The Debacle - Emile Zola [172]
To prevent the garden and ambulance station from being overrun, Major Bouroche had taken the precaution of posting two pickets at the entrance. This was a relief to Delaherche, to whom it had just occurred that his home might be given up to looting. In the garden the sight of the temporary hospital, ill-lit by a few lanterns and giving off a foul smell of sickness, once again struck a chill into his heart. He tripped over a soldier asleep on the paving-stones and recollected the existence of the cash of the 7th corps, which this man had been guarding since that morning, and, no doubt forgotten by his officers, he was so dead beat that he had lain down. The house itself looked empty and the ground floor was quite dark, with the doors wide open. The servants must have stayed in the ambulance station, for there was nobody in the kitchen, where only one miserable little lamp was smoking. He lit a candle and went softly up the main staircase so as not to wake up his mother and his wife, whom he had begged to go to bed after such a heavy day and such terrible emotions.
But as he went into his study he had a shock. A soldier was stretched out on the sofa on which Captain Beaudoin had slept for some hours the day before, and he only understood when he recognized Maurice, Henriette’s brother; particularly as when he turned round he saw another soldier on the carpet, wrapped in a blanket, the Jean whom he had seen the day before. They were both knocked out, dead to the world. He did not stay there, but went on into his wife’s room next door. There was a lamp burning on the corner of a table, and an eerie silence. Gilberte had thrown herself across the bed fully dressed, for fear of some disaster, presumably. She was sleeping very peacefully, and by her bedside Henriette was asleep too, sitting on a chair with just her head resting on the bed, but her sleep was disturbed by nightmares, and there were big tears under her lids. He stood there looking at them both for a moment and was tempted to wake Henriette up and find out. Had she been to Bazeilles? Perhaps if he asked her she could give him some news about his dyeworks. But pity came over him, and he was withdrawing when his mother appeared noiselessly at the door and beckoned him to follow.
As they went through the dining-room he expressed his astonishment:
‘What, not in bed yet?’
She first shook her head and then whispered:
‘I can’t sleep, I’m in an armchair beside the colonel… He’s now got a very high temperature and keeps on waking up and asking questions. I don’t know how to answer. You come and have a look at him.’
Monsieur de Vineuil had already dropped off to sleep again. His long, red face with its bushy, snow-white moustache could just be made out on the pillow, for Madame Delaherche had shielded the lamp with a newspaper and all that part of the room was in semidarkness, while the bright light shone on her as she sat stiffly in the armchair with her hands hanging loose and eyes far away in a tragic dream.
‘Just a minute,’ she murmured, ‘I think he’s heard you, he’s waking up again.’
The colonel was indeed opening his eyes again, and he gazed at Delaherche without moving his head. Then he recognized him and at once asked in a voice weak with fever:
‘It’s all over, isn’t it? They’re capitulating.’
Delaherche caught his mother’s eye and was on the point of telling him a lie. But what was the point? He said with a gesture of weariness:
‘What do you expect them to do? If you could see the state of the streets in the town!… General de Wimpffen has just gone to the Prussian headquarters to discuss terms.’
Monsieur de Vineuil shut his eyes again and he gave a long shudder and moaned softly:
‘Oh God! Oh God!