The Debacle - Emile Zola [173]
Keeping his eyes shut he went on in gasps:
‘Oh, what I wanted… they should have done it yesterday… Yes, I knew the terrain and I told the general what I was afraid of… but nobody would listen to him either… Up there, above Saint-Menges, as far as Fleigneux, all the heights occupied, the army dominating Sedan, commanding the Saint-Albert gap… There we were waiting in quite impregnable positions, the Mézières road still open…’
His words were getting mixed up, he mumbled a few more unintelligible words as his vision of the battle, born of a high fever, gradually faded out and vanished into sleep. In his sleep perhaps he was still dreaming of victory.
‘Does the major think he’ll pull through?’ Delaherche whispered.
Madame Delaherche nodded.
‘All the same, it’s terrible, those wounds in the foot,’ he went on. ‘He’ll be a long time in bed, won’t he?’
This time she made no reply, herself lost in the great grief of the defeat. She belonged to an already bygone age, that of the old, sturdy frontier bourgeoisie, so fierce in former days in defence of its towns. In the strong lamplight her severe face with its thin nose and tight lips expressed her anger and suffering, the feeling of revolt which made sleep impossible for her.
So Delaherche felt isolated and filled with dreadful distress. His unbearable hunger was coming on again, and he thought it must just be weakness that was draining him in this way of all his courage. He tiptoed out of the room and went down to the kitchen again, candlestick in hand. But he found it drearier than ever, with the stove out, the cupboard bare and cloths thrown all over the place as if the wind of disaster had blown through there and taken with it all the life and joy of anything that can be eaten or drunk. At first he thought he would not discover even a crust, for the odd bits of bread had gone down to the ambulance station in the soup. But then in the back of a cupboard he came upon some of yesterday’s beans that had been overlooked. He devoured them with neither butter nor bread, standing there and not daring to go upstairs for such a meal, which he hurried through in this dismal kitchen which the guttering little lamp made stink of paraffin.
It was not much after ten, and Delaherche had nothing he could do while waiting to know whether the capitulation was really going to be signed. He had a nagging worry that the struggle might be resumed, and a terror of what would happen then which he kept to himself and which weighed heavily on him. Having gone up to his study again, where Maurice and Jean had not moved, he tried in vain to stretch out in an armchair, but sleep would not come, and noises of exploding shells made him jump up again just as he was dropping off. The dreadful bombardment of the day had stayed in his ears, and he listened in terror for a minute and was left trembling at the heavy silence surrounding him. Not being able to sleep, he preferred to get up, and wandered through the dark rooms, avoiding the one in which his mother was watching over the colonel, for her fixed stare following him round got on his nerves. Twice he went back to see whether Henriette had awakened, and paused and watched how peaceful his wife’s face was. Until two in the morning, not knowing what to do, he went up and down from one place to another.
It could not go on for ever. Delaherche decided to go back yet again to the Sub-Prefecture, knowing that there would be no rest for him so long as he did not know. But down below, when he saw the jammed street, his heart failed him. He would never have the strength to get there and back with all these obstacles, the very memory of which made him feel exhausted. He was still hesitating when Major Bouroche came in, puffing and blowing and swearing.
‘Christ! It’s enough to kill you!’
He had had to go the the Hôtel de Ville to beg the mayor to requisition some chloroform and send him some by dawn because his supply had run out, operations were imperative and he was afraid, as he put it, that he would be obliged to mince up the poor buggers without putting