Part 18 (1/2)

It made one's hair stand on end.

I had just risen, and was lighting a lamp, when we heard two knocks at our door.

”Come in!” said Sorle, trembling.

The sergeant opened the door. He was in marching equipments, with his gaiters on his legs, his large gray cap turned up at the sides, his musket on his shoulder, and his sabre and cartridge-box on his back.

”Father Moses,” said he, ”go back to bed and be quiet: it is the battalion call at the barracks, and has nothing to do with you.”

And we saw at once that he was right, for the drums did not come up the street two by two, as when the National Guard was called in.

”Thank you, sergeant,” I said.

”Go to sleep!” said he, and he went down the stairs.

The door of the alley below slammed to. Then the children, who had waked up, began to cry. Zeffen came in, very pale, with her baby in her arms, exclaiming, ”Mercy! What is the matter?”

”It is nothing, Zeffen,” said Sorle. ”It is nothing, my child: they are beating the call for the soldiers.”

At the same moment the battalion came down the main street. We heard them march as far as to the Place d'Armes, and beyond it toward the German gate.

We shut the windows, Zeffen went back to her room, and I lay down again.

But how could I sleep after such a start? My head was full of a thousand thoughts: I fancied the arrival of the Russians on the hill this cold night, and our soldiers marching to meet them, or manning the ramparts. I thought of all the blindages and block-houses, and batteries inside the bastions, and that all these great works had been made to guard against bombs and sh.e.l.ls, and I exclaimed inwardly: ”Before the enemy has demolished all these works, our houses will be crushed, and we shall be exterminated to the last man.”

I took on in this way for about half an hour, thinking of all the calamities which threatened us, when I heard outside the city, toward Quatre-Vents, a kind of heavy rolling, rising and falling like the murmur of running water. This was repeated every second. I raised myself on my elbow to listen, and I knew that it was a fight far more terrible than that at Mittelbronn, for the rolling did not stop, but seemed rather to increase.

”How they are fighting, Sorle, how they are fighting!” I exclaimed, as I pictured to myself the fury of those men murdering each other at the dead of night, not knowing what they were doing. ”Listen! Sorle, listen! If that does not make one shudder!”

”Yes,” said she. ”I hope our sergeant will not be wounded; I hope he will come back safe!”

”May the Lord watch over him!” I replied, jumping from my bed, and lighting a candle.

I could not control myself. I dressed myself as quickly as if I were going to run away; and afterward I listened to that terrible rolling, which came nearer or died away with every gust of wind.

When once dressed, I opened a window, to try to see something. The street was still black; but toward the ramparts, above the dark line of the a.r.s.enal bastions, was stretched a line of red.

The smoke of powder is red on account of the musket shots which light it up. It looked like a great fire. All the windows in the street were open: nothing could be seen, but I heard our neighbor the armorer say to his wife, ”It is growing warm down there! It is the beginning of the dance, Annette; but they have not got the big drum yet; that will come, by and by!”

The woman did not answer, and I thought, ”Is it possible to jest about such things! It is against nature.”

The cold was so severe that after five or six minutes I shut the window. Sorle got up and made a fire in the stove.

The whole city was in commotion; men were shouting and dogs barking.

Safel, who had been wakened by all these noises, went to dress himself in the warm room. I looked very tenderly on this poor little one, his eyes still heavy with sleep; and as I thought that we were to be fired upon, that we must hide ourselves in cellars, and all of us be in danger of being killed for matters which did not concern us, and about which n.o.body had asked our opinion, I was full of indignation. But what distressed me most was to hear Zeffen sob and say that it would have been better for her and her children to stay with Baruch at Saverne and all die together.

Then the words of the prophet came to me: ”Is not this thy fear, thy confidence, thy hope, and the uprightness of thy ways?

”Remember, I pray thee, who ever perished being innocent, or where were the righteous cut off.