The Debacle - Emile Zola [89]
Delaherche had been an ardent Bonapartist at the time of the plebiscite, but since the first reverses he admitted that the Empire had made some mistakes. However, he still defended the dynasty and pitied Napoleon III, who was being deceived by everybody. So according to him the people really responsible for our disasters were none other than the republican deputies in the opposition who had prevented the voting of the necessary numbers of men and financial credits.
‘And did the Emperor go back to the farmhouse?’ asked Captain Beaudoin.
‘Well, sir, I really don’t know, I left him on his campstool. It was midday, the battle was getting closer and I was beginning to be concerned about getting home… All I can add is that a general, to whom I pointed out Carignan in the distance on the plain behind us, seemed amazed to learn that the Belgian frontier was there, a few kilometres away. Oh poor Emperor, he has some wonderful servants!’
Gilberte, smiling and quite at her ease, as of old in her widowhood when she entertained in her drawing-room, concerned herself with the captain, passing him toast and butter. She tried to insist on his accepting a room or a bed, but he declined, and it was settled that he would only lie down for a couple of hours on a settee in Delaherche’s study before rejoining his regiment. As he was taking the sugar-basin from the young woman, old Madame Delaherche, who kept her eyes glued on them, clearly saw them link fingers; so now she knew.
A maid had just come in.
‘Sir, there’s a soldier downstairs asking for Monsieur Weiss’s address.’
Delaherche was not proud, as they say, and enjoyed talking to the lowly of this world, out of a love of chattering and popularity.
‘Weiss’s address, well, that’s funny!… Bring the soldier in.’
Jean came in, so exhausted that he was reeling. Seeing his captain sitting at table with some ladies, he started slightly in surprise and drew back the hand he was automatically putting out to support himself against a chair. Then he briefly answered the questions of the manufacturer, who was playing up the common touch, the soldier’s friend. In a few words he explained his friendship with Maurice and why he was looking for him.
‘He is a corporal in my company,’ the captain said at last, to cut things short.
He interrogated Jean in his turn, for he was anxious to know what had happened to the regiment. And as Jean said that the colonel had recently been seen going through the town at the head of his remaining men, on the way to camp to the north, Gilberte once again spoke too quickly with the usual impulsiveness of a pretty young woman not given to much thought.
‘Oh why didn’t my uncle come and have breakfast here?… We could have had a room ready for him… Suppose we send somebody to look for him?’
But old Madame Delaherche made a gesture of sovereign authority. In her veins flowed the ancient bourgeois blood of the frontier towns, with all the manly virtues of unbending patriotism. She only broke her severe silence to say:
‘Never mind Monsieur de Vineuil, he is doing his duty.’
That caused some embarrassment. Delaherche took the captain off to his study and wanted to see for himself that he rested on the settee, and Gilberte, in spite of the reprimand, fluttered off like a bird flapping its wings, blithe and gay just the same in the storm, while the maid who had been put in charge of Jean took him through the yards of the factory and into a maze of passages and stairs.
The Weisses lived in the rue des Voyards, but the house, which belonged to Delaherche, communicated with the huge main building in the rue Maqua. This rue des Voyards was at that time one of the strangest in Sedan, a narrow lane, damp and darkened by the rampart with which it ran parallel.