The Debacle - Emile Zola [247]
Then Gilberte took advantage of the opportunity to mention old Fouchard.
‘Captain, may I introduce one of my best friends… She wants you to help her; she is the niece of the farmer they arrested at Remilly, you remember, after that fuss over the guerrillas.’
‘Oh yes, that business about the spy, the poor devil they found in a sack… Oh that is serious, very serious – I’m very much afraid there is nothing I can do.’
‘Captain, you would make me so happy!’
She turned caressing eyes on him and he showed smug satisfaction and bowed with an air of gallant obedience. Anything she wanted!
‘Sir, I would be most grateful,’ Henriette managed to stammer out, overcome with irresistible revulsion as she suddenly thought of her husband, her poor Weiss, shot up there at Bazeilles.
Edmond, who had discreetly withdrawn as soon as the captain came in, now returned and whispered a word in Gilberte’s ear. She leaped up, explained about the lace, which the woman had just brought, apologized and followed the young man out. Finding herself alone with the two men, Henriette was able to withdraw into herself and sit in a window recess while they went on talking at the tops of their voices.
‘Captain, do have a brandy… You see, I’m not standing on ceremony, but saying whatever I think, because I know how broad-minded you are. Well then, I assure you that your prefect is making a mistake by insisting on bleeding the town still more with this forty-two thousand francs. Just think what our sacrifices add up to since the beginning. First, just before the battle, the whole of the French army, exhausted and ravenous. Then you, and you were famished too. Just these troops going through, requisitions, repairs, expenses of all kinds, these things alone have cost us a million and a half. Add to that as much again for damage caused by the battle, destruction, fires – that makes three million. And finally I estimate the loss to industry and commerce at two million… Well now, what do you say to that! That brings us to a figure of five million for a town of thirteen thousand inhabitants! And you are asking for another levy of forty-two thousand, I don’t quite know what for! Is it fair? Is it reasonable?’
Captain von Gartlauben nodded and merely answered:
‘What do you expect? It’s war, it’s war!’
The wait went on and Henriette’s ears were buzzing and all sorts of vague and gloomy thoughts were making her dizzy as she sat there in the window seat while Delaherche was swearing on his honour that Sedan would never have been able to cope with the crisis, given the almost total lack of legal coinage, had it not been for the heaven-sent notion of creating a local token currency – paper money issued by the Caisse du Crédit Industriel, which had saved the town from financial disaster.
‘Captain, do have another little glass of brandy…’
And he jumped to another subject.
‘It wasn’t France that made the war, it was the Empire… Oh, the Emperor took me in altogether. It’s all over with him, we would rather be hacked to pieces than… You see, only one man saw how things really were in July, yes, Monsieur Thiers, whose present tour of European capitals is another great act of wisdom and patriotism. The wishes of all reasonable people go with him, may he be successful!’
He completed his thought with a gesture, for he would have deemed it improper to express a desire for peace in front of a Prussian, even a friendly one. But this desire was very strong in him, as it was in the hearts of all the old conservative bourgeoisie who had taken part in the referendum. They were coming to the end of their blood and their money and would have to give in, and from all the occupied provinces there was rising a sullen resentment against Paris, with its obstinate resistance. So he lowered his voice and, alluding to Gambetta’s inflammatory proclamation, concluded: