Complete Works of Emile Zola (1808 page)

I ascended the Cour des Maréchaux, and I saw on the right, in an out-of-the-way part of that sandy tract, the old woman, the legendary Sarcleuse, who has been removing the weeds from between the paving-stones, for half a century. From morn till eve she is there amidst the field of pebbles, struggling against the invasion, against the increasing mass of wild wallflowers and poppies. She walks, bent double, examining each cleft, singling out the green blades and straggling moss. It takes her almost a month to go from one end of her desert to the other. And behind her the grass grows again, victoriously, so thick, so implacable, that, when she recommences her everlasting task, she finds the same weeds come up once more, the same graveyard-like corners invaded by butyraceaus flowers.

Sarcleuse knows the flora of these ruins. She knows that poppies prefer the south side, that dandelions grow at the north, that wallflowers select the clefts in the pedestals. Moss is a leper that spreads everywhere. There are plants that nothing can destroy, you may pull them up by the roots but they always grow again; a drop of blood has perhaps fallen there, an evil spirit must be buried beneath and be continually thrusting forth its reddish spikes beyond the ground. In this burial-place of royalty the dead have a strange effloresence.

But you should hear Sarcleuse relate the story of these weeds. They have not grown at each period with equal strength. Under Charles X., they were still timid; they barely spread out like fine grass, as a carpet of tender green that softened the paving-stones beneath the tread of ladies. The court still came to the château, the heels of the courtiers trampled the ground, did in a morning what it takes Sarcleuse a whole month to accomplish. Under Louis Philippe, the weeds became more bold; the château, peopled by the peaceful phantoms of the historical museum, commenced to be nothing more than the palace of the departed. And it was under the Second Empire that the weeds triumphed; they then grew unmolested, taking possession of their prey, threatening at a moment to gain the galleries, to overspread the large and small apartments with verdure.

I pondered, at the sight of Sarcleuse walking slowly along, with her apron full of weeds, and bending down in her old printed calico skirt. She represents the last show of pity which prevents the nettles rising and hiding the tomb of monarchy. She looks after this barren land, where the green stuff of the ditches grows, like a worthy woman.

I — fancied to myself that she was the ghost of some marchioness who had come from one of the boskets of the park and who worshipped these ruins. She struggles without end, with her stiff fingers, against the relentless moss. She displays obstinacy in her futile task, and feels that if she were to stay for a moment, the mass of weeds would overgrow and envelop her. At times, when she draws herself up, she casts a prolonged gaze across the field of stones, and her eyes reach its distant corners, where the vegetation is more luxuriant. And she stays thus, for a moment, with her pale face, understanding perhaps the uselessness of her unfailing care, and delighted at the bitter joy of being the supreme comforter of these paving-stones.

But the day will come when the fingers of Sarcleuse will grow stiffer still. Then the château will crumble down in a final sob of the wind. The field of stones will be a prey to nettles, thistles, and all sorts of weeds. It will become enormous bush, a coppice of rough, twisted shrubs. And Sarcleuse will be lost in the thickets, putting aside handfuls of twigs taller than herself, making a pathway amidst blades of couch-grass as big as young birch-trees, still struggling, until the time when these blades will enthral her on every side, will clasp her by the limbs, by the waist, by the throat, to cast her dead into this ocean, which will whirl her round and round in the ever rising wave of verdure.

XII

War, infamous war, accursed war! We young fellows did not know what it was in 1859. We were still on the forms at school. The dreadful word which made our mothers turn pale, only reminded us of holidays.

And amidst our souvenirs we merely recalled those delightful summer evenings when people made merry in the streets; the news of a victory in the morning wafted a breath of holiday-making through Paris; and as soon as it was twilight the shopkeepers illuminated their establishments and the ragamuffins let off farthing squibs in the streets. In front of the cafés there were gentlemen drinking beer and discussing politics; whilst, there, in an out-of-the-way comer of Italy or Russia, the dead, extended on their backs, were watching the stars appear with their great, open, glassy eyes.

I remember that when I left college on that day in 1859, when news of the battle of Magenta was noised abroad, I went to the Place de la Sorbonne to have a look, to stroll about in that atmosphere of fever that pervaded the streets. There were a lot of urchins there shouting “Victory! victory!” We sniffed a holiday. And amidst the yells and laughter I heard sobs. It was an old cobbler weeping at the further end of his shop. The poor fellow had two children in Italy.

Those sobs have frequently since then re-echoed in my memory. At each rumour of war it seems that the old cobbler, the hoary-headed people, are weeping amidst the thrilling warmth of feeling on the public squares.

But I have a still better recollection of that other war, the campaign in the Crimea. I was then fourteen, and lived buried in the country, and was so thoughtless, that all I saw in war was the constant passage of troops, whose presence had become one of our greatest enjoyments.

I believe almost all the soldiers who went to the East passed through the little town where I resided in the south of France. A newspaper in the neighbourhood announced what regiments would come that way beforehand. The departures took place about five o’clock in the morning. From four o’clock we were all at the public walk; not a single day scholar was missing at the gathering.

Ah! what fine men! And the cuirassiers, and the lancers, and the dragoons, and the hussars! We had a weakness for the cuirassiers. When the sun rose and its slanting rays blazed upon the cuirasses, we fell back, blinded, fascinated, as if an army of stars on horseback had passed before us.

Then the trumpets sounded. And they started.

We left with the soldiers. We followed them along the broad, white roads. The band was playing then, thanking the town for its hospitality. And there was a savour of holiday-making in the clear, bright morning air.

I remember having travelled leagues in that way. We marched with our books fastened to our backs by a strap, like a knapsack. It was agreed at first that we would never accompany the soldiers beyond the powder-mill; then we went as far as the bridge; then we ascended the hill; then we were all for the next village.

And when we became frightened and agreed to stop, we would climb a hill, and from there follow the regiment with the eyes, in the distance, between the dips in the land, along the winding road, and watch it lose itself and disappear with its thousands of small flashes, in the brilliant light on the horizon.

On those days we gave very little thought to the college! We played truant and amused ourselves at each heap of stones. And it was not an uncommon thing for all of us to go down to the river and pass the time there until evening, There is not much love for soldiers in the south of France. I have seen some of them crying with fatigue and rage, seated on the pavement with their billets in their hands: the bourgeois, the sharp-nosed persons of small independent means, the stout big men of business, had refused to take them in. The authorities had to deal with the matter.

Our house was an hospitable one. My grandmother, who was a Beauceronne, smiled on all the young men from the north, for they reminded her of home. She talked with them, inquired the name of their village, and how delighted she was when it happened to be within a few leagues of her own! They sent us two men from each regiment We could not accommodate them, and so we put them up at the inn; but before they left my grandmother made them submit to her little interrogation.

I remember two coming one day who belonged to her own village. She would not allow these to leave. She gave them their dinner in the kitchen, and it was she who filled their glasses. I went to see the two soldiers on returning home from college; I think we even drank each other’s health.

One was tall and the other short. I remember very well that at the moment of departure the eyes of the tall one swelled with tears. He had left a poor old mother in his village, and he effusively thanked my grandmother, who reminded him of his dear Beauce and all he had abandoned.

“Nonsense,” said the worthy woman to him, “you will return, and will have the Cross of the Legion of Honour.”

But he shook his head in grief.

“Well,” she continued, “if you come back this way, you must call and see me. I will keep you a bottle of this wine which you find so good.”

The two poor fellows began to laugh. That invitation had made them forget, for a moment, the terrible future, and they no doubt fancied themselves back again, and at table in that little hospitable house, drinking to dangers that were over. They formally undertook to return and empty the bottle.

How many regiments I followed at that time, and how many pale-faced soldiers came and knocked at our door!

I shall always remember the endless procession of those men marching to death. Sometimes, by closing my eyes, I see them again. I recall certain faces, and I ask myself: “In what out-of-the-way ditch is that one lying?”

Then the regiments became more scarce, and one day we saw the men passing by in the reverse sense, limping, bleeding, dragging themselves along the highway. Ah! no, indeed! we did not go to await them, we did not accompany those cripples. They were not our fine soldiers. They were not worth the least trouble.

The sad procession continued for a long time. The army scattered the dying along the road. Sometimes my grandmother said:

“And those two fellows from Beauce, you know, are they forgetting me?”

But one evening, at twilight, a soldier came and knocked at the door. He was alone. He was the short one.

“My comrade’s dead,” he said as he came in.

My grandmother brought the bottle.

“Yes,” he said, “I shall have to drink all alone.”

And when he saw himself there at table, raising his glass, and looked for his comrade’s to touch it, he heaved a huge sigh, murmuring:

“He entrusted me with the duty of going to console the old party. I would sooner have remained out there in his place.”

Later on I had Chauvin for comrade at the offices of a company. We were both junior clerks and sat close together at the end of a gloomy apartment, a capital hole to do nothing in whilst awaiting the time to leave.

Chauvin had been a sergeant, and had returned from Solferino suffering from fever he had caught in the rice plantations in Piedmont He swore at his affliction, but consoled himself by putting the responsibility of it on the shoulders of the Austrians. It was those tatterdemalions who had arranged him in that way.

What hours were passed in gossiping! I had found my old soldier, and I was determined not to part with him before I had extracted some truths. I was not satisfied with big words: glory, victory, laurels, warriors, which in his mouth resounded most magnificently. I allowed his flood of enthusiasm to pass. I assailed him with inquiries for details. I consented to listen to the same story twenty times over, in order to grasp the real spirit of it. Chauvin ended by confiding some lovely things to me, without imagining he was doing so.

He was as simple as a child at heart. He did not boast for his own gratification; he simply spoke in the ordinary bragging military way. He was unwittingly a humbug, a good fellow whom barrack life had transformed into a provoking blockhead.

He had stories, witticisms all ready, one felt it. Sentences prepared beforehand, embellished his anecdotes about “unconquerable troopers” and “brave officers rescued from slaughter by the heroism of their soldiers.” I endured the Italian campaign four hours daily for two years. But I do not regret it. Chauvin completed my education.

Thanks to him, thanks to the avowals he made to me in our black hole, I know what warfare is without the thought of evil; real warfare, not that of which historians relate the heroic episodes, but that which sweats fear in the bright sunshine and glides into deeds of blood like a drunken strumpet

I questioned Chauvin.

“
And the soldiers, did they go gaily under fire?”

“The soldiers! did they push them forward, then! I remember recruits who had never been in action, and who reared like skittish horses. They were afraid; twice they fled But they brought them back again, and a battery killed half. You should have seen them then, covered with blood, blinded, dashing on the Austrians like wolves. They were beside themselves, howling with rage, they wished to die.”

“It was an apprenticeship that had to be gone through,” I said to encourage him.

“Oh yes! a hard one, I’ll answer for it. You see the pluckiest of all experience icy sweats. You must be tipsy to fight well. You then cease to see anything, and strike blows before you like a madman.”

And he went on with his recollections.

“One day they had placed us at a hundred yards from a village occupied by the enemy, with orders not to move and not to fire. But you see those tatterdemalions of Austrians opened a frightful fusillade on our regiment. There was no possibility of getting away. We ducked our heads at each shower of bullets. I saw some throw themselves down flat on their stomachs. It was shameful. They left us there for a quarter of an hour. And the hair of two of my comrades turned white.”

Then he continued:

“No, you have not the least idea of it. The thing is all arranged in books. Look here; on the night of Solferino, we did not even know if we were conquerors. There were reports that the Austrians would come and massacre us. I can assure you we didn’t feel very lively. And so, when they made us rise the next morning before daybreak, we were shivering, and in mortal fear of the battle being resumed more fiercely than ever. We would have been conquered that day, for we hadn’t two penn’orth of courage left. Then, they came and said to us, ‘Peace has been signed,’ and all the regiment began capering about, displaying an idiotic sort of joy. Soldiers grasped one another’s hands and danced round like young girls. I’m not telling falsehoods, don’t you think it. I was there. We were very pleased.”