Part 32 (1/2)
Cavalry?
I listened.
Yes, surely. But what cavalry? Ours?
Curiosity got the better of me, and I put my head out of the empty sash to behold a most pathetic sight. There in the pouring rain stood some twenty s.h.i.+vering horses, once fine animals' but now wounded and broken.
The lamentable little group, left-behinds of the invaders, was headed by my old gray donkey, who had gathered them together and was now leading them towards warmth and shelter. This sympathy among animals moved me deeply, and I started down to see what I could do to alleviate their suffering.
I am ashamed to say, however, that I never reached the stable, for the sights of filth and horror that I met on the way so distracted me that I pushed on through the whole house, anxious to see really how much damage had been done.
I was still making my disheartening rounds when the others drove into the yard, and the wails of lamentation rose long and loud from their lips.
How can one describe it? It seems almost impossible. Too much has already been said, too little is really known, so I shall content myself with a few brief statements.
Above all I would have it understood that the chateau was first occupied by General von Muck and his staff. The names crayoned on the doors of my bedrooms in big red letters bear testimony--as well as some soiled under-linen and a _gla.s.sentuch_ marked v. K.--and numerous papers stamped with the Imperial seal. These latter are all orders or reports belonging to the third army corps, and were left behind in the precipitation of the flight!
As I now am able to see the matter in a cooler frame of mind, I realize that not only was efficiency carried out in warfare but in looting--for it seems that everything we possessed was systematically cla.s.sified as good, bad or indifferent--the former and the latter being carefully packed into huge army supply carts, which for five long days stood backed up against our doorstep, leaving only when completely laden with spoils.
Then what remained was thrown into corners and willfully soiled and smeared in the most disgusting and nauseating manner.
A proof of the above-mentioned efficiency can be given in a description of my husband's studio, where I found all the frames standing empty--the canvases having been carefully cut from them with a razor, and rolled for convenience' sake.
Useless to mention that tapestries, silver, jewels, blankets and household, as well as personal linen, were considered trophies of war.
That to me is far more comprehensible than the fact that our chateau being installed with all modern sanitary conveniences, these were purposely ignored, and corridors and comers, satin window curtains and even beds, were used for the most ign.o.ble purposes.
Everywhere were sickening traces of sodden drunkenness. On the table beside each bed (most of them now bereft of their mattresses) stood champagne bottles, and half emptied gla.s.ses. The straw-strewn drawing-room much resembled a cheap beer garden after a Sat.u.r.day night's riot, and the unfortunate upright piano was not only decked with empty champagne bottles but also contained some two to three hundred pots of jam poured down inside--gla.s.s and all, probably just for a joke. Oh, _Kultur!_
I think that and the fact that most of my ducks and small animals had been killed and left to lie and rot, were the things that most angered me, and every time the guns boomed I prayed ardently for revenge!
And 'twas I, who believing in Teuton chivalry, had imagined my love-letters, protected by my country's emblem, would be respected! My poor little rosewood desk had been mercilessly jabbed with bayonets, and its contents strewn from one end of the village to the other. As to the Stars and Stripes, when we finally disgorged the pipes of certain sanitary apparatus that one does not usually mention in polite society, they were found there in a lamentable condition and carried to the wash-house with a tongs.