The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse Part 23

Then she would look at Rene in his exquisitely fresh uniform, sweet-mannered and smiling as though all war meant to him was a mere change of attire, and she would exclaim enigmatically:

"What luck that you will never have to go to the front! ... How fine that you don't run any risks!"

And her lover would accept these words as but another proof of her affectionate interest.

One day Don Marcelo was able to appreciate the horrors of the war without leaving Paris. Three thousand Belgian refugees were quartered provisionally in the circus before being distributed among the provinces. When Desnoyers entered this place, he saw in the vestibule the same posters which had been flaunting their spectacular gayeties when he had visited it a few months before with his family.

Now he noticed the odor from a sick and miserable mult.i.tude crowded together--like the exhalation from a prison or poorhouse infirmary. He saw a throng that seemed crazy or stupefied with grief. They did not know exactly where they were; they had come thither, they didn't know how. The terrible spectacle of the invasion was still so persistent in their minds that it left room for no other impression. They were still seeing the helmeted men in their peaceful hamlets, their homes in flames, the soldiery firing upon those who were fleeing, the mutilated women done to death by incessant adulterous a.s.sault, the old men burned alive, the children stabbed in their cradles by human beasts inflamed by alcohol and license... . Some of the octogenarians were weeping as they told how the soldiers of a civilized nation were cutting off the b.r.e.a.s.t.s from the women in order to nail them to the doors, how they had pa.s.sed around as a trophy a new-born babe spiked on a bayonet, how they had shot aged men in the very armchair in which they were huddled in their sorrowful weakness, torturing them first with their jests and taunts.

They had fled blindly, pursued by fire and shot, as crazed with terror as the people of the middle ages trying not to be ridden down by the hordes of galloping Huns and Mongols. And this flight had been across the country in its loveliest festal array, in the most productive of months, when the earth was bristling with ears of grain, when the August sky was most brilliant, and when the birds were greeting the opulent harvest with their glad songs!

In that circus, filled with the wandering crowds, the immense crime was living again. The children were crying with a sound like the bleating of lambs; the men were looking wildly around with terrified eyes; the frenzied women were howling like the insane. Families had become separated in the terror of flight. A mother of five little ones now had but one. The parents, as they realized the number missing, were thinking with anguish of those who had disappeared. Would they ever find them again? ... Or were they already dead? ...

Don Marcelo returned home, grinding his teeth and waving his cane in an alarming manner. Ah, the bandits! ... If only his sister-in-law could change her s.e.x! Why wasn't she a man? ... It would be better still if she could suddenly a.s.sume the form of her husband, von Hartrott. What an interesting interview the two brothers-in-law would have! ...

The war was awakening religious sentiment in the men and increasing the devotion of the women. The churches were filled. Dona Luisa was no longer confining herself to those of her neighborhood. With the courage induced by extraordinary events, she was traversing Paris afoot and going from the Madeleine to Notre Dame, or to the Sacre Coeur on the heights of Montmartre. Religious festivals were now thronged like popular a.s.semblies. The preachers were tribunes. Patriotic enthusiasm interrupted many sermon with applause.

Each morning on opening the papers, before reading the war news, Senora Desnoyers would hunt other notices. "Where was Father Amette going to be to-day?" Then, under the arched vaultings of that temple, would she unite her voice with the devout chorus imploring supernatural intervention. "Lord, save France!" Patriotic religiosity was putting Sainte Genevieve at the head of the favored ones, so from all these fiestas, Dona Luisa, tremulous with faith, would return in expectation of a miracle similar to that which the patron saint of Paris had worked before the invading hordes of Attila.

Dona Elena was also visiting the churches, but those nearest the house.

Her brother-in-law saw her one afternoon entering Saint-Honoree d'Eylau.

The building was filled with the faithful, and on the altar was a sheaf of flags--France and the allied nations. The imploring crowd was not composed entirely of women. Desnoyers saw men of his age, pompous and grave, moving their lips and fixing steadfast eyes on the altar on which were reflected like lost stars, the flames of the candles. And again he felt envy. They were fathers who were recalling their childhood prayers, thinking of their sons in battle. Don Marcelo, who had always considered religion with indifference, suddenly recognized the necessity of faith. He wanted to pray like the others, with a vague, indefinite supplication, including all beings who were struggling and dying for a land that he had not tried to defend.

He was scandalized to see von Hartrott's wife kneeling among these people raising her eyes to the cross in a look of anguished entreaty.

She was begging heaven to protect her husband, the German who perhaps at this moment was concentrating all his devilish faculties on the best organization for crus.h.i.+ng the weak; she was praying for her sons, officers of the King of Prussia, who revolver in hand were entering villages and farmlands, driving before them a horror-stricken crowd, leaving behind them fire and death. And these orisons were going to mingle with those of the mothers who were praying for the youth trying to check the onslaught of the barbarians--with the pet.i.tions of these earnest men, rigid in their tragic grief! ...

He had to make a great effort not to protest aloud, and he left the church. His sister-in-law had no right to kneel there among those people.

"They ought to put her out!" he growled indignantly. "She is compromising G.o.d with her absurd entreaties."

But in spite of his annoyance, he had to endure her living in his household, and at the same time had taken great pains to prevent her nationality being known outside.

It was a severe trial for Don Marcelo to be obliged to keep silent when at table with his family. He had to avoid the hysterics of his sister-in-law who promptly burst into sighs and sobs at the slightest allusion to her hero; and he feared equally the complaints of his wife, always ready to defend her sister, as though she were the victim... .

That a man in his own home should have to curb his tongue and speak tactfully! ...

The only satisfaction permitted him was to announce the military moves.

The French had entered Belgium. "It appears that the Boches have had a good set-back." The slightest clash of cavalry, a simple encounter with the advance troops, he would glorify as a decisive victory. "In Lorraine, too, we are making great headway!" ... But suddenly the fountain of his bubbling optimism seemed to become choked up. To judge from the periodicals, nothing extraordinary was occurring. They continued publis.h.i.+ng war-stories so as to keep enthusiasm at fever-heat, but nothing definite. The Government, too, was issuing communications of vague and rhetorical verbosity. Desnoyers became alarmed, his instinct warning him of danger. "There is something wrong," he thought. "There's a spring broken somewhere!"

This lack of encouraging news coincided exactly with the sudden rise in Dona Elena's spirits. With whom had that woman been talking? Whom did she meet when she was on the street? ... Without dropping her pose as a martyr, with the same woebegone look and drooping mouth, she was talking, and talking treacherously. The torment of Don Marcelo in being obliged to listen to the enemy harbored within his gates! ... The French had been vanquished in Lorraine and in Belgium at the same time.

A body of the army had deserted the colors; many prisoners, many cannon were captured. "Lies! German exaggerations!" howled Desnoyers. And Chichi with the derisive ha-ha's of an insolent girl, drowned out the triumphant communications of the aunt from Berlin. "I don't know, of course," said the unwelcome lodger with mock humility. "Perhaps it is not authentic. I have heard it said." Her host was furious. Where had she heard it said? Who was giving her such news? ...

And in order to ventilate his wrath, he broke forth into tirades against the enemy's espionage, against the carelessness of the police force in permitting so many Germans to remain hidden in Paris. Then he suddenly became quiet, thinking of his own behavior in this line. He, too, was involuntarily contributing toward the maintenance and support of the foe.

The fall of the ministry and the const.i.tution of a government of national defense made it apparent that something very important must have taken place. The alarms and tears of Dona Luisa increased his nervousness. The good lady was no longer returning from the churches, cheered and strengthened. Her confidential talks with her sister were filling her with a terror that she tried in vain to communicate to her husband. "All is lost... . Elena is the only one that knows the truth."

Desnoyers went in search of Senator Lacour. He would know all the ministers; no one could be better informed. "Yes, my friend," said the important man sadly. "Two great losses at Morhange and Charleroi, at the East and the North. The enemy is going to invade French soil! ... But our army is intact, and will retreat in good order. Good fortune may still be ours. A great calamity, but all is not lost."

Preparations for the defense of Paris were being pushed forward ...

rather late. The forts were supplying themselves with new cannon.

Houses, built in the danger zone in the piping times of peace, were now disappearing under the blows of the official demolition. The trees on the outer avenues were being felled in order to enlarge the horizon.

Barricades of sacks of earth and tree trunks were heaped at the doors of the old walls. The curious were skirting the suburbs in order to gaze at the recently dug trenches and the barbed wire fences. The Bois de Boulogne was filled with herds of cattle. Near heaps of dry alfalfa steers and sheep were grouped in the green meadows. Protection against famine was uppermost in the minds of a people still remembering the suffering of 1870. Every night, the street lighting was less and less.

The sky, on the other hand, was streaked incessantly by the shafts from the searchlights. Fear of aerial invasion was increasing the public uneasiness. Timid people were speaking of Zeppelins, attributing to them irresistible powers, with all the exaggeration that accompanies mysterious dangers.

In her panic, Dona Luisa greatly distressed her husband, who was pa.s.sing the days in continual alarm, yet trying to put heart into his trembling and anxious wife. "They are going to come, Marcelo; my heart tells me so. The girl! ... the girl!" She was accepting blindly all the statements made by her sister, the only thing that comforted her being the chivalry and discipline of those troops to which her nephews belonged. The news of the atrocities committed against the women of Belgium were received with the same credulity as the enemy's advances announced by Elena. "Our girl, Marcelo... . Our girl!" And the girl, object of so much solicitude, would laugh with the a.s.surance of vigorous youth on hearing of her mother's anxiety. "Just let the shameless fellows come! I shall take great pleasure in seeing them face to face!"

And she clenched her right hand as though it already clutched the avenging knife.

The father became tired of this situation. He still had one of his monumental automobiles that an outside chauffeur could manage. Senator Lacour obtained the necessary pa.s.sports and Desnoyers gave his wife her orders in a tone that admitted of no remonstrance. They must go to Biarritz or to some of the summer resorts in the north of Spain. Almost all the South American families had already gone in the same direction.

Dona Luisa tried to object. It was impossible for her to separate herself from her husband. Never before, in their many years of married life, had they once been separated. But a harsh negative from Don Marcelo cut her pleadings short. He would remain. Then the poor senora ran to the rue de la Pompe. Her son! ... Julio scarcely listened to his mother. Ay! he, too, would stay. So finally the imposing automobile lumbered toward the South carrying Dona Luisa, her sister who hailed with delight this withdrawal before the admired troops of the Emperor, and Chichi, pleased that the war was necessitating an excursion to the fas.h.i.+onable beaches frequented by her friends.

Don Marcelo was at last alone. The two coppery maids had followed by rail the flight of their mistresses. At first the old man felt a little bewildered by this solitude, which obliged him to eat uncomfortable meals in a restaurant and pa.s.s the nights in enormous and deserted rooms still bearing traces of their former occupants. The other apartments in the building had also been vacated. All the tenants were foreigners, who had discreetly decamped, or French families surprised by the war when summering at their country seats.

Instinctively he turned his steps toward the rue de la Pompe gazing from afar at the studio windows. What was his son doing? ... Undoubtedly continuing his gay and useless life. Such men only existed for their own selfish folly.

Desnoyers felt satisfied with the stand he had taken. To follow the family would be sheer cowardice. The memory of his youthful flight to South America was sufficient martyrdom; he would finish his life with all the compensating bravery that he could muster. "No, they will not come," he said repeatedly, with the optimism of enthusiasm. "I have a presentiment that they will never reach Paris. And even if they DO come!" ... The absence of his family brought him a joyous valor and a sense of bold youthfulness. Although his age might prevent his going to war in the open air, he could still fire a gun, immovable in a trench, without fear of death. Let them come! ... He was longing for the struggle with the anxiety of a punctilious business man wis.h.i.+ng to cancel a former debt as soon as possible.

In the streets of Paris he met many groups of fugitives. They were from the North and East of France, and had escaped before the German advance.

Of all the tales told by this despondent crowd--not knowing where to go and dependent upon the charity of the people--he was most impressed with those dealing with the disregard of property. Shootings and a.s.sa.s.sinations made him clench his fists, with threats of vengeance; but the robberies authorized by the heads, the wholesale sackings by superior order, followed by fire, appeared to him so unheard-of that he was silent with stupefaction, his speech seeming to be temporarily paralyzed. And a people with laws could wage war in this fas.h.i.+on, like a tribe of Indians going to combat in order to rob! ... His adoration of property rights made him beside himself with wrath at these sacrileges.

He began to worry about his castle at Villeblanche. All that he owned in Paris suddenly seemed to him of slight importance to what he had in his historic mansion. His best paintings were there, adorning the gloomy salons; there, too, the furnis.h.i.+ngs captured from the antiquarians after an auctioneering battle, and the crystal cabinets, the tapestries, the silver services.

He mentally reviewed all of these objects, not letting a single one escape his inventory. Things that he had forgotten came surging up in his memory, and the fear of losing them seemed to give them greater l.u.s.tre, increasing their size, and intensifying their value. All the riches of Villeblanche were concentrated in one certain acquisition which Desnoyers admired most of all; for, to his mind, it stood for all the glory of his immense fortune--in fact, the most luxurious appointment that even a millionaire could possess.

"My golden bath," he thought. "I have there my tub of gold."

This bath of priceless metal he had procured, after much financial wrestling, from an auction, and he considered the purchase the culminating achievement of his wealth. No one knew exactly its origin; perhaps it had been the property of luxurious princes; perhaps it owed its existence to the caprice of a demi-mondaine fond of display. He and his had woven a legend around this golden cavity adorned with lions'

claws, dolphins and busts of naiads. Undoubtedly it was once a king's!

Chichi gravely affirmed that it had been Marie Antoinette's, and the entire family thought that the home on the avenue Victor Hugo was altogether too modest and plebeian to enshrine such a jewel. They therefore agreed to put it in the castle, where it was greatly venerated, although it was useless and solemn as a museum piece... .

And was he to permit the enemy in their advance toward the Marne to carry off this priceless treasure, as well as the other gorgeous things which he had acc.u.mulated with such patience Ah, no! His soul of a collector would be capable of the greatest heroism before he would let that go.

Each day was bringing a fresh sheaf of bad news. The papers were saying little, and the Government was so veiling its communications that the mind was left in great perplexity. Nevertheless, the truth was mysteriously forcing its way, impelled by the pessimism of the alarmists, and the manipulation of the enemy's spies who were remaining hidden in Paris. The fatal news was being pa.s.sed along in whispers.

"They have already crossed the frontier... ." "They are already in Lille." ... They were advancing at the rate of thirty-five miles a day. The name of von Kluck was beginning to have a familiar ring.

English and French were retreating before the enveloping progression of the invaders. Some were expecting another Sedan. Desnoyers was following the advance of the Germans, going daily to the Gare du Nord. Every twenty-four hours was lessening the radius of travel. Bulletins announcing that tickets would not be sold for the Northern districts served to indicate how these places were falling, one after the other, into the power of the invader. The shrinkage of national territory was going on with such methodical regularity that, with watch in hand, and allowing an advance of thirty-five miles daily, one might gauge the hour when the lances of the first Uhlans would salute the Eiffel tower. The trains were running full, great bunches of people overflowing from their coaches.

In this time of greatest anxiety, Desnoyers again visited his friend, Senator Lacour, in order to astound him with the most unheard-of pet.i.tions. He wished to go immediately to his castle. While everybody else was fleeing toward Paris he earnestly desired to go in the opposite direction. The senator couldn't believe his ears.

"You are beside yourself!" he exclaimed. "It is necessary to leave Paris, but toward the South. I will tell you confidentially, and you must not tell because it is a secret--we are leaving at any minute; we are all going, the President, the Government, the Chambers. We are going to establish ourselves at Bordeaux as in 1870. The enemy is surely approaching; it is only a matter of days ... of hours. We know little of just what is happening, but all the news is bad. The army still holds firm, is yet intact, but retreating ... retreating, all the time yielding ground... . Believe me, it will be better for you to leave Paris. Gallieni will defend it, but the defense is going to be hard and horrible... . Although Paris may surrender, France will not necessarily surrender. The war will go on if necessary even to the frontiers of Spain ... but it is sad ... very sad!"

And he offered to take his friend with him in that flight to Bordeaux of which so few yet knew. Desnoyers shook his head. No; he wanted to go the castle of Villeblanche. His furniture ... his riches ... his parks.

"But you will be taken prisoner!" protested the senator. "Perhaps they will kill you!"

A shrug of indifference was the only response. He considered himself energetic enough to struggle against the entire German army in the defense of his property. The important thing was to get there, and then--just let anybody dare to touch his things! ... The senator looked with astonishment at this civilian infuriated by the l.u.s.t of possession. It reminded him of some Arab merchants that he had once known, ordinarily mild and pacific, who quarrelled and killed like wild beasts when Bedouin thieves seized their wares. This was not the moment for discussion, and each must map out his own course. So the influential senator finally yielded to the desire of his friend. If such was his pleasure, let him carry it through! So he arranged that his mad pet.i.tioner should depart that very night on a military train that was going to meet the army.

That journey put Don Marcelo in touch with the extraordinary movement which the war had developed on the railroads. His train took fourteen hours to cover the distance normally made in two. It was made up of freight cars filled with provisions and cartridges, with the doors stamped and sealed. A third-cla.s.s car was occupied by the train escort, a detachment of provincial guards. He was installed in a second-cla.s.s compartment with the lieutenant in command of this guard and certain officials on their way to join their regiments after having completed the business of mobilization in the small towns in which they were stationed before the war. The crowd, habituated to long detentions, was accustomed to getting out and settling down before the motionless locomotive, or scattering through the nearby fields.

In the stations of any importance all the tracks were occupied by rows of cars. High-pressure engines were whistling, impatient to be off.

Groups of soldiers were hesitating before the different trains, making mistakes, getting out of one coach to enter others. The employees, calm but weary-looking, were going from side to side, giving explanations about mountains of all sorts of freight and arranging them for transport. In the convoy in which Desnoyers was placed the Territorials were sleeping, accustomed to the monotony of acting as guard. Those in charge of the horses had opened the sliding doors, seating themselves on the floor with their legs hanging over the edge. The train went very slowly during the night, across shadowy fields, stopping here and there before red lanterns and announcing its presence by prolonged whistling.

In some stations appeared young girls clad in white with c.o.c.kades and pennants on their b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Day and night they were there, in relays, so that no train should pa.s.s through without a visit. They offered, in baskets and trays, their gifts to the soldiers--bread, chocolate, fruit.