The Debacle - Emile Zola [57]
But with Major Bouroche things nearly went wrong from the very first words.
‘It’s my foot, doctor, it’s got the skin off…’
‘Don’t call me doctor… who sent me a bloody soldier like this?’
As Maurice was nervously trying to apologize he went on:
‘I’m the major, don’t you understand, you clot?’
Then, realizing the sort of person he was dealing with, he must have felt a bit ashamed, for he stormed louder than ever:
‘Your foot, that’s a nice tale! All right, all right, you can have permission. Go in a carriage, go in a balloon. We’ve got enough Tired Tims and Weary Willies here!’
When Jean helped Maurice up into the trap the latter turned round to thank him and the two men hugged each other as though they were never to see each other again. How could you tell, in all the confusion of retreat, with these Prussians about? Maurice was still surprised at the deep affection that already tied him to this fellow. Twice more he turned round and waved him good-bye, and so he left the camp, where they were preparing to light big fires to deceive the enemy while they slipped off quite noiselessly before dawn.
On the road the farmer moaned continuously about the times being out of joint. He had not had the courage to stay at Falaise, and now he was already sorry he wasn’t still there, repeating that he was ruined if the enemy set fire to his house. His daughter, a lanky, colourless creature, was snivelling. But Maurice, who was drunk with fatigue, did not hear, for he was asleep on his seat, lulled by the smart trot of the little horse, which covered the four leagues from Vouziers to Le Chêne in under an hour and a half. It was not yet seven, and dusk was hardly setting in when the young man, startled out of sleep and shivering, got down at the canal bridge on to the open space in front of the narrow yellow house where he was born and where he had lived twenty years of his existence. He made for it automatically although the house had been sold eighteen months before to a veterinary surgeon. When the farmer asked him if he could help he answered that he knew quite well where he was going and thanked him very much for his kindness.
But in the middle of the little three-sided space, by the well, he stood still, puzzled, his mind a blank. Where was he aiming for? Then he remembered he was making for the notary’s, whose house adjoined the one in which he had grown up, and whose mother, the very old and kind Madame Desroches, as a neighbour used to spoil him when he was a child. But he hardly recognized Le Chêne, for this normally dead-and-alive little town was in a state of uproar caused by the presence of an army corps camped just outside, filling the streets with officers, dispatch riders, camp-followers, prowlers and hangers-on of all kinds. Of course he knew the canal cutting through the town from end to end and dividing the central square, and the narrow stone bridge connecting the two triangles; and on the further side the market hall was still there with its moss-covered roof, the rue Berond going off to the left and the Sedan road to the right. But from where he was he had to look up and see the clock tower with its slate roof above the notary’s house to be sure this really was the quiet corner where he had played hopscotch long ago, for the rue de Vouziers in front of him, as far as the Hôtel de Ville, was buzzing with a solid mass of people. On the open space itself he thought an area was being kept clear and men were heading off sightseers. And there, to his surprise, he saw a large space taken up behind the well by a large park of carriages, vans, carts, a whole encampment of baggage he had certainly seen before.
The sun had gone down into the straight and blood-red water of the canal and Maurice was making up his mind when a woman who had been looking at him for a minute or two exclaimed:
‘Good Lord, can it be possible? Surely you are the Levasseur boy?’
Then he recognized Madame Combette, the chemist’s wife on the square. As he was