The Guy de Maupassant MEGAPACK ®. Guy de Maupassant

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СКАЧАТЬ 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.

      But suddenly a strange noise—a sound like the harsh breathing of some wild animal sniffing under the door—startled the occupants of the room.

      The German officer sprang toward the rifles. Berthine stopped him with a gesture, and said, smilingly:

      “It’s only the wolves. They are like you—prowling hungry through the forest.”

      The incredulous man wanted to see with his own eyes, and as soon as the door was opened he perceived two large grayish animals disappearing with long, swinging trot into the darkness.

      He returned to his seat, muttering:

      “I wouldn’t have believed it!”

      And he waited quietly till supper was ready.

      The men devoured their meal voraciously, with mouths stretched to their ears that they might swallow the more. Their round eyes opened at the same time as their jaws, and as the soup coursed down their throats it made a noise like the gurgling of water in a rainpipe.

      The two women watched in silence the movements of the big red beards. The potatoes seemed to be engulfed in these moving fleeces.

      But, as they were thirsty, the forester’s daughter went down to the cellar to draw them some cider. She was gone some time. The cellar was small, with an arched ceiling, and had served, so people said, both as prison and as hiding-place during the Revolution. It was approached by means of a narrow, winding staircase, closed by a trap-door at the farther end of the kitchen.

      When Berthine returned she was smiling mysteriously to herself. She gave the Germans her jug of cider.

      Then she and her mother supped apart, at the other end of the kitchen.

      The soldiers had finished eating, and were all six falling asleep as they sat round the table. Every now and then a forehead fell with a thud on the board, and the man, awakened suddenly, sat upright again.

      Berthine said to the officer:

      “Go and lie down, all of you, round the fire. There’s lots of room for six. I’m going up to my room with my mother.”

      And the two women went upstairs. They could be heard locking the door and walking about overhead for a time; then they were silent.

      The Prussians lay down on the floor, with their feet to the fire and their heads resting on their rolled-up cloaks. Soon all six snored loudly and uninterruptedly in six different keys.

      They had been sleeping for some time when a shot rang out so loudly that it seemed directed against the very wall’s of the house. The soldiers rose hastily. Two—then three—more shots were fired.

      The door opened hastily, and Berthine appeared, barefooted and only half dressed, with her candle in her hand and a scared look on her face.

      “There are the French,” she stammered; “at least two hundred of them. If they find you here they’ll burn the house down. For God’s sake, hurry down into the cellar, and don’t make a sound, whatever you do. If you make any noise we are lost.”

      “We’ll go, we’ll go,” replied the terrified officer. “Which is the way?”

      The young woman hurriedly raised the small, square trap-door, and the six men disappeared one after another down the narrow, winding staircase, feeling their way as they went.

      But as soon as the spike of the out of the last helmet was out of sight Berthine lowered the heavy oaken lid—thick as a wall, hard as steel, furnished with the hinges and bolts of a prison cell—shot the two heavy bolts, and began to laugh long and silently, possessed with a mad longing to dance above the heads of her prisoners.

      They made no sound, inclosed in the cellar as in a strong-box, obtaining air only from a small, iron-barred vent-hole.

      Berthine lighted her fire again, hung the pot over it, and prepared more soup, saying to herself:

      “Father will be tired tonight.”

      Then she sat and waited. The heavy pendulum of the clock swung to and fro with a monotonous tick.

      Every now and then the young woman cast an impatient glance at the dial—a glance which seemed to say:

      “I wish he’d be quick!”

      But soon there was a sound of voices beneath her feet. Low, confused words reached her through the masonry which roofed the cellar. The Prussians were beginning to suspect the trick she had played them, and presently the officer came up the narrow staircase, and knocked at the trap-door.

      “Open the door!” he cried.

      “What do you want?” she said, rising from her seat and approaching the cellarway.

      “Open the door!”

      “I won’t do any such thing!”

      “Open it or I’ll break it down!” shouted the man angrily.

      She laughed.

      “Hammer away, my good man! Hammer away!”

      He struck with the butt-end of his gun at the closed oaken door. But it would have resisted a battering-ram.

      The forester’s daughter heard him go down the stairs again. Then the soldiers came one after another and tried their strength against the trapdoor. But, finding their efforts useless, they all returned to the cellar and began to talk among themselves.

      The young woman heard them for a short time, then she rose, opened the door of the house; looked out into the night, СКАЧАТЬ