The Debacle - Emile Zola [122]
‘Of course, Mother dear, do come in.’
With her usual thoughtlessness she let her in without noticing that the army gloves were still there on the table. Henriette rushed to seize them and throw them behind an armchair, but in vain. Madame Delaherche must have noticed them, for she remained speechless for several seconds, as though she could not get her breath. She instinctively ran her eyes round the room, let them pause on the red curtained bed, still all unmade and in disorder.
‘So it was Madame Weiss who came up and woke you… You managed to sleep, my dear.’
Obviously she had not come to say that. Oh dear, this marriage that her son had insisted on going into against her will, at the dangerous age of fifty, after twenty years of a frigid married existence with a disagreeable, scraggy woman! He had been so reasonable until then, and was now carried away by a youthful passion for this pretty widow who was so flighty and frivolous! She had made up her mind to keep an eye on the present, and now here was the past coming back! But should she say anything? As it was she only existed as a silent reproach in the home, always stayed shut up in her room, and was unbending in her religious life. But this time the disloyalty was so flagrant that she resolved to tell her son.
Gilberte blushed and answered:
‘Yes, I did manage to get a few hours of good sleep… You know Jules still hasn’t come back.’
Madame Delaherche cut her short with a gesture. She had been worrying ever since the gunfire began, and watching out for her son’s return. But she was a heroic mother. And then she remembered what she had come to do.
‘Your uncle the colonel has sent Major Bouroche with a pencilled note to ask whether we could fit up a casualty station here. He knows we’ve got room in the mill, and I’ve already put the yard and drying-shed at their disposal… Only you ought to go down…’
‘Oh yes, straight away! Straight away!’ said Henriette, joining in. ‘We’ll help.’
Gilberte herself seemed very concerned and enthusiastic about this new role as a nurse. She just took the time to tie a lace scarf over her hair and the three women went down. As they reached the archway down below, through the open gate they saw some people gathered in the street. A low vehicle was slowly coming along, a sort of trap with one horse being led by a lieutenant in the Zouaves. They thought it was. the first wounded being brought in.
‘Yes, yes, here it is, come in!’
But they were quickly undeceived. The wounded man lying on the floor of the trap was Marshal MacMahon, part of whose left buttock had been shot away, and he was being brought to the Sub-Prefecture after an emergency dressing in a gardener’s cottage. He was bareheaded and half undressed, and the gold braid on his uniform was soiled with dirt and blood. Without speaking he lifted his head and looked about him vaguely. Then seeing the three women standing horrified and wringing their hands as this great disaster went by – the whole army stricken in its commander-in-chief as the very first shots were fired – he nodded slightly with a wan paternal smile. A few onlookers standing by had doffed their hats. Others were already busily explaining that General Ducrot had been appointed commander-in-chief. It was half past seven.
‘And what about the Emperor?’ Henriette asked a bookseller standing at his door.
‘He went by nearly an hour ago,’ answered the neighbour. ‘I went along with him and saw him go out by the Balan gate. There’s a rumour that his head has been shot off.’
The grocer opposite was angry.
‘Come off it, that can’t be true! Only the brave give their lives.’
Towards the Place du Collège the trap carrying the marshal disappeared into the swelling crowds, among whom the most far-fetched reports from the battlefield were already going round. The mist was thinning and the streets filling with sunshine.
But then there came a harsh voice from the courtyard:
‘Ladies, it isn’t there