed to say:
“I wish he'd be quick!”
But soon there was a sound of voices beneath her feet. Low, confused words reached her through the masonry which roofed the cellar. The Prussians were beginning to suspect the trick she had played them, and presently the officer came up the narrow staircase, and knocked at the trap-door.
“Open the door!” he cried.
“What do you want?” she said, rising from her seat and approaching the cellarway.
“Open the door!”
“I won't do any such thing!”
“Open it or I'll break it down!” shouted the man angrily.
She laughed.
“Hammer away, my good man! Hammer away!”
He struck with the butt-end of his gun at the closed oaken door. But it would have resisted a battering-ram.
The forester's daughter heard him go down the stairs again. Then the soldiers came one after another and tried their strength against the trapdoor. But, finding their efforts useless, they all returned to the cellar and began to talk among themselves.
The young woman heard them for a short time, then she rose, opened the door of the house; looked out into the night, and listened.
A sound of distant barking reached her ear. She whistled just as a huntsman would, and almost immediately two great dogs emerged from the darkness, and bounded to her side. She held them tight, and shouted at the top of her voice:
“Hullo, father!”
A far-off voice replied:
“Hullo, Berthine!”
She waited a few seconds, then repeated:
“Hullo, father!”
The voice, nearer now, replied:
“Hullo, Berthine!”
“Don't go in front of the vent-hole!” shouted his daughter. “There are Prussians in the cellar!”
Suddenly the man's tall figure could be seen to the left, standing between two tree trunks.
“Prussians in the cellar?” he asked anxiously. “What are they doing?”
The young woman laughed.
“They are the same as were here yesterday. They lost their way, and I've given them free lodgings in the cellar.”
She told the story of how she had alarmed them by firing the revolver, and had shut them up in the cellar.
The man, still serious, asked:
“But what am I to do with them at this time of night?”
“Go and fetch Monsieur Lavigne with his men,” she replied. “He'll take them prisoners. He'll be delighted.”
Her father smiled.
“So he will-delighted.”
“Here's some soup for you,” said his daughter. “Eat it quick, and then be off.”
The old keeper sat down at the table, and began to eat his soup, having first filled two plates and put them on the floor for the dogs.
The Prussians, hearing voices, were silent.
Long-legs set off a quarter of an hour later, and Berthine, with her head between her hands, waited.
The prisoners began to make themselves heard again. They shouted, called, and beat furiously with the butts of their muskets against the rigid trap-door of the cellar.
Then they fired shots through the vent-hole, hoping, no doubt, to be heard by any German detachment which chanced to be passing that way.
The forester's daughter did not stir, but the noise irritated and unnerved her. Blind anger rose in her heart against the prisoners; she would have been only too glad to kill them all, and so silence them.
Then, as her impatience grew, she watched the clock, counting the minutes as they passed.
Her father had been gone an hour and a half. He must have reached the town by now. She conjured up a vision of him telling the story to Monsieur Lavigne, who grew pale with emotion, and rang for his servant to bring him his arms and uniform. She fancied she could bear the drum as it sounded the call to arms. Frightened faces appeared at the windows. The citizen-soldiers emerged from their houses half dressed, out of breath, buckling on their belts, and hurrying to the commandant's house.
Then the troop of soldiers, with Long-legs at its head, set forth through the night and the snow toward the forest.
She looked at the clock. “They may be here in an hour.”
A nervous impatience possessed her. The minutes seemed interminable. Would the time never come?
At last the clock marked the moment she had fixed on for their arrival. And she opened the door to listen for their approach. She perceived a shadowy form creeping toward the house. She was afraid, and cried out. But it was her father.
“They have sent me,” he said, “to see if there is any change in the state of affairs.”
“No-none.”