Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete

G >> Guy de Maupassant >> Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete


"Ah! ah!" he said to us, "you see that there is something to be done
here. Here I am on horseback already; I knocked over an uhlan yonder, and
took his horse; I suppose they were guarding the wood, but it was by
drinking and swilling in clover. One of them, the sentry at the door, had
not time to see me before I gave him a sugarplum in his stomach, and
then, before the others could come out, I jumped on the horse and was off
like a shot. Eight or ten of them followed me, I think; but I took the
crossroads through the woods. I have got scratched and torn a bit, but
here I am, and now, my good fellows, attention, and take care! Those
brigands will not rest until they have caught us, and we must receive
them with rifle bullets. Come along; let us take up our posts!"

We set out. One of us took up his position a good way from the village on
the crossroads; I was posted at the entrance of the main street, where
the road from the level country enters the village, while the two others,
the captain and his wife, were in the middle of the village, near the
church, whose tower-served for an observatory and citadel.

We had not been in our places long before we heard a shot, followed by
another, and then two, then three. The first was evidently a chassepot
--one recognized it by the sharp report, which sounds like the crack
of a whip--while the other three came from the lancers' carbines.

The captain was furious. He had given orders to the outpost to let the
enemy pass and merely to follow them at a distance if they marched toward
the village, and to join me when they had gone well between the houses.
Then they were to appear suddenly, take the patrol between two fires, and
not allow a single man to escape; for, posted as we were, the six of us
could have hemmed in ten Prussians, if needful.

"That confounded Piedelot has roused them," the captain said, "and they
will not venture to come on blindfolded any longer. And then I am quite
sure that he has managed to get a shot into himself somewhere or other,
for we hear nothing of him. It serves him right; why did he not obey
orders?" And then, after a moment, he grumbled in his beard: "After all I
am sorry for the poor fellow; he is so brave, and shoots so well!"

The captain was right in his conjectures. We waited until evening,
without seeing the uhlans; they had retreated after the first attack; but
unfortunately we had not seen Piedelot, either. Was he dead or a
prisoner? When night came, the captain proposed that we should go out and
look for him, and so the three of us started. At the crossroads we found
a broken rifle and some blood, while the ground was trampled down; but we
did not find either a wounded man or a dead body, although we searched
every thicket, and at midnight we returned without having discovered
anything of our unfortunate comrade.

"It is very strange," the captain growled. "They must have killed him and
thrown him into the bushes somewhere; they cannot possibly have taken him
prisoner, as he would have called out for help. I cannot understand it at
all." Just as he said that, bright flames shot up in the direction of the
inn on the high road, which illuminated the sky.

"Scoundrels! cowards!" he shouted. "I will bet that they have set fire to
the two houses on the marketplace, in order to have their revenge, and
then they will scuttle off without saying a word. They will be satisfied
with having killed a man and set fire to two houses. All right. It shall
not pass over like that. We must go for them; they will not like to leave
their illuminations in order to fight."

"It would be a great stroke of luck if we could set Piedelot free at the
same time," some one said.

The five of us set off, full of rage and hope. In twenty minutes we had
got to the bottom of the coulee, and had not yet seen any one when we
were within a hundred yards of the inn. The fire was behind the house,
and all we saw of it was the reflection above the roof. However, we were
walking rather slowly, as we were afraid of an ambush, when suddenly we
heard Piedelot's well-known voice. It had a strange sound, however; for
it was at the same time--dull and vibrating, stifled and clear, as
if he were calling out as loud as he could with a bit of rag stuffed into
his mouth. He seemed to be hoarse and gasping, and the unlucky fellow
kept exclaiming: "Help! Help!"

We sent all thoughts of prudence to the devil, and in two bounds we were
at the back of the inn, where a terrible sight met our eyes.



IV

Piedelot was being burned alive. He was writhing in the midst of a heap
of fagots, tied to a stake, and the flames were licking him with their
burning tongues. When he saw us, his tongue seemed to stick in his
throat; he drooped his head, and seemed as if he were going to die. It
was only the affair of a moment to upset the burning pile, to scatter the
embers, and to cut the ropes that fastened him.

Poor fellow! In what a terrible state we found him. The evening before he
had had his left arm broken, and it seemed as if he had been badly beaten
since then, for his whole body was covered with wounds, bruises and
blood. The flames had also begun their work on him, and he had two large
burns, one on his loins and the other on his right thigh, and his beard
and hair were scorched. Poor Piedelot!

No one knows the terrible rage we felt at this sight! We would have
rushed headlong at a hundred thousand Prussians; our thirst for vengeance
was intense. But the cowards had run away, leaving their crime behind
them. Where could we find them now? Meanwhile, however, the captain's
wife was looking after Piedelot, and dressing his wounds as best she
could, while the captain himself shook hands with him excitedly, and in a
few minutes he came to himself.

"Good-morning, captain; good-morning, all of you," he said. "Ah! the
scoundrels, the wretches! Why, twenty of them came to surprise us."

"Twenty, do you say?"

"Yes; there was a whole band of them, and that is why I disobeyed orders,
captain, and fired on them, for they would have killed you all, and I
preferred to stop them. That frightened them, and they did not venture to
go farther than the crossroads. They were such cowards. Four of them shot
at me at twenty yards, as if I had been a target, and then they slashed
me with their swords. My arm was broken, so that I could only use my
bayonet with one hand."

"But why did you not call for help?"

"I took good care not to do that, for you would all have come; and you
would neither have been able to defend me nor yourselves, being only five
against twenty."

"You know that we should not have allowed you to have been taken, poor
old fellow."

"I preferred to die by myself, don't you see! I did not want to bring you
here, for it would have been a mere ambush."

"Well, we will not talk about it any more. Do you feel rather easier?"

"No, I am suffocating. I know that I cannot live much longer. The brutes!
They tied me to a tree, and beat me till I was half dead, and then they
shook my broken arm; but I did not make a sound. I would rather have
bitten my tongue out than have called out before them. Now I can tell
what I am suffering and shed tears; it does one good. Thank you, my kind
friends."

"Poor Piedelot! But we will avenge you, you may be sure!"

"Yes, yes; I want you to do that. There is, in particular, a woman among
them who passes as the wife of the lancer whom the captain killed
yesterday. She is dressed like a lancer, and she tortured me the most
yesterday, and suggested burning me; and it was she who set fire to the
wood. Oh! the wretch, the brute! Ah! how I am suffering! My loins, my
arms!" and he fell back gasping and exhausted, writhing in his terrible
agony, while the captain's wife wiped the perspiration from his forehead,
and we all shed tears of grief and rage, as if we had been children. I
will not describe the end to you; he died half an hour later, previously
telling us in what direction the enemy had gone. When he was dead we gave
ourselves time to bury him, and then we set out in pursuit of them, with
our hearts full of fury and hatred.

"We will throw ourselves on the whole Prussian army, if it be necessary,"
the captain said; "but we will avenge Piedelot. We must catch those
scoundrels. Let us swear to die, rather than not to find them; and if I
am killed first, these are my orders: All the prisoners that you take are
to be shot immediately, and as for the lancer's wife, she is to be
tortured before she is put to death."

"She must not be shot, because she is a woman," the captain's wife said.
"If you survive, I am sure that you would not shoot a woman. Torturing
her will be quite sufficient; but if you are killed in this pursuit, I
want one thing, and that is to fight with her; I will kill her with my
own hands, and the others can do what they like with her if she kills
me."

"We will outrage her! We will burn her! We will tear her to pieces!
Piedelot shall be avenged!

"An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth!"



V

The next morning we unexpectedly fell on an outpost of uhlans four
leagues away. Surprised by our sudden attack, they were not able to mount
their horses, nor even to defend themselves; and in a few moments we had
five prisoner, corresponding to our own number. The captain questioned
them, and from their answers we felt certain that they were the same whom
we had encountered the previous day. Then a very curious operation took
place. One of us was told off to ascertain their sex, and nothing can
describe our joy when we discovered what we were seeking among them, the
female executioner who had tortured our friend.

The four others were shot on the spot, with their backs to us and close
to the muzzles of our rifles; and then we turned our attention to the
woman. What were we going to do with her? I must acknowledge that we were
all of us in favor of shooting her. Hatred, and the wish to avenge
Piedelot, had extinguished all pity in us, and we had forgotten that we
were going to shoot a woman, but a woman reminded us of it, the captain's
wife; at her entreaties, therefore, we determined to keep her a prisoner.

The captain's poor wife was to be severely punished for this act of
clemency.

The next day we heard that the armistice had been extended to the eastern
part of France, and we had to put an end to our little campaign. Two of
us, who belonged to the neighborhood, returned home, so there were only
four of us, all told: the captain, his wife, and two men. We belonged to
Besancon, which was still being besieged in spite of the armistice.

"Let us stop here," said the captain. "I cannot believe that the war is
going to end like this. The devil take it! Surely there are men still
left in France; and now is the time to prove what they are made of. The
spring is coming on, and the armistice is only a trap laid for the
Prussians. During the time that it lasts, a new army will be raised, and
some fine morning we shall fall upon them again. We shall be ready, and
we have a hostage--let us remain here."

We fixed our quarters there. It was terribly cold, and we did not go out
much, and somebody had always to keep the female prisoner in sight.

She was sullen, and never said anything, or else spoke of her husband,
whom the captain had killed. She looked at him continually with fierce
eyes, and we felt that she was tortured by a wild longing for revenge.
That seemed to us to be the most suitable punishment for the terrible
torments that she had made Piedelot suffer, for impotent vengeance is
such intense pain!

Alas! we who knew how to avenge our comrade ought to have thought that
this woman would know how to avenge her husband, and have been on our
guard. It is true that one of us kept watch every night, and that at
first we tied her by a long rope to the great oak bench that was fastened
to the wall. But, by and by, as she had never tried to escape, in spite
of her hatred for us, we relaxed our extreme prudence, and allowed her to
sleep somewhere else except on the bench, and without being tied. What
had we to fear? She was at the end of the room, a man was on guard at the
door, and between her and the sentinel the captain's wife and two other
men used to lie. She was alone and unarmed against four, so there could
be no danger.

One night when we were asleep, and the captain was on guard, the lancer's
wife was lying more quietly in her corner than usual, and she had even
smiled for the first time since she had been our prisoner during the
evening. Suddenly, however, in the middle of the night, we were all
awakened by a terrible cry. We got up, groping about, and at once
stumbled over a furious couple who were rolling about and fighting on the
ground. It was the captain and the lancer's wife. We threw ourselves on
them, and separated them in a moment. She was shouting and laughing, and
he seemed to have the death rattle. All this took place in the dark. Two
of us held her, and when a light was struck a terrible sight met our
eyes. The captain was lying on the floor in a pool of blood, with an
enormous gash in his throat, and his sword bayonet, that had been taken
from his rifle, was sticking in the red, gaping wound. A few minutes
afterward he died, without having been able to utter a word.

His wife did not shed a tear. Her eyes were dry, her throat was
contracted, and she looked at the lancer's wife steadfastly, and with a
calm ferocity that inspired fear.

"This woman belongs to me," she said to us suddenly. "You swore to me not
a week ago to let me kill her as I chose, if she killed my husband; and
you must keep your oath. You must fasten her securely to the fireplace,
upright against the back of it, and then you can go where you like, but
far from here. I will take my revenge on her myself. Leave the captain's
body, and we three, he, she and I, will remain here."

We obeyed, and went away. She promised to write to us to Geneva, as we
were returning thither.



VI

Two days later I received the following letter, dated the day after we
had left, that had been written at an inn on the high road:

"MY FRIEND: I am writing to you, according to my promise. For the moment
I am at the inn, where I have just handed my prisoner over to a Prussian
officer.

"I must tell you, my friend, that this poor woman has left two children
in Germany. She had followed her husband, whom she adored, as she did not
wish him to be exposed to the risks of war by himself, and as her
children were with their grandparents. I have learned all this since
yesterday, and it has turned my ideas of vengeance into more humane
feelings. At the very moment when I felt pleasure in insulting this
woman, and in threatening her with the most fearful torments, in
recalling Piedelot, who had been burned alive, and in threatening her
with a similar death, she looked at me coldly, and said:

"'What have you got to reproach me with, Frenchwoman? You think that you
will do right in avenging your husband's death, is not that so?'

"'Yes,' I replied.

"'Very well, then; in killing him, I did what you are going to do in
burning me. I avenged my husband, for your husband killed him.'

"'Well,' I replied, 'as you approve of this vengeance, prepare to endure
it.'

"'I do not fear it.'

"And in fact she did not seem to have lost courage. Her face was calm,
and she looked at me without trembling, while I brought wood and dried
leaves together, and feverishly threw on to them the powder from some
cartridges, which was to make her funeral pile the more cruel.

"I hesitated in my thoughts of persecution for a moment. But the captain
was there, pale and covered with blood, and he seemed to be looking at me
with his large, glassy eyes, and I applied myself to my work again after
kissing his pale lips. Suddenly, however, on raising my head, I saw that
she was crying, and I felt rather surprised.

"'So you are frightened?' I said to her.

"'No, but when I saw you kiss your husband, I thought of mine, of all
whom I love.'

"She continued to sob, but stopping suddenly, she said to me in broken
words and in a low voice:

"'Have you any children?'

"A shiver rare over me, for I guessed that this poor woman had some. She
asked me to look in a pocketbook which was in her bosom, and in it I saw
two photographs of quite young children, a boy and a girl, with those
kind, gentle, chubby faces that German children have. In it there were
also two locks of light hair and a letter in a large, childish hand, and
beginning with German words which meant:

"'My dear little mother.

"'I could not restrain my tears, my dear friend, and so I untied her, and
without venturing to look at the face of my poor dead husband, who was
not to be avenged, I went with her as far as the inn. She is free; I have
just left her, and she kissed me with tears. I am going upstairs to my
husband; come as soon as possible, my dear friend, to look for our two
bodies.'"

I set off with all speed, and when I arrived there was a Prussian patrol
at the cottage; and when I asked what it all meant, I was told that there
was a captain of francs-tireurs and his wife inside, both dead. I gave
their names; they saw that I knew them, and I begged to be allowed to
arrange their funeral.

"Somebody has already undertaken it," was the reply. "Go in if you wish
to, as you know them. You can settle about their funeral with their
friend."

I went in. The captain and his wife were lying side by side on a bed, and
were covered by a sheet. I raised it, and saw that the woman had
inflicted a similar wound in her throat to that from which her husband
had died.

At the side of the bed there sat, watching and weeping, the woman who had
been mentioned to me as their best friend. It was the lancer's wife.




THE PRISONERS

There was not a sound in the forest save the indistinct, fluttering sound
of the snow falling on the trees. It had been snowing since noon; a
little fine snow, that covered the branches as with frozen moss, and
spread a silvery covering over the dead leaves in the ditches, and
covered the roads with a white, yielding carpet, and made still more
intense the boundless silence of this ocean of trees.

Before the door of the forester's dwelling a young woman, her arms bare
to the elbow, was chopping wood with a hatchet on a block of stone. She
was tall, slender, strong-a true girl of the woods, daughter and wife of
a forester.

A voice called from within the house:

"We are alone to-night, Berthine; you must come in. It is getting dark,
and there may be Prussians or wolves about."

"I've just finished, mother," replied the young woman, splitting as she
spoke an immense log of wood with strong, deft blows, which expanded her
chest each time she raised her arms to strike. "Here I am; there's no
need to be afraid; it's quite light still."

Then she gathered up her sticks and logs, piled them in the chimney
corner, went back to close the great oaken shutters, and finally came in,
drawing behind her the heavy bolts of the door.

Her mother, a wrinkled old woman whom age had rendered timid, was
spinning by the fireside.

"I am uneasy," she said, "when your father's not here. Two women are not
much good."

"Oh," said the younger woman, "I'd cheerfully kill a wolf or a Prussian
if it came to that."

And she glanced at a heavy revolver hanging above the hearth.

Her husband had been called upon to serve in the army at the beginning of
the Prussian invasion, and the two women had remained alone with the old
father, a keeper named Nicolas Pichon, sometimes called Long-legs, who
refused obstinately to leave his home and take refuge in the town.

This town was Rethel, an ancient stronghold built on a rock. Its
inhabitants were patriotic, and had made up their minds to resist the
invaders, to fortify their native place, and, if need be, to stand a
siege as in the good old days. Twice already, under Henri IV and under
Louis XIV, the people of Rethel had distinguished themselves by their
heroic defence of their town. They would do as much now, by gad! or else
be slaughtered within their own walls.

They had, therefore, bought cannon and rifles, organized a militia, and
formed themselves into battalions and companies, and now spent their time
drilling all day long in the square. All-bakers, grocers, butchers,
lawyers, carpenters, booksellers, chemists-took their turn at military
training at regular hours of the day, under the auspices of Monsieur
Lavigne, a former noncommissioned officer in the dragoons, now a draper,
having married the daughter and inherited the business of Monsieur
Ravaudan, Senior.

He had taken the rank of commanding officer in Rethel, and, seeing that
all the young men had gone off to the war, he had enlisted all the others
who were in favor of resisting an attack. Fat men now invariably walked
the streets at a rapid pace, to reduce their weight and improve their
breathing, and weak men carried weights to strengthen their muscles.

And they awaited the Prussians. But the Prussians did not appear. They
were not far off, however, for twice already their scouts had penetrated
as far as the forest dwelling of Nicolas Pichon, called Long-legs.

The old keeper, who could run like a fox, had come and warned the town.
The guns had been got ready, but the enemy had not shown themselves.

Long-legs' dwelling served as an outpost in the Aveline forest. Twice a
week the old man went to the town for provisions and brought the citizens
news of the outlying district.

On this particular day he had gone to announce the fact that a small
detachment of German infantry had halted at his house the day before,
about two o'clock in the afternoon, and had left again almost
immediately. The noncommissioned officer in charge spoke French.

When the old man set out like this he took with him his dogs--two
powerful animals with the jaws of lions-as a safeguard against the
wolves, which were beginning to get fierce, and he left directions with
the two women to barricade themselves securely within their dwelling as
soon as night fell.

The younger feared nothing, but her mother was always apprehensive, and
repeated continually:

"We'll come to grief one of these days. You see if we don't!"

This evening she was, if possible, more nervous than ever.

"Do you know what time your father will be back?" she asked.

"Oh, not before eleven, for certain. When he dines with the commandant
he's always late."

And Berthine was hanging her pot over the fire to warm the soup when she
suddenly stood still, listening attentively to a sound that had reached
her through the chimney.

"There are people walking in the wood," she said; "seven or eight men at
least."

The terrified old woman stopped her spinning wheel, and gasped:

"Oh, my God! And your father not here!"

She had scarcely finished speaking when a succession of violent blows
shook the door.

As the woman made no reply, a loud, guttural voice shouted:

"Open the door!"

After a brief silence the same voice repeated:

"Open the door or I'll break it down!"

Berthine took the heavy revolver from its hook, slipped it into the
pocket of her skirt, and, putting her ear to the door, asked:

"Who are you?" demanded the young woman. "What do you want?".

"The detachment that came here the other day," replied the voice.

"My men and I have lost our way in the forest since morning. Open the
door or I'll break it down!"

The forester's daughter had no choice; she shot back the heavy bolts,
threw open the ponderous shutter, and perceived in the wan light of the
snow six men, six Prussian soldiers, the same who had visited the house
the day before.

"What are you doing here at this time of night?" she asked dauntlessly.

"I lost my bearings," replied the officer; "lost them completely. Then I
recognized this house. I've eaten nothing since morning, nor my men
either."

"But I'm quite alone with my mother this evening," said Berthine.

"Never mind," replied the soldier, who seemed a decent sort of fellow.
"We won't do you any harm, but you must give us something to eat. We are
nearly dead with hunger and fatigue."

Then the girl moved aside.

"Come in;" she said.

Then entered, covered with snow, their helmets sprinkled with a
creamy-looking froth, which gave them the appearance of meringues. They
seemed utterly worn out.

The young woman pointed to the wooden benches on either side of the large
table.

"Sit down," she said, "and I'll make you some soup. You certainly look
tired out, and no mistake."

Then she bolted the door afresh.

She put more water in the pot, added butter and potatoes; then, taking
down a piece of bacon from a hook in the chimney earner, cut it in two
and slipped half of it into the pot.

The six men watched her movements with hungry eyes. They had placed their
rifles and helmets in a corner and waited for supper, as well behaved as
children on a school bench.

The old mother had resumed her spinning, casting from time to time a
furtive and uneasy glance at the soldiers. Nothing was to be heard save
the humming of the wheel, the crackling of the fire, and the singing of
the water in the pot.