The Debacle - Emile Zola [166]
‘Oh my poor darling!’
When she had pulled herself together at about two o’clock Henriette had found herself at Balan, in the kitchen of some people she did not know, with her head on the table, crying. But her tears dried up. In this quiet and delicately made woman a heroine was already being born. She was without fear and her soul was steadfast, invincible. In her grief all she thought of was recovering her husband’s body and burying him. Her first idea was to go back to Bazeilles there and then, but everybody dissuaded her and pointed out that it was absolutely out of the question. So she set about looking for somebody, some man to go with her and take the the necessary steps. She thought of a cousin, formerly assistant manager of the General Refinery at Le Chêne when Weiss worked there. He had been very fond of her husband and surely he would not refuse to help. For the last two years, after his wife had received a legacy, he had retired to a nice house and garden, L’Ermitage, the terraces of which were near Sedan, on the other side of the Fond-de-Givonne valley. This was where she was making for in spite of obstacles, held up at every step, and in continual danger of being trampled on and killed.
She rapidly explained the idea to Maurice, who approved.
‘Cousin Dubreuil has always been so good to us… He’ll be useful to you.’
Then he, too, had an idea. Lieutenant Rochas wanted to save the flag. It had already been suggested that it should be cut up and that each man should carry a piece under his shirt, or again that it should be buried at the foot of a tree and that bearings be taken so that it could be dug up later. But it was too depressing to think of this flag being cut to pieces or buried like a dead thing, and they wished they could think of something else.
So when Maurice proposed giving the flag to somebody quite reliable who would hide it and if necessary defend it until the day it could be returned intact, they all agreed.
‘Very well,’ he said to his sister, ‘we’ll go with you to see whether Dubreuil is at L’Ermitage… In any case I don’t want to leave you.’
It was not easy to get out of the crush, but they managed to and hurried up a sunken lane to the left. Then they found themselves in a real labyrinth of paths and lanes, quite a little township of market gardens, pleasure grounds and country homes, small properties all mixed up with each other, and these little lanes and alleys ran along between walls, made sharp turns and came to dead ends – a marvellous system of fortifications for guerrilla warfare, with corners that ten men could defend for hours against a regiment. And already shots were going off in there, for this district overlooked Sedan and the Prussian Guard was coming in on the opposite side of the valley.
When Maurice and Henriette, followed by the others, had hurried left, then right, between two endless walls, they suddenly emerged in front of the wide open gate of L’Ermitage. The estate, with its little park, was on three broad terraces, on one of which stood the building, a large square house reached by an avenue of ancient elms. Opposite, across the narrow, deep valley, there were other properties on the edge of a wood.
The door left brutally open worried Henriette.
‘They aren’t here. They must have gone.’
And indeed, foreseeing certain disaster, Dubreuil had decided to take his wife and children to Bouillon the day before. But the house was not empty, and even from a distance and through the trees you could tell that something was going on inside. As she was venturing into the avenue the corpse of a Prussian soldier made her jump back.
‘Blimey!’ exclaimed Rochas. ‘There’s already been some sparring here!’
Anxious to find out, they all pushed on towards the house, and what they saw made it plain: the ground-floor doors and windows must have been smashed in with rifle-butts, the gaping holes opened into looted rooms, and furniture thrown outside was lying on the gravel terrace at