Jean's chamber1 was a large room, with floor of brick and whitewashed2 walls, that had once done duty as a store-room for the fruit grown on the farm. A faint, pleasant odor of pears and apples lingered there still, and for furniture there was an iron bedstead, a pine table and two chairs, to say nothing of a huge old walnut3 clothes-press, tremendously deep and wide, that looked as if it might hold an army. A lazy, restful quiet reigned4 there all day long, broken only by the deadened sounds that came from the adjacent stables, the faint lowing of the cattle, the occasional thud of a hoof5 upon the earthen floor. The window, which had a southern aspect, let in a flood of cheerful sunlight; all the view it afforded was a bit of hillside and a wheat field, edged by a little wood. And this mysterious chamber was so well hidden from prying6 eyes that never a one in all the world would have suspected its existence.
As it was to be her kingdom, Henriette constituted herself lawmaker from the beginning. The regulation was that no one save she and the doctor should have access to Jean; this in order to avert7 suspicion. Silvine, even, was never to set foot in the room unless by direction. Early each morning the two women came in and put things to rights, and after that, all the long day, the door was as impenetrable as if it had been a wall of stone. And thus it was that Jean found himself suddenly secluded8 from the world, after many weeks of tumultuous activity, seeing no face save that of the gentle woman whose footfall on the floor gave back no sound. She appeared to him, as he had beheld9 her for the first time down yonder in Sedan, like an apparition10, with her somewhat large mouth, her delicate, small features, her hair the hue11 of ripened12 grain, hovering13 about his bedside and ministering to his wants with an air of infinite goodness.
The patient's fever was so violent during the first few days that Henriette scarce ever left him. Doctor Dalichamp dropped in every morning on his way to the hospital and examined and dressed the wound. As the ball had passed out, after breaking the tibia, he was surprised that the case presented no better aspect; he feared there was a splinter of the bone remaining there that he had not succeeded in finding with the probe, and that might make resection necessary. He mentioned the matter to Jean, but the young man could not endure the thought of an operation that would leave him with one leg shorter than the other and lame15 him permanently16. No, no! he would rather die than be a cripple for life. So the good doctor, leaving the wound to develop further symptoms, confined himself for the present to applying a dressing17 of lint14 saturated18 with sweet oil and phenic acid having first inserted a drain--an India rubber tube--to carry off the pus. He frankly19 told his patient, however, that unless he submitted to an operation he must not hope to have the use of his limb for a very long time. Still, after the second week, the fever subsided20 and the young man's general condition was improved, so long as he could be content to rest quiet in his bed.
Then Jean's and Henriette's relations began to be established on a more systematic21 basis. Fixed22 habits commenced to prevail; it seemed to them that they had never lived otherwise--that they were to go on living forever in that way. All the hours and moments that she did not devote to the ambulance were spent with him; she saw to it that he had his food and drink at proper intervals24. She assisted him to turn in bed with a strength of wrist that no one, seeing her slender arms, would have supposed was in her. At times they would converse25; but as a general thing, especially in the earlier days, they had not much to say. They never seemed to tire of each other's company, though. On the whole it was a very pleasant life they led in that calm, restful atmosphere, he with the horrible scenes of the battlefield still fresh in his memory, she in her widow's weeds, her heart bruised26 and bleeding with the great loss she had sustained. At first he had experienced a sensation of embarrassment27, for he felt she was his superior, almost a lady, indeed, while he had never been aught more than a common soldier and a peasant. He could barely read and write. When finally he came to see that she affected28 no airs of superiority, but treated him on the footing of an equal, his confidence returned to him in a measure and he showed himself in his true colors, as a man of intelligence by reason of his sound, unpretentious common sense. Besides, he was surprised at times to think he could note a change was gradually coming over him; it seemed to him that his mind was less torpid29 than it had been, that it was clearer and more active, that he had novel ideas in his head, and more of them; could it be that the abominable30 life he had been leading for the last two months, his horrible sufferings, physical and moral, had exerted a refining influence on him? But that which assisted him most to overcome his shyness was to find that she was really not so very much wiser than he. She was but a little child when, at her mother's death, she became the household drudge31, with her three men to care for, as she herself expressed it--her grandfather, her father, and her brother--and she had not had the time to lay in a large stock of learning. She could read and write, could spell words that were not too long, and "do sums," if they were not too intricate; and that was the extent of her acquirement. And if she continued to intimidate32 him still, if he considered her far and away the superior of all other women upon earth, it was because he knew the ineffable33 tenderness, the goodness of heart, the unflinching courage, that animated34 that frail35 little body, who went about her duties silently and met them as if they had been pleasures.
They had in Maurice a subject of conversation that was of common interest to them both and of which they never wearied. It was to Maurice's friend, his brother, to whom she was devoting herself thus tenderly, the brave, kind man, so ready with his aid in time of trouble, who she felt had made her so many times his debtor36. She was full to overflowing37 with a sentiment of deepest gratitude38 and affection, that went on widening and deepening as she came to know him better and recognize his sterling39 qualities of head and heart, and he, whom she was tending like a little child, was actuated by such grateful sentiments that he would have liked to kiss her hands each time she gave him a cup of bouillon. Day by day did this bond of tender sympathy draw them nearer to each other in that profound solitude40 amid which they lived, harassed41 by an anxiety that they shared in common. When he had utterly42 exhausted43 his recollections of the dismal44 march from Rheims to Sedan, to the particulars of which she never seemed to tire of listening, the same question always rose to their lips: what was Maurice doing then? why did he not write? Could it be that the blockade of Paris was already complete, and was that the reason why they received no news? They had as yet had but one letter from him, written at Rouen, three days after his leaving them, in which he briefly45 stated that he had reached that city on his way to Paris, after a long and devious46 journey. And then for a week there had been no further word; the silence had remained unbroken.
In the morning, after Doctor Dalichamp had attended to his patient, he liked to sit a while and chat, putting his cares aside for the moment. Sometimes he also returned at evening and made a longer visit, and it was in this way that they learned what was going on in the great world outside their peaceful solitude and the terrible calamities47 that were desolating48 their country. He was their only source of intelligence; his heart, which beat with patriotic50 ardor51, overflowed52 with rage and grief at every fresh defeat, and thus it was that his sole topic of conversation was the victorious53 progress of the Prussians, who, since Sedan, had spread themselves over France like the waves of some black ocean. Each day brought its own tidings of disaster, and resting disconsolately54 on one of the two chairs that stood by the bedside, he would tell in mournful tones and with trembling gestures of the increasing gravity of the situation. Oftentimes he came with his pockets stuffed with Belgian newspapers, which he would leave behind him when he went away. And thus the echoes of defeat, days, weeks, after the event, reverberated55 in that quiet room, serving to unite yet more closely in community of sorrow the two poor sufferers who were shut within its walls.
It was from some of those old newspapers that Henriette read to Jean the occurrences at Metz, the Titanic56 struggle that was three times renewed, separated on each occasion by a day's interval23. The story was already five weeks old, but it was new to him, and he listened with a bleeding heart to the repetition of the miserable57 narrative58 of defeat to which he was not a stranger. In the deathly stillness of the room the incidents of the woeful tale unfolded themselves as Henriette, with the sing-song enunciation59 of a schoolgirl, picked out her words and sentences. When, after Froeschwiller and Spickeren, the 1st corps60, routed and broken into fragments, had swept away with it the 5th, the other corps stationed along the frontier _en echelon_ from Metz to Bitche, first wavering, then retreating in their consternation62 at those reverses, had ultimately concentrated before the intrenched camp on the right bank of the Moselle. But what waste of precious time was there, when they should not have lost a moment in retreating on Paris, a movement that was presently to be attended with such difficulty! The Emperor had been compelled to turn over the supreme63 command to Marshal Bazaine, to whom everyone looked with confidence for a victory. Then, on the 14th[*] came the affair of Borny, when the army was attacked at the moment when it was at last about to cross the stream, having to sustain the onset64 of two German armies: Steinmetz's, which was encamped in observation in front of the intrenched camp, and Prince Frederick Charles's, which had passed the river higher up and come down along the left bank in order to bar the French from access to their country; Borny, where the firing did not begin until it was three o'clock; Borny, that barren victory, at the end of which the French remained masters of their positions, but which left them astride the Moselle, tied hand and foot, while the turning movement of the second German army was being successfully accomplished66. After that, on the 16th, was the battle of Rezonville; all our corps were at last across the stream, although, owing to the confusion that prevailed at the junction67 of the Mars-la-Tour and Etain roads, which the Prussians had gained possession of early in the morning by a brilliant movement of their cavalry68 and artillery69, the 3d and 4th corps were hindered in their march and unable to get up; a slow, dragging, confused battle, which, up to two o'clock, Bazaine, with only a handful of men opposed to him, should have won, but which he wound up by losing, thanks to his inexplicable70 fear of being cut off from Metz; a battle of immense extent, spreading over leagues of hill and plain, where the French, attacked in front and flank, seemed willing to do almost anything except advance, affording the enemy time to concentrate and to all appearances co-operating with them to ensure the success of the Prussian plan, which was to force their withdrawal71 to the other side of the river. And on the 18th, after their retirement72 to the intrenched camp, Saint-Privat was fought, the culmination73 of the gigantic struggle, where the line of battle extended more than eight miles in length, two hundred thousand Germans with seven hundred guns arrayed against a hundred and twenty thousand French with but five hundred guns, the Germans facing toward Germany, the French toward France, as if invaders74 and invaded had inverted75 their roles in the singular tactical movements that had been going on; after two o'clock the conflict was most sanguinary, the Prussian Guard being repulsed76 with tremendous slaughter77 and Bazaine, with a left wing that withstood the onsets78 of the enemy like a wall of adamant79, for a long time victorious, up to the moment, at the approach of evening, when the weaker right wing was compelled by the terrific losses it had sustained to abandon Saint-Privat, involving in its rout61 the remainder of the army, which, defeated and driven back under the walls of Metz, was thenceforth to be imprisoned80 in a circle of flame and iron.
[*] August.--TR.
As Henriette pursued her reading Jean momentarily interrupted her to say:
"Ah, well! and to think that we fellows, after leaving Rheims, were looking for Bazaine! They were always telling us he was coming; now I can see why he never came!"
The marshal's despatch81, dated the 19th, after the battle of Saint-Privat, in which he spoke82 of resuming his retrograde movement by way of Montmedy, that despatch which had for its effect the advance of the army of Chalons, would seem to have been nothing more than the report of a defeated general, desirous to present matters under their most favorable aspect, and it was not until a considerably83 later period, the 29th, when the tidings of the approach of this relieving army had reached him through the Prussian lines, that he attempted a final effort, on the right bank this time, at Noiseville, but in such a feeble, half-hearted way that on the 1st of September, the day when the army of Chalons was annihilated84 at Sedan, the army of Metz fell back to advance no more, and became as if dead to France. The marshal, whose conduct up to that time may fairly be characterized as that of a leader of only moderate ability, neglecting his opportunities and failing to move when the roads were open to him, after that blockaded by forces greatly superior to his own, was now about to be seduced85 by alluring86 visions of political greatness and become a conspirator87 and a traitor88.
But in the papers that Doctor Dalichamp brought them Bazaine was still the great man and the gallant89 soldier, to whom France looked for her salvation90.
And Jean wanted certain passages read to him again, in order that he might more clearly understand how it was that while the third German army, under the Crown Prince of Prussia, had been leading them such a dance, and the first and second were besieging91 Metz, the latter were so strong in men and guns that it had been possible to form from them a fourth army, which, under the Crown Prince of Saxony, had done so much to decide the fortune of the day at Sedan. Then, having obtained the information he desired, resting on that bed of suffering to which his wound condemned92 him, he forced himself to hope in spite of all.
"That's how it is, you see; we were not so strong as they! No one can ever get at the rights of such matters while the fighting is going on. Never mind, though; you have read the figures as the newspapers give them: Bazaine has a hundred and fifty thousand men with him, he has three hundred thousand small arms and more than five hundred pieces of artillery; take my word for it, he is not going to let himself be caught in such a scrape as we were. The fellows all say he is a tough man to deal with; depend on it he's fixing up a nasty dose for the enemy, and he'll make 'em swallow it."
Henriette nodded her head and appeared to agree with him, in order to keep him in a cheerful frame of mind. She could not follow those complicated operations of the armies, but had a presentiment93 of coming, inevitable94 evil. Her voice was fresh and clear; she could have gone on reading thus for hours; only too glad to have it in her power to relieve the tedium95 of his long day, though at times, when she came to some narrative of slaughter, her eyes would fill with tears that made the words upon the printed page a blur96. She was doubtless thinking of her husband's fate, how he had been shot down at the foot of the wall and his body desecrated97 by the touch of the Bavarian officer's boot.
"If it gives you such pain," Jean said in surprise, "you need not read the battles; skip them."
But, gentle and self-sacrificing as ever, she recovered herself immediately.
"No, no; don't mind my weakness; I assure you it is a pleasure to me."
One evening early in October, when the wind was blowing a small hurricane outside, she came in from the ambulance and entered the room with an excited air, saying:
"A letter from Maurice! the doctor just gave it me."
With each succeeding morning the twain had been becoming more and more alarmed that the young man sent them no word, and now that for a whole week it had been rumored98 everywhere that the investment of Paris was complete, they were more disturbed in mind than ever, despairing of receiving tidings, asking themselves what could have happened him after he left Rouen. And now the reason of the long silence was made clear to them: the letter that he had addressed from Paris to Doctor Dalichamp on the 18th, the very day that ended railway communication with Havre, had gone astray and had only reached them at last by a miracle, after a long and circuitous100 journey.
"Ah, the dear boy!" said Jean, radiant with delight. "Read it to me, quick!"
The wind was howling and shrieking101 more dismally102 than ever, the window of the apartment strained and rattled103 as if someone were trying to force an entrance. Henriette went and got the little lamp, and placing it on the table beside the bed applied104 herself to the reading of the missive, so close to Jean that their faces almost touched. There was a sensation of warmth and comfort in the peaceful room amid the roaring of the storm that raged without.
It was a long letter of eight closely filled pages, in which Maurice first told how, soon after his arrival on the 16th, he had had the good fortune to get into a line regiment105 that was being recruited up to its full strength. Then, reverting106 to facts of history, he described in brief but vigorous terms the principal events of that month of terror: how Paris, recovering her sanity107 in a measure after the madness into which the disasters of Wissembourg and Froeschwiller had driven her, had comforted herself with hopes of future victories, had cheered herself with fresh illusions, such as lying stories of the army's successes, the appointment of Bazaine to the chief command, the _levee en masse_, bogus dispatches, which the ministers themselves read from the tribune, telling of hecatombs of slaughtered108 Prussians. And then he went on to tell how, on the 3d of September, the thunderbolt had a second time burst over the unhappy capital: all hope gone, the misinformed, abused, confiding109 city dazed by that crushing blow of destiny, the cries: "Down with the Empire!" that resounded110 at night upon the boulevards, the brief and gloomy session of the Chamber at which Jules Favre read the draft of the bill that conceded the popular demand. Then on the next day, the ever-memorable 4th of September, was the upheaval111 of all things, the second Empire swept from existence in atonement for its mistakes and crimes, the entire population of the capital in the streets, a torrent112 of humanity a half a million strong filling the Place de la Concorde and streaming onward113 in the bright sunshine of that beautiful Sabbath day to the great gates of the Corps Legislatif, feebly guarded by a handful of troops, who up-ended their muskets114 in the air in token of sympathy with the populace--smashing in the doors, swarming116 into the assembly chambers117, whence Jules Favre, Gambetta and other deputies of the Left were even then on the point of departing to proclaim the Republic at the Hotel de Ville; while on the Place Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois a little wicket of the Louvre opened timidly and gave exit to the Empress-regent, attired118 in black garments and accompanied by a single female friend, both the women trembling with affright and striving to conceal119 themselves in the depths of the public cab, which went jolting120 with its scared inmates121 from the Tuileries, through whose apartments the mob was at that moment streaming. On the same day Napoleon III. left the inn at Bouillon, where he had passed his first night of exile, bending his way toward Wilhelmshohe.
Here Jean, a thoughtful expression on his face, interrupted Henriette.
"Then we have a republic now? So much the better, if it is going to help us whip the Prussians!"
But he shook his head; he had always been taught to look distrustfully on republics when he was a peasant. And then, too, it did not seem to him a good thing that they should be of differing minds when the enemy was fronting them. After all, though, it was manifest there had to be a change of some kind, since everyone knew the Empire was rotten to the core and the people would have no more of it.
Henriette finished the letter, which concluded with a mention of the approach of the German armies. On the 13th, the day when a committee of the Government of National Defense122 had established its quarters at Tours, their advanced guards had been seen at Lagny, to the east of Paris. On the 14th and 15th they were at the very gates of the city, at Creteil and Joinville-le-Pont. On the 18th, however, the day when Maurice wrote, he seemed to have ceased to believe in the possibility of maintaining a strict blockade of Paris; he appeared to be under the influence of one of his hot fits of blind confidence, characterising the siege as a senseless and impudent123 enterprise that would come to an ignominious124 end before they were three weeks older, relying on the armies that the provinces would surely send to their relief, to say nothing of the army of Metz, that was already advancing by way of Verdun and Rheims. And the links of the iron chain that their enemies had forged for them had been riveted125 together; it encompassed126 Paris, and now Paris was a city shut off from all the world, whence no letter, no word of tidings longer came, the huge prison-house of two millions of living beings, who were to their neighbors as if they were not.
Henriette was oppressed by a sense of melancholy127. "Ah, merciful heaven!" she murmured, "how long will all this last, and shall we ever see him more!"
A more furious blast bent129 the sturdy trees out-doors and made the timbers of the old farmhouse130 creak and groan131. Think of the sufferings the poor fellows would have to endure should the winter be severe, fighting in the snow, without bread, without fire!
"Bah!" rejoined Jean, "that's a very nice letter of his, and it's a comfort to have heard from him. We must not despair."
Thus, day by day, the month of October ran its course, with gray melancholy skies, and if ever the wind went down for a short space it was only to bring the clouds back in darker, heavier masses. Jean's wound was healing very slowly; the outflow from the drain was not the "laudable pus" which would have permitted the doctor to remove the appliance, and the patient was in a very enfeebled state, refusing, however, to be operated on in his dread132 of being left a cripple. An atmosphere of expectant resignation, disturbed at times by transient misgivings133 for which there was no apparent cause, pervaded134 the slumberous135 little chamber, to which the tidings from abroad came in vague, indeterminate shape, like the distorted visions of an evil dream. The hateful war, with its butcheries and disasters, was still raging out there in the world, in some quarter unknown to them, without their ever being able to learn the real course of events, without their being conscious of aught save the wails136 and groans137 that seemed to fill the air from their mangled138, bleeding country. And the dead leaves rustled139 in the paths as the wind swept them before it beneath the gloomy sky, and over the naked fields brooded a funereal140 silence, broken only by the cawing of the crows, presage141 of a bitter winter.
A principal subject of conversation between them at this time was the hospital, which Henriette never left except to come and cheer Jean with her company. When she came in at evening he would question her, making the acquaintance of each of her charges, desirous to know who would die and who recover; while she, whose heart and soul were in her occupation, never wearied, but related the occurrences of the day in their minutest details.
"Ah," she would always say, "the poor boys, the poor boys!"
It was not the ambulance of the battlefield, where the blood from the wounded came in a fresh, bright stream, where the flesh the surgeon's knife cut into was firm and healthy; it was the decay and rottenness of the hospital, where the odor of fever and gangrene hung in the air, damp with the exhalations of the lingering convalescents and those who were dying by inches. Doctor Dalichamp had had the greatest difficulty in procuring142 the necessary beds, sheets and pillows, and every day he had to accomplish miracles to keep his patients alive, to obtain for them bread, meat and desiccated vegetables, to say nothing of bandages, compresses and other appliances. As the Prussian officers in charge of the military hospital in Sedan had refused him everything, even chloroform, he was accustomed to send to Belgium for what he required. And yet he had made no discrimination between French and Germans; he was even then caring for a dozen Bavarian soldiers who had been brought in there from Bazeilles. Those bitter adversaries144 who but a short time before had been trying to cut each other's throat now lay side by side, their passions calmed by suffering. And what abodes145 of distress146 and misery147 they were, those two long rooms in the old schoolhouse of Remilly, where, in the crude light that streamed through the tall windows, some thirty beds in each were arranged on either side of a narrow passage.
As late even as ten days after the battle wounded men had been discovered in obscure corners, where they had been overlooked, and brought in for treatment. There were four who had crawled into a vacant house at Balan and remained there, without attendance, kept from starving in some way, no one could tell how, probably by the charity of some kind-hearted neighbor, and their wounds were alive with maggots; they were as dead men, their system poisoned by the corruption148 that exuded149 from their wounds. There was a purulency, that nothing could check or overcome, that hovered150 over the rows of beds and emptied them. As soon as the door was passed one's nostrils151 were assailed152 by the odor of mortifying153 flesh. From drains inserted in festering sores fetid matter trickled154, drop by drop. Oftentimes it became necessary to reopen old wounds in order to extract a fragment of bone that had been overlooked. Then abscesses would form, to break out after an interval in some remote portion of the body. Their strength all gone, reduced to skeletons, with ashen155, clayey faces, the miserable wretches156 suffered the torments157 of the damned. Some, so weakened they could scarcely draw their breath, lay all day long upon their back, with tight shut, darkened eyes, like corpses158 in which decomposition159 had already set in; while others, denied the boon160 of sleep, tossing in restless wakefulness, drenched161 with the cold sweat that streamed from every pore, raved162 like lunatics, as if their suffering had made them mad. And whether they were calm or violent, it mattered not; when the contagion163 of the fever reached them, then was the end at hand, the poison doing its work, flying from bed to bed, sweeping164 them all away in one mass of corruption.
But worst of all was the condemned cell, the room to which were assigned those who were attacked by dysentery, typhus or small-pox. There were many cases of black small-pox. The patients writhed165 and shrieked166 in unceasing delirium167, or sat erect168 in bed with the look of specters. Others had pneumonia169 and were wasting beneath the stress of their frightful170 cough. There were others again who maintained a continuous howling and were comforted only when their burning, throbbing171 wound was sprayed with cold water. The great hour of the day, the one that was looked forward to with eager expectancy172, was that of the doctor's morning visit, when the beds were opened and aired and an opportunity was afforded their occupants to stretch their limbs, cramped173 by remaining long in one position. And it was the hour of dread and terror as well, for not a day passed that, as the doctor went his rounds, he was not pained to see on some poor devil's skin the bluish spots that denoted the presence of gangrene. The operation would be appointed for the following day, when a few more inches of the leg or arm would be sliced away. Often the gangrene kept mounting higher and higher, and amputation174 had to be repeated until the entire limb was gone.
Every evening on her return Henriette answered Jean's questions in the same tone of compassion175:
"Ah, the poor boys, the poor boys!"
And her particulars never varied176; they were the story of the daily recurring177 torments of that earthly hell. There had been an amputation at the shoulder-joint, a foot had been taken off, a humerus resected; but would gangrene or purulent contagion be clement178 and spare the patient? Or else they had been burying some one of their inmates, most frequently a Frenchman, now and then a German. Scarcely a day passed but a coarse coffin179, hastily knocked together from four pine boards, left the hospital at the twilight180 hour, accompanied by a single one of the attendants, often by the young woman herself, that a fellow-creature might not be laid away in his grave like a dog. In the little cemetery181 at Remilly two trenches182 had been dug, and there they slumbered183, side by side, French to the right, Germans to the left, their enmity forgotten in their narrow bed.
Jean, without ever having seen them, had come to feel an interest in certain among the patients. He would ask for tidings of them.
"And 'Poor boy,' how is he getting on to-day?"
This was a little soldier, a private in the 5th of the line, not yet twenty years old, who had doubtless enlisted184 as a volunteer. The by-name: "Poor boy" had been given him and had stuck because he always used the words in speaking of himself, and when one day he was asked the reason he replied that that was the name by which his mother had always called him. Poor boy he was, in truth, for he was dying of pleurisy brought on by a wound in his left side.
"Ah, poor fellow," replied Henriette, who had conceived a special fondness for this one of her charges, "he is no better; he coughed all the afternoon. It pained my heart to hear him."
"And your bear, Gutman, how about him?" pursued Jean, with a faint smile. "Is the doctor's report more favorable?"
"Yes, he thinks he may be able to save his life. But the poor man suffers dreadfully."
Although they both felt the deepest compassion for him, they never spoke of Gutman but a smile of gentle amusement came to their lips. Almost immediately upon entering on her duties at the hospital the young woman had been shocked to recognize in that Bavarian soldier the features: big blue eyes, red hair and beard and massive nose, of the man who had carried her away in his arms the day they shot her husband at Bazeilles. He recognized her as well, but could not speak; a musket115 ball, entering at the back of the neck, had carried away half his tongue. For two days she recoiled185 with horror, an involuntary shudder186 passed through her frame, each time she had to approach his bed, but presently her heart began to melt under the imploring187, very gentle looks with which he followed her movements in the room. Was he not the blood-splashed monster, with eyes ablaze188 with furious rage, whose memory was ever present to her mind? It cost her an effort to recognize him now in that submissive, uncomplaining creature, who bore his terrible suffering with such cheerful resignation. The nature of his affliction, which is not of frequent occurrence, enlisted for him the sympathies of the entire hospital. It was not even certain that his name was Gutman; he was called so because the only sound he succeeded in articulating was a word of two syllables189 that resembled that more than it did anything else. As regarded all other particulars concerning him everyone was in the dark; it was generally believed, however, that he was married and had children. He seemed to understand a few words of French, for he would answer questions that were put to him with an emphatic190 motion of the head: "Married?" yes, yes! "Children?" yes, yes! The interest and excitement he displayed one day that he saw some flour induced them to believe he might have been a miller191. And that was all. Where was the mill, whose wheel had ceased to turn? In what distant Bavarian village were the wife and children now weeping their lost husband and father? Was he to die, nameless, unknown, in that foreign country, and leave his dear ones forever ignorant of his fate?
"To-day," Henriette told Jean one evening, "Gutman kissed his hand to me. I cannot give him a drink of water, or render him any other trifling192 service, but he manifests his gratitude by the most extravagant193 demonstrations194. Don't smile; it is too terrible to be buried thus alive before one's time has come."
Toward the end of October Jean's condition began to improve. The doctor thought he might venture to remove the drain, although he still looked apprehensive195 whenever he examined the wound, which, nevertheless appeared to be healing as rapidly as could be expected. The convalescent was able to leave his bed, and spent hours at a time pacing his room or seated at the window, looking out on the cheerless, leaden sky. Then time began to hang heavy on his hands; he spoke of finding something to do, asked if he could not be of service on the farm. Among the secret cares that disturbed his mind was the question of money, for he did not suppose he could have lain there for six long weeks and not exhaust his little fortune of two hundred francs, and if Father Fouchard continued to afford him hospitality it must be that Henriette had been paying his board. The thought distressed196 him greatly; he did not know how to bring about an explanation with her, and it was with a feeling of deep satisfaction that he accepted the position of assistant at the farm, with the understanding that he was to help Silvine with the housework, while Prosper198 was to be continued in charge of the out-door labors199.
Notwithstanding the hardness of the times Father Fouchard could well afford to take on another hand, for his affairs were prospering200. While the whole country was in the throes of dissolution and bleeding at every limb, he had succeeded in so extending his butchering business that he was now slaughtering201 three and even four times as many animals as he had ever done before. It was said that since the 31st of August he had been carrying on a most lucrative202 business with the Prussians. He who on the 30th had stood at his door with his cocked gun in his hand and refused to sell a crust of bread to the starving soldiers of the 7th corps had on the following day, upon the first appearance of the enemy, opened up as dealer203 in all kinds of supplies, had disinterred from his cellar immense stocks of provisions, had brought back his flocks and herds204 from the fastnesses where he had concealed205 them; and since that day he had been one of the heaviest purveyors of meat to the German armies, exhibiting consummate206 address in bargaining with them and in getting his money promptly207 for his merchandise. Other dealers208 at times suffered great inconvenience from the insolent209 arbitrariness of the victors, whereas he never sold them a sack of flour, a cask of wine or a quarter of beef that he did not get his pay for it as soon as delivered in good hard cash. It made a good deal of talk in Remilly; people said it was scandalous on the part of a man whom the war had deprived of his only son, whose grave he never visited, but left to be cared for by Silvine; but nevertheless they all looked up to him with respect as a man who was making his fortune while others, even the shrewdest, were having a hard time of it to keep body and soul together. And he, with a sly leer out of his small red eyes, would shrug210 his shoulders and growl211 in his bull-headed way:
"Who talks of patriotism212! I am more a patriot49 than any of them. Would you call it patriotism to fill those bloody213 Prussians' mouths gratis214? What they get from me they have to pay for. Folks will see how it is some of these days!"
On the second day of his employment Jean remained too long on foot, and the doctor's secret fears proved not to be unfounded; the wound opened, the leg became greatly inflamed215 and swollen216, he was compelled to take to his bed again. Dalichamp suspected that the mischief217 was due to a spicule of bone that the two consecutive218 days of violent exercise had served to liberate219. He explored the wound and was so fortunate as to find the fragment, but there was a shock attending the operation, succeeded by a high fever, which exhausted all Jean's strength. He had never in his life been reduced to a condition of such debility: his recovery promised to be a work of time, and faithful Henriette resumed her position as nurse and companion in the little chamber, where winter with icy breath now began to make its presence felt. It was early November, already the east wind had brought on its wings a smart flurry of snow, and between those four bare walls, on the uncarpeted floor where even the tall, gaunt old clothes-press seemed to shiver with discomfort220, the cold was extreme. As there was no fireplace in the room they determined221 to set up a stove, of which the purring, droning murmur128 assisted to brighten their solitude a bit.
The days wore on, monotonously222, and that first week of the relapse was to Jean and Henriette the dreariest223 and saddest in all their long, unsought intimacy224. Would their suffering never end? were they to hope for no surcease of misery, the danger always springing up afresh? At every moment their thoughts sped away to Maurice, from whom they had received no further word. They were told that others were getting letters, brief notes written on tissue paper and brought in by carrier-pigeons. Doubtless the bullet of some hated German had slain225 the messenger that, winging its way through the free air of heaven, was bringing them their missive of joy and love. Everything seemed to retire into dim obscurity, to die and be swallowed up in the depths of the premature226 winter. Intelligence of the war only reached them a long time after the occurrence of events, the few newspapers that Doctor Dalichamp still continued to supply them with were often a week old by the time they reached their hands. And their dejection was largely owing to their want of information, to what they did not know and yet instinctively227 felt to be the truth, to the prolonged death-wail that, spite of all, came to their ears across the frozen fields in the deep silence that lay upon the country.
One morning the doctor came to them in a condition of deepest discouragement. With a trembling hand he drew from his pocket a Belgian newspaper and threw it on the bed, exclaiming:
Jean, who had been dozing229, his back supported by a couple of pillows, suddenly became wide-awake.
"What, a traitor?"
"Yes, he has surrendered Metz and the army. It is the experience of Sedan over again, only this time they drain us of our last drop of life-blood." Then taking up the paper and reading from it: "One hundred and fifty thousand prisoners, one hundred and fifty-three eagles and standards, one hundred and forty-one field guns, seventy-six machine guns, eight hundred casemate and barbette guns, three hundred thousand muskets, two thousand military train wagons230, material for eighty-five batteries--"
And he went on giving further particulars: how Marshal Bazaine had been blockaded in Metz with the army, bound hand and foot, making no effort to break the wall of adamant that surrounded him; the doubtful relations that existed between him and Prince Frederick Charles, his indecision and fluctuating political combinations, his ambition to play a great role in history, but a role that he seemed not to have fixed upon himself; then all the dirty business of parleys231 and conferences, and the communications by means of lying, unsavory emissaries with Bismarck, King William and the Empress-regent, who in the end put her foot down and refused to negotiate with the enemy on the basis of a cession232 of territory; and, finally, the inevitable catastrophe233, the completion of the web that destiny had been weaving, famine in Metz, a compulsory234 capitulation, officers and men, hope and courage gone, reduced to accept the bitter terms of the victor. France no longer had an army.
"In God's name!" Jean ejaculated in a deep, low voice. He had not fully65 understood it all, but until then Bazaine had always been for him the great captain, the one man to whom they were to look for salvation. "What is left us to do now? What will become of them at Paris?"
The doctor was just coming to the news from Paris, which was of a disastrous235 character. He called their attention to the fact that the paper from which he was reading was dated November 5. The surrender of Metz had been consummated236 on the 27th of October, and the tidings were not known in Paris until the 30th. Coming, as it did, upon the heels of the reverses recently sustained at Chevilly, Bagneux and la Malmaison, after the conflict at Bourget and the loss of that position, the intelligence had burst like a thunderbolt over the desperate populace, angered and disgusted by the feebleness and impotency of the government of National Defense. And thus it was that on the following day, the 31st, the city was threatened with a general insurrection, an immense throng237 of angry men, a mob ripe for mischief, collecting on the Place de l'Hotel de Ville, whence they swarmed238 into the halls and public offices, making prisoners the members of the Government, whom the National Guard rescued later in the day only because they feared the triumph of those incendiaries who were clamoring for the commune. And the Belgian journal wound up with a few stinging comments on the great City of Paris, thus torn by civil war when the enemy was at its gates. Was it not the presage of approaching decomposition, the puddle239 of blood and mire240 that was to engulf241 a world?
"That's true enough!" said Jean, whose face was very white. "They've no business to be squabbling when the Prussians are at hand!"
But Henriette, who had said nothing as yet, always making it her rule to hold her tongue when politics were under discussion, could not restrain a cry that rose from her heart. Her thoughts were ever with her brother.
"_Mon Dieu_, I hope that Maurice, with all the foolish ideas he has in his head, won't let himself get mixed up in this business!"
They were all silent in their distress; and it was the doctor, who was ardently242 patriotic, who resumed the conversation.
"Never mind; if there are no more soldiers, others will grow. Metz has surrendered, Paris may surrender, even; but it don't follow from that that France is wiped out. Yes, the strong-box is all right, as our peasants say, and we will live on in spite of all."
It was clear, however, that he was hoping against hope. He spoke of the army that was collecting on the Loire, whose initial performances, in the neighborhood of Arthenay, had not been of the most promising243; it would become seasoned and would march to the relief of Paris. His enthusiasm was aroused to boiling pitch by the proclamations of Gambetta, who had left Paris by balloon on the 7th of October and two days later established his headquarters at Tours, calling on every citizen to fly to arms, and instinct with a spirit at once so virile244 and so sagacious that the entire country gave its adhesion to the dictatorial245 powers assumed for the public safety. And was there not talk of forming another army in the North, and yet another in the East, of causing soldiers to spring from the ground by sheer force of faith? It was to be the awakening246 of the provinces, the creation of all that was wanting by exercise of indomitable will, the determination to continue the struggle until the last sou was spent, the last drop of blood shed.
"Bah!" said the doctor in conclusion as he arose to go, "I have many a time given up a patient, and a week later found him as lively as a cricket."
Jean smiled. "Doctor, hurry up and make a well man of me, so I can go back to my post down yonder."
But those evil tidings left Henriette and him in a terribly disheartened state. There came another cold wave, with snow, and when the next day Henriette came in shivering from the hospital she told her friend that Gutman was dead. The intense cold had proved fatal to many among the wounded; it was emptying the rows of beds. The miserable man whom the loss of his tongue had condemned to silence had lain two days in the throes of death. During his last hour she had remained seated at his bedside, unable to resist the supplication247 of his pleading gaze. He seemed to be speaking to her with his tearful eyes, trying to tell, it may be, his real name and the name of the village, so far away, where a wife and little ones were watching for his return. And he had gone from them a stranger, known of none, sending her a last kiss with his uncertain, stiffening248 fingers, as if to thank her once again for all her gentle care. She was the only one who accompanied the remains249 to the cemetery, where the frozen earth, the unfriendly soil of the stranger's country, rattled with a dull, hollow sound on the pine coffin, mingled250 with flakes251 of snow.
The next day, again, Henriette said upon her return at evening:
"'Poor boy' is dead." She could not keep back her tears at mention of his name. "If you could but have seen and heard him in his pitiful delirium! He kept calling me: 'Mamma! mamma!' and stretched his poor thin arms out to me so entreatingly252 that I had to take him on my lap. His suffering had so wasted him that he was no heavier than a boy of ten, poor fellow. And I held and soothed253 him, so that he might die in peace; yes, I held him in my arms, I whom he called his mother and who was but a few years older than himself. He wept, and I myself could not restrain my tears; you can see I am weeping still--" Her utterance254 was choked with sobs255; she had to pause. "Before his death he murmured several times the name which he had given himself: 'Poor boy, poor boy!' Ah, how just the designation! poor boys they are indeed, some of them so young and all so brave, whom your hateful war maims and mangles256 and causes to suffer so before they are laid away at last in their narrow bed!"
Never a day passed now but Henriette came in at night in this anguished257 state, caused by some new death, and the suffering of others had the effect of bringing them together even more closely still during the sorrowful hours that they spent, secluded from all the world, in the silent, tranquil258 chamber. And yet those hours were full of sweetness, too, for affection, a feeling which they believed to be a brother's and sister's love, had sprung up in those two hearts which little by little had come to know each other's worth. To him, with his observant, thoughtful nature, their long intimacy had proved an elevating influence, while she, noting his unfailing kindness of heart and evenness of temper, had ceased to remember that he was one of the lowly of the earth and had been a tiller of the soil before he became a soldier. Their understanding was perfect; they made a very good couple, as Silvine said with her grave smile. There was never the least embarrassment between them; when she dressed his leg the calm serenity259 that dwelt in the eyes of both was undisturbed. Always attired in black, in her widow's garments, it seemed almost as if she had ceased to be a woman.
But during those long afternoons when Jean was left to himself he could not help giving way to speculation260. The sentiment he experienced for his friend was one of boundless261 gratitude, a sort of religious reverence262, which would have made him repel263 the idea of love as if it were a sort of sacrilege. And yet he told himself that had he had a wife like her, so gentle, so loving, so helpful, his life would have been an earthly paradise. His great misfortune, his unhappy marriage, the evil years he had spent at Rognes, his wife's tragic264 end, all the sad past, arose before him with a softened265 feeling of regret, with an undefined hope for the future, but without distinct purpose to try another effort to master happiness. He closed his eyes and dropped off into a doze143, and then he had a confused vision of being at Remilly, married again and owner of a bit of land, sufficient to support a family of honest folks whose wants were not extravagant. But it was all a dream, lighter266 than thistle-down; he knew it could never, never be. He believed his heart to be capable of no emotion stronger than friendship, he loved Henriette as he did solely267 because he was Maurice's brother. And then that vague dream of marriage had come to be in some measure a comfort to him, one of those fancies of the imagination that we know is never to be realized and with which we fondle ourselves in our hours of melancholy.
For her part, such thoughts had never for a moment presented themselves to Henriette's mind. Since the day of the horrible tragedy at Bazeilles her bruised heart had lain numb268 and lifeless in her bosom269, and if consolation270 in the shape of a new affection had found its way thither271, it could not be otherwise than without her knowledge; the latent movement of the seed deep-buried in the earth, which bursts its sheath and germinates272, unseen of human eye. She failed even to perceive the pleasure it afforded her to remain for hours at a time by Jean's bedside, reading to him those newspapers that never brought them tidings save of evil. Never had her pulses beat more rapidly at the touch of his hand, never had she dwelt in dreamy rapture273 on the vision of the future with a longing274 to be loved once more. And yet it was in that chamber alone that she found comfort and oblivion. When she was there, busying herself with noiseless diligence for her patient's well-being275, she was at peace; it seemed to her that soon her brother would return and all would be well, they would all lead a life of happiness together and never more be parted. And it appeared to her so natural that things should end thus that she talked of their relations without the slightest feeling of embarrassment, without once thinking to question her heart more closely, unaware276 that she had already made the chaste277 surrender of it.
But as she was on the point of leaving for the hospital one afternoon she looked into the kitchen as she passed and saw there a Prussian captain and two other officers, and the icy terror that filled her at the sight, then, for the first time, opened her eyes to the deep affection she had conceived for Jean. It was plain that the men had heard of the wounded man's presence at the farm and were come to claim him; he was to be torn from them and led away captive to the dungeon278 of some dark fortress279 deep in Germany. She listened tremblingly, her heart beating tumultuously.
The captain, a big, stout280 man, who spoke French with scarce a trace of foreign accent, was rating old Fouchard soundly.
"Things can't go on in this way; you are not dealing281 squarely by us. I came myself to give you warning, once for all, that if the thing happens again I shall take other steps to remedy it; and I promise you the consequences will not be agreeable."
Though entirely282 master of all his faculties283 the old scamp assumed an air of consternation, pretending not to understand, his mouth agape, his arms describing frantic284 circles on the air.
"How is that, sir, how is that?"
"Oh, come, there's no use attempting to pull the wool over my eyes; you know perfectly285 well that the three beeves you sold me on Sunday last were rotten--yes, diseased, and rotten through and through; they must have been where there was infection, for they poisoned my men; there are two of them in such a bad way that they may be dead by this time for all I know."
Fouchard's manner was expressive286 of virtuous287 indignation. "What, my cattle diseased! why, there's no better meat in all the country; a sick woman might feed on it to build her up!" And he whined288 and sniveled, thumping289 himself on the chest and calling God to witness he was an honest man; he would cut off his right hand rather than sell bad meat. For more than thirty years he had been known throughout the neighborhood, and not a living soul could say he had ever been wronged in weight or quality. "They were as sound as a dollar, sir, and if your men had the belly-ache it was because they ate too much--unless some villain290 hocussed the pot--"
And so he ran on, with such a flux291 of words and absurd theories that finally the captain, his patience exhausted, cut him short.
"Enough! You have had your warning; see you profit by it! And there is another matter: we have our suspicions that all you people of this village give aid and comfort to the francs-tireurs of the wood of Dieulet, who killed another of our sentries292 day before yesterday. Mind what I say; be careful!"
When the Prussians were gone Father Fouchard shrugged293 his shoulders with a contemptuous sneer294. Why, yes, of course he sold them carcasses that had never been near the slaughter house; that was all they would ever get to eat from him. If a peasant had a cow die on his hands of the rinderpest, or if he found a dead ox lying in the ditch, was not the carrion295 good enough for those dirty Prussians? To say nothing of the pleasure there was in getting a big price out of them for tainted296 meat at which a dog would turn up his nose. He turned and winked297 slyly at Henriette, who was glad to have her fears dispelled298, muttering triumphantly299:
"Say, little girl, what do you think now of the wicked people who go about circulating the story that I am not a patriot? Why don't they do as I do, eh? sell the blackguards carrion and put their money in their pocket. Not a patriot! why, good Heavens! I shall have killed more of them with my diseased cattle than many a soldier with his chassepot!"
When the story reached Jean's ears, however, he was greatly disturbed. If the German authorities suspected that the people of Remilly were harboring the francs-tireurs from Dieulet wood they might at any time come and beat up his quarters and unearth300 him from his retreat. The idea that he should be the means of compromising his hosts or bringing trouble to Henriette was unendurable to him. Yielding to the young woman's entreaties301, however, he consented to delay his departure yet for a few days, for his wound was very slow in healing and he was not strong enough to go away and join one of the regiments302 in the field, either in the North or on the Loire.
From that time forward, up to the middle of December, the stress of their anxiety and mental suffering exceeded even what had gone before. The cold was grown to be so intense that the stove no longer sufficed to heat the great, barn-like room. When they looked from their window on the crust of snow that covered the frozen earth they thought of Maurice, entombed down yonder in distant Paris, that was now become a city of death and desolation, from which they scarcely ever received reliable intelligence. Ever the same questions were on their lips: what was he doing, why did he not let them hear from him? They dared not voice their dreadful doubts and fears; perhaps he was ill, or wounded; perhaps even he was dead. The scanty303 and vague tidings that continued to reach them occasionally through the newspapers were not calculated to reassure304 them. After numerous lying reports of successful sorties, circulated one day only to be contradicted the next, there was a rumor99 of a great victory gained by General Ducrot at Champigny on the 2d of December; but they speedily learned that on the following day the general, abandoning the positions he had won, had been forced to recross the Marne and send his troops into cantonments in the wood of Vincennes. With each new day the Parisians saw themselves subjected to fresh suffering and privation: famine was beginning to make itself felt; the authorities, having first requisitioned horned cattle, were now doing the same with potatoes, gas was no longer furnished to private houses, and soon the fiery305 flight of the projectiles306 could be traced as they tore through the darkness of the unlighted streets. And so it was that neither of them could draw a breath or eat a mouthful without being haunted by the image of Maurice and those two million living beings, imprisoned in their gigantic sepulcher307.
From every quarter, moreover, from the northern as well as from the central districts, most discouraging advices continued to arrive. In the north the 22d army corps, composed of gardes mobiles, depot308 companies from various regiments and such officers and men as had not been involved in the disasters of Sedan and Metz, had been forced to abandon Amiens and retreat on Arras, and on the 5th of December Rouen had also fallen into the hands of the enemy, after a mere309 pretense310 of resistance on the part of its demoralized, scanty garrison311. In the center the victory of Coulmiers, achieved on the 3d of November by the army of the Loire, had resuscitated312 for a moment the hopes of the country: Orleans was to be reoccupied, the Bavarians were to be put to flight, the movement by way of Etampes was to culminate313 in the relief of Paris; but on December 5 Prince Frederick Charles had retaken Orleans and cut in two the army of the Loire, of which three corps fell back on Bourges and Vierzon, while the remaining two, commanded by General Chanzy, retired314 to Mans, fighting and falling back alternately for a whole week, most gallantly315. The Prussians were everywhere, at Dijon and at Dieppe, at Vierzon as well as at Mans. And almost every morning came the intelligence of some fortified316 place that had capitulated, unable longer to hold out under the bombardment. Strasbourg had succumbed317 as early as the 28th of September, after standing197 forty-six days of siege and thirty-seven of shelling, her walls razed318 and her buildings riddled319 by more than two hundred thousand projectiles. The citadel320 of Laon had been blown into the air; Toul had surrendered; and following them, a melancholy catalogue, came Soissons with its hundred and twenty-eight pieces of artillery, Verdun, which numbered a hundred and thirty-six, Neufbrisach with a hundred, La Fere with seventy, Montmedy, sixty-five. Thionville was in flames, Phalsbourg had only opened her gates after a desperate resistance that lasted eighty days. It seemed as if all France were doomed321 to burn and be reduced to ruins by the never-ceasing cannonade.
One morning that Jean manifested a fixed determination to be gone, Henriette seized both his hands and held them tight clasped in hers.
"Ah, no! I beg you, do not go and leave me here alone. You are not strong enough; wait a few days yet, only a few days. I will let you go, I promise you I will, whenever the doctor says you are well enough to go and fight."
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1
chamber
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| n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所 | |
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whitewashed
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| 粉饰，美化，掩饰( whitewash的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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walnut
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| n.胡桃，胡桃木，胡桃色，茶色 | |
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reigned
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| vi.当政，统治（reign的过去式形式） | |
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hoof
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| n.(马，牛等的)蹄 | |
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6
prying
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| adj.爱打听的v.打听，刺探（他人的私事）( pry的现在分词 )；撬开 | |
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avert
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| v.防止，避免；转移(目光、注意力等) | |
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secluded
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| adj.与世隔绝的；隐退的；偏僻的v.使隔开，使隐退( seclude的过去式和过去分词) | |
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beheld
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| v.看，注视( behold的过去式和过去分词 )；瞧；看呀；（叙述中用于引出某人意外的出现）哎哟 | |
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apparition
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| n.幽灵，神奇的现象 | |
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hue
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| n.色度；色调；样子 | |
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ripened
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| v.成熟，使熟( ripen的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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hovering
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| 鸟( hover的现在分词 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫 | |
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lint
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| n.线头；绷带用麻布，皮棉 | |
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lame
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| adj.跛的，(辩解、论据等)无说服力的 | |
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permanently
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| adv.永恒地，永久地，固定不变地 | |
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dressing
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| n.(食物)调料；包扎伤口的用品，敷料 | |
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saturated
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| a.饱和的，充满的 | |
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frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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subsided
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| v.（土地）下陷（因在地下采矿）( subside的过去式和过去分词 )；减弱；下降至较低或正常水平；一下子坐在椅子等上 | |
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systematic
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| adj.有系统的，有计划的，有方法的 | |
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fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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interval
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| n.间隔，间距；幕间休息，中场休息 | |
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intervals
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| n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息 | |
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converse
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| vi.谈话，谈天，闲聊；adv.相反的，相反 | |
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bruised
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| [医]青肿的，瘀紫的 | |
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embarrassment
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| n.尴尬；使人为难的人(事物)；障碍；窘迫 | |
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affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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torpid
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| adj.麻痹的，麻木的，迟钝的 | |
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abominable
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| adj.可厌的，令人憎恶的 | |
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drudge
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| n.劳碌的人；v.做苦工，操劳 | |
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32
intimidate
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| vt.恐吓，威胁 | |
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33
ineffable
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| adj.无法表达的，不可言喻的 | |
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34
animated
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| adj.生气勃勃的，活跃的，愉快的 | |
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35
frail
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| adj.身体虚弱的；易损坏的 | |
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36
debtor
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| n.借方，债务人 | |
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37
overflowing
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| n. 溢出物,溢流 adj. 充沛的，充满的 动词overflow的现在分词形式 | |
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38
gratitude
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| adj.感激，感谢 | |
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39
sterling
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| adj.英币的(纯粹的，货真价实的)；n.英国货币(英镑) | |
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40
solitude
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| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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41
harassed
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| adj. 疲倦的，厌烦的 动词harass的过去式和过去分词 | |
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42
utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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43
exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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44
dismal
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| adj.阴沉的，凄凉的，令人忧郁的，差劲的 | |
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45
briefly
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| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
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46
devious
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| adj.不坦率的，狡猾的；迂回的，曲折的 | |
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47
calamities
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| n.灾祸，灾难( calamity的名词复数 )；不幸之事 | |
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48
desolating
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| 毁坏( desolate的现在分词 )； 极大地破坏； 使沮丧； 使痛苦 | |
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49
patriot
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| n.爱国者，爱国主义者 | |
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50
patriotic
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| adj.爱国的，有爱国心的 | |
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51
ardor
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| n.热情，狂热 | |
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52
overflowed
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| 溢出的 | |
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53
victorious
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|
| adj.胜利的，得胜的 | |
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54
disconsolately
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| adv.悲伤地，愁闷地；哭丧着脸 | |
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55
reverberated
|
|
| 回响，回荡( reverberate的过去式和过去分词 )； 使反响，使回荡，使反射 | |
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56
titanic
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|
| adj.巨人的，庞大的，强大的 | |
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57
miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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58
narrative
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| n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的 | |
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59
enunciation
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| n.清晰的发音；表明，宣言；口齿 | |
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60
corps
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| n.(通信等兵种的)部队；(同类作的)一组 | |
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61
rout
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| n.溃退，溃败；v.击溃，打垮 | |
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62
consternation
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| n.大为吃惊，惊骇 | |
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63
supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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64
onset
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| n.进攻，袭击，开始，突然开始 | |
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65
fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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66
accomplished
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|
| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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67
junction
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| n.连接，接合；交叉点，接合处，枢纽站 | |
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68
cavalry
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| n.骑兵；轻装甲部队 | |
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69
artillery
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| n.(军)火炮，大炮；炮兵(部队) | |
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70
inexplicable
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| adj.无法解释的，难理解的 | |
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71
withdrawal
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| n.取回，提款；撤退，撤军；收回，撤销 | |
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72
retirement
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| n.退休，退职 | |
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73
culmination
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| n.顶点；最高潮 | |
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74
invaders
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| 入侵者，侵略者，侵入物( invader的名词复数 ) | |
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75
inverted
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| adj.反向的，倒转的v.使倒置，使反转( invert的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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76
repulsed
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| v.击退( repulse的过去式和过去分词 )；驳斥；拒绝 | |
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77
slaughter
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| n.屠杀，屠宰；vt.屠杀，宰杀 | |
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78
onsets
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| 攻击，袭击（onset的复数形式） | |
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79
adamant
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|
| adj.坚硬的，固执的 | |
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80
imprisoned
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| 下狱，监禁( imprison的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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81
despatch
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| n./v.(dispatch)派遣；发送；n.急件；新闻报道 | |
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82
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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83
considerably
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|
| adv.极大地；相当大地；在很大程度上 | |
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84
annihilated
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|
| v.（彻底）消灭( annihilate的过去式和过去分词 )；使无效；废止；彻底击溃 | |
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85
seduced
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|
| 诱奸( seduce的过去式和过去分词 )； 勾引； 诱使堕落； 使入迷 | |
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86
alluring
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|
| adj.吸引人的，迷人的 | |
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87
conspirator
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|
| n.阴谋者，谋叛者 | |
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88
traitor
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|
| n.叛徒，卖国贼 | |
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89
gallant
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|
| adj.英勇的，豪侠的；(向女人)献殷勤的 | |
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90
salvation
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|
| n.（尤指基督）救世，超度，拯救，解困 | |
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91
besieging
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| 包围，围困，围攻( besiege的现在分词 ) | |
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92
condemned
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|
| adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词 | |
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93
presentiment
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|
| n.预感，预觉 | |
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94
inevitable
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|
| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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95
tedium
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|
| n.单调；烦闷 | |
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96
blur
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|
| n.模糊不清的事物；vt.使模糊，使看不清楚 | |
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97
desecrated
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| 毁坏或亵渎( desecrate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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98
rumored
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|
| adj.传说的，谣传的v.传闻( rumor的过去式和过去分词 )；[古]名誉；咕哝；[古]喧嚷 | |
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99
rumor
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| n.谣言，谣传，传说 | |
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100
circuitous
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|
| adj.迂回的路的，迂曲的，绕行的 | |
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101
shrieking
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|
| v.尖叫( shriek的现在分词 ) | |
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102
dismally
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|
| adv.阴暗地，沉闷地 | |
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103
rattled
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| 慌乱的，恼火的 | |
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104
applied
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|
| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
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105
regiment
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|
| n.团，多数，管理；v.组织，编成团，统制 | |
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106
reverting
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| 恢复( revert的现在分词 )； 重提； 回到…上； 归还 | |
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107
sanity
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|
| n.心智健全，神智正常，判断正确 | |
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108
slaughtered
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| v.屠杀，杀戮，屠宰( slaughter的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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109
confiding
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|
| adj.相信人的，易于相信的v.吐露（秘密，心事等）( confide的现在分词 )；（向某人）吐露（隐私、秘密等） | |
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110
resounded
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|
| v.（指声音等）回荡于某处( resound的过去式和过去分词 )；产生回响；（指某处）回荡着声音 | |
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111
upheaval
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|
| n.胀起，(地壳)的隆起；剧变，动乱 | |
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112
torrent
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| n.激流，洪流；爆发，(话语等的)连发 | |
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113
onward
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|
| adj.向前的，前进的；adv.向前，前进，在先 | |
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114
muskets
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| n.火枪，（尤指）滑膛枪( musket的名词复数 ) | |
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115
musket
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| n.滑膛枪 | |
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116
swarming
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|
| 密集( swarm的现在分词 )； 云集； 成群地移动； 蜜蜂或其他飞行昆虫成群地飞来飞去 | |
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117
chambers
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|
| n.房间( chamber的名词复数 )；（议会的）议院；卧室；会议厅 | |
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118
attired
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|
| adj.穿着整齐的v.使穿上衣服，使穿上盛装( attire的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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119
conceal
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，隐蔽 | |
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120
jolting
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| adj.令人震惊的 | |
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121
inmates
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| n.囚犯( inmate的名词复数 ) | |
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122
defense
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| n.防御，保卫；[pl.]防务工事；辩护，答辩 | |
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123
impudent
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| adj.鲁莽的，卑鄙的，厚颜无耻的 | |
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124
ignominious
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| adj.可鄙的，不光彩的，耻辱的 | |
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125
riveted
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| 铆接( rivet的过去式和过去分词 )； 把…固定住； 吸引； 引起某人的注意 | |
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126
encompassed
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| v.围绕( encompass的过去式和过去分词 )；包围；包含；包括 | |
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127
melancholy
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|
| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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128
murmur
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| n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言 | |
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129
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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130
farmhouse
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| n.农场住宅（尤指主要住房） | |
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131
groan
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| vi./n.呻吟，抱怨；(发出)呻吟般的声音 | |
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132
dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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133
misgivings
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| n.疑虑，担忧，害怕；疑虑，担心，恐惧( misgiving的名词复数 )；疑惧 | |
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134
pervaded
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| v.遍及，弥漫( pervade的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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135
slumberous
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| a.昏昏欲睡的 | |
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136
wails
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| 痛哭，哭声( wail的名词复数 ) | |
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137
groans
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| n.呻吟，叹息( groan的名词复数 )；呻吟般的声音v.呻吟( groan的第三人称单数 )；发牢骚；抱怨；受苦 | |
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138
mangled
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|
| vt.乱砍（mangle的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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139
rustled
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| v.发出沙沙的声音( rustle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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140
funereal
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|
| adj.悲哀的；送葬的 | |
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141
presage
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| n.预感，不祥感；v.预示 | |
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142
procuring
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| v.（努力）取得， （设法）获得( procure的现在分词 )；拉皮条 | |
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143
doze
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| v.打瞌睡；n.打盹，假寐 | |
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144
adversaries
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| n.对手，敌手( adversary的名词复数 ) | |
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145
abodes
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| 住所( abode的名词复数 )； 公寓； （在某地的）暂住； 逗留 | |
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146
distress
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| n.苦恼，痛苦，不舒适；不幸；vt.使悲痛 | |
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147
misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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148
corruption
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| n.腐败，堕落，贪污 | |
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149
exuded
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| v.缓慢流出，渗出，分泌出( exude的过去式和过去分词 )；流露出对（某物）的神态或感情 | |
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150
hovered
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| 鸟( hover的过去式和过去分词 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫 | |
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151
nostrils
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| 鼻孔( nostril的名词复数 ) | |
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152
assailed
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| v.攻击( assail的过去式和过去分词 )；困扰；质问；毅然应对 | |
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153
mortifying
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| adj.抑制的，苦修的v.使受辱( mortify的现在分词 )；伤害（人的感情）；克制；抑制（肉体、情感等） | |
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154
trickled
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| v.滴( trickle的过去式和过去分词 )；淌；使)慢慢走；缓慢移动 | |
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155
ashen
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| adj.灰的 | |
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156
wretches
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| n.不幸的人( wretch的名词复数 )；可怜的人；恶棍；坏蛋 | |
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157
torments
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| （肉体或精神上的）折磨，痛苦( torment的名词复数 )； 造成痛苦的事物[人] | |
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158
corpses
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| n.死尸，尸体( corpse的名词复数 ) | |
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159
decomposition
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| n. 分解, 腐烂, 崩溃 | |
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160
boon
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| n.恩赐，恩物，恩惠 | |
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161
drenched
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| adj.湿透的；充满的v.使湿透( drench的过去式和过去分词 )；在某人（某物）上大量使用（某液体） | |
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162
raved
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| v.胡言乱语( rave的过去式和过去分词 )；愤怒地说；咆哮；痴心地说 | |
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163
contagion
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| n.(通过接触的疾病)传染；蔓延 | |
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164
sweeping
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| adj.范围广大的，一扫无遗的 | |
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165
writhed
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| （因极度痛苦而）扭动或翻滚( writhe的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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166
shrieked
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| v.尖叫( shriek的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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167
delirium
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| n. 神智昏迷,说胡话;极度兴奋 | |
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168
erect
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| n./v.树立，建立，使竖立；adj.直立的，垂直的 | |
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169
pneumonia
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| n.肺炎 | |
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170
frightful
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| adj.可怕的；讨厌的 | |
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171
throbbing
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| a. 跳动的,悸动的 | |
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172
expectancy
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| n.期望，预期，（根据概率统计求得）预期数额 | |
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173
cramped
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| a.狭窄的 | |
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174
amputation
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| n.截肢 | |
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175
compassion
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| n.同情，怜悯 | |
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176
varied
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| adj.多样的，多变化的 | |
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177
recurring
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| adj.往复的，再次发生的 | |
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178
clement
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| adj.仁慈的；温和的 | |
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179
coffin
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| n.棺材，灵柩 | |
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180
twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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181
cemetery
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| n.坟墓，墓地，坟场 | |
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182
trenches
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| 深沟，地沟( trench的名词复数 )； 战壕 | |
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183
slumbered
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| 微睡，睡眠（slumber的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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184
enlisted
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| adj.应募入伍的v.（使）入伍， （使）参军( enlist的过去式和过去分词 )；获得（帮助或支持） | |
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185
recoiled
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| v.畏缩( recoil的过去式和过去分词 )；退缩；报应；返回 | |
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186
shudder
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| v.战粟，震动，剧烈地摇晃；n.战粟，抖动 | |
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187
imploring
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| 恳求的，哀求的 | |
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188
ablaze
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| adj.着火的，燃烧的；闪耀的，灯火辉煌的 | |
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189
syllables
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| n.音节( syllable的名词复数 ) | |
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190
emphatic
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| adj.强调的，着重的；无可置疑的，明显的 | |
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191
miller
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| n.磨坊主 | |
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192
trifling
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| adj.微不足道的；没什么价值的 | |
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193
extravagant
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| adj.奢侈的；过分的；(言行等)放肆的 | |
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194
demonstrations
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| 证明( demonstration的名词复数 )； 表明； 表达； 游行示威 | |
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195
apprehensive
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| adj.担心的，恐惧的，善于领会的 | |
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196
distressed
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| 痛苦的 | |
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197
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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198
prosper
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| v.成功，兴隆，昌盛；使成功，使昌隆，繁荣 | |
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199
labors
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| v.努力争取(for)( labor的第三人称单数 )；苦干；详细分析；（指引擎）缓慢而困难地运转 | |
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200
prospering
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| 成功，兴旺( prosper的现在分词 ) | |
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201
slaughtering
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| v.屠杀，杀戮，屠宰( slaughter的现在分词 ) | |
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202
lucrative
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| adj.赚钱的，可获利的 | |
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203
dealer
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| n.商人，贩子 | |
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204
herds
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| 兽群( herd的名词复数 )； 牧群； 人群； 群众 | |
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205
concealed
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| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
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206
consummate
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| adj.完美的；v.成婚；使完美 [反]baffle | |
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207
promptly
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| adv.及时地，敏捷地 | |
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208
dealers
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| n.商人( dealer的名词复数 )；贩毒者；毒品贩子；发牌者 | |
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209
insolent
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| adj.傲慢的，无理的 | |
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210
shrug
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| v.耸肩(表示怀疑、冷漠、不知等) | |
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211
growl
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| v.（狗等）嗥叫，（炮等）轰鸣；n.嗥叫，轰鸣 | |
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212
patriotism
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| n.爱国精神，爱国心，爱国主义 | |
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213
bloody
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| adj.非常的的；流血的；残忍的；adv.很；vt.血染 | |
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214
gratis
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| adj.免费的 | |
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215
inflamed
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| adj.发炎的，红肿的v.（使）变红，发怒，过热( inflame的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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216
swollen
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| adj.肿大的，水涨的；v.使变大，肿胀 | |
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217
mischief
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| n.损害，伤害，危害；恶作剧，捣蛋，胡闹 | |
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218
consecutive
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| adj.连续的，联贯的，始终一贯的 | |
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219
liberate
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| v.解放，使获得自由，释出，放出；vt.解放，使获自由 | |
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220
discomfort
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| n.不舒服，不安，难过，困难，不方便 | |
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221
determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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222
monotonously
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| adv.单调地，无变化地 | |
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223
dreariest
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| 使人闷闷不乐或沮丧的( dreary的最高级 )； 阴沉的； 令人厌烦的； 单调的 | |
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224
intimacy
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| n.熟悉，亲密，密切关系，亲昵的言行 | |
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225
slain
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| 杀死，宰杀，杀戮( slay的过去分词 )； (slay的过去分词) | |
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226
premature
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| adj.比预期时间早的；不成熟的，仓促的 | |
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227
instinctively
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| adv.本能地 | |
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228
alas
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| int.唉(表示悲伤、忧愁、恐惧等) | |
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229
dozing
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| v.打瞌睡,假寐 n.瞌睡 | |
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230
wagons
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| n.四轮的运货马车( wagon的名词复数 )；铁路货车；小手推车 | |
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231
parleys
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| n.和谈，谈判( parley的名词复数 ) | |
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232
cession
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| n.割让，转让 | |
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233
catastrophe
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| n.大灾难，大祸 | |
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234
compulsory
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| n.强制的，必修的；规定的，义务的 | |
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235
disastrous
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| adj.灾难性的，造成灾害的；极坏的，很糟的 | |
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236
consummated
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| v.使结束( consummate的过去式和过去分词 )；使完美；完婚；（婚礼后的）圆房 | |
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237
throng
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| n.人群，群众；v.拥挤，群集 | |
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238
swarmed
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| 密集( swarm的过去式和过去分词 )； 云集； 成群地移动； 蜜蜂或其他飞行昆虫成群地飞来飞去 | |
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239
puddle
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| n.(雨)水坑，泥潭 | |
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240
mire
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| n.泥沼，泥泞；v.使...陷于泥泞，使...陷入困境 | |
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241
engulf
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| vt.吞没，吞食 | |
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242
ardently
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| adv.热心地，热烈地 | |
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243
promising
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| adj.有希望的，有前途的 | |
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244
virile
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| adj.男性的；有男性生殖力的；有男子气概的；强有力的 | |
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245
dictatorial
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| adj. 独裁的，专断的 | |
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246
awakening
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| n.觉醒，醒悟 adj.觉醒中的；唤醒的 | |
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247
supplication
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| n.恳求，祈愿，哀求 | |
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248
stiffening
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| n. (使衣服等)变硬的材料, 硬化 动词stiffen的现在分词形式 | |
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249
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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250
mingled
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| 混合，混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 )； 混进，与…交往[联系] | |
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251
flakes
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| 小薄片( flake的名词复数 )； （尤指）碎片； 雪花； 古怪的人 | |
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252
entreatingly
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| 哀求地，乞求地 | |
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253
soothed
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| v.安慰( soothe的过去式和过去分词 )；抚慰；使舒服；减轻痛苦 | |
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254
utterance
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| n.用言语表达，话语，言语 | |
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255
sobs
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| 啜泣（声），呜咽（声）( sob的名词复数 ) | |
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256
mangles
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| n.轧布机，轧板机，碾压机（mangle的复数形式）vt.乱砍（mangle的第三人称单数形式） | |
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257
anguished
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| adj.极其痛苦的v.使极度痛苦(anguish的过去式) | |
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258
tranquil
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| adj. 安静的, 宁静的, 稳定的, 不变的 | |
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259
serenity
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| n.宁静，沉着，晴朗 | |
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260
speculation
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| n.思索，沉思；猜测；投机 | |
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261
boundless
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| adj.无限的；无边无际的；巨大的 | |
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262
reverence
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| n.敬畏，尊敬，尊严；Reverence:对某些基督教神职人员的尊称；v.尊敬，敬畏，崇敬 | |
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263
repel
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| v.击退，抵制，拒绝，排斥 | |
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264
tragic
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| adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的 | |
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265
softened
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| （使）变软( soften的过去式和过去分词 )； 缓解打击； 缓和； 安慰 | |
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266
lighter
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| n.打火机，点火器；驳船；v.用驳船运送；light的比较级 | |
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267
solely
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| adv.仅仅，唯一地 | |
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268
numb
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| adj.麻木的，失去感觉的；v.使麻木 | |
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269
bosom
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| n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的 | |
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270
consolation
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| n.安慰，慰问 | |
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271
thither
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| adv.向那里；adj.在那边的，对岸的 | |
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272
germinates
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| n.（使）发芽( germinate的名词复数 )v.（使）发芽( germinate的第三人称单数 ) | |
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273
rapture
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| n.狂喜；全神贯注；着迷；v.使狂喜 | |
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274
longing
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| n.（for）渴望 | |
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275
well-being
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| n.安康，安乐，幸福 | |
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276
unaware
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| a.不知道的，未意识到的 | |
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277
chaste
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| adj.贞洁的；有道德的；善良的；简朴的 | |
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278
dungeon
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| n.地牢，土牢 | |
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279
fortress
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| n.堡垒，防御工事 | |
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281
dealing
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| n.经商方法，待人态度 | |
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282
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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283
faculties
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| n.能力( faculty的名词复数 )；全体教职员；技巧；院 | |
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284
frantic
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| adj.狂乱的，错乱的，激昂的 | |
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285
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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286
expressive
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| adj.表现的，表达…的，富于表情的 | |
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287
virtuous
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| adj.有品德的，善良的，贞洁的，有效力的 | |
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288
whined
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| v.哀号( whine的过去式和过去分词 )；哀诉，诉怨 | |
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289
thumping
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| adj.重大的，巨大的；重击的；尺码大的；极好的adv.极端地；非常地v.重击(thump的现在分词)；狠打；怦怦地跳；全力支持 | |
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290
villain
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| n.反派演员，反面人物；恶棍；问题的起因 | |
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291
flux
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| n.流动；不断的改变 | |
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292
sentries
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| 哨兵，步兵( sentry的名词复数 ) | |
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293
shrugged
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| vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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294
sneer
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| v.轻蔑；嘲笑；n.嘲笑，讥讽的言语 | |
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295
carrion
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| n.腐肉 | |
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296
tainted
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| adj.腐坏的；污染的；沾污的；感染的v.使变质( taint的过去式和过去分词 )；使污染；败坏；被污染，腐坏，败坏 | |
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297
winked
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| v.使眼色( wink的过去式和过去分词 )；递眼色（表示友好或高兴等）；（指光）闪烁；闪亮 | |
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298
dispelled
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| v.驱散，赶跑( dispel的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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299
triumphantly
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| ad.得意洋洋地；得胜地；成功地 | |
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300
unearth
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| v.发掘，掘出，从洞中赶出 | |
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301
entreaties
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| n.恳求，乞求( entreaty的名词复数 ) | |
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302
regiments
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| （军队的）团( regiment的名词复数 )； 大量的人或物 | |
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303
scanty
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| adj.缺乏的，仅有的，节省的，狭小的，不够的 | |
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304
reassure
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| v.使放心，使消除疑虑 | |
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305
fiery
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| adj.燃烧着的，火红的；暴躁的；激烈的 | |
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306
projectiles
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| n.抛射体( projectile的名词复数 )；（炮弹、子弹等）射弹，（火箭等）自动推进的武器 | |
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307
sepulcher
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| n.坟墓 | |
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308
depot
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| n.仓库，储藏处；公共汽车站；火车站 | |
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309
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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310
pretense
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| n.矫饰，做作，借口 | |
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311
garrison
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| n.卫戍部队；驻地，卫戍区；vt.派(兵)驻防 | |
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312
resuscitated
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| v.使（某人或某物）恢复知觉，苏醒( resuscitate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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313
culminate
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| v.到绝顶，达于极点，达到高潮 | |
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314
retired
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| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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315
gallantly
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| adv. 漂亮地，勇敢地，献殷勤地 | |
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316
fortified
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| adj. 加强的 | |
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317
succumbed
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| 不再抵抗（诱惑、疾病、攻击等）( succumb的过去式和过去分词 )； 屈从； 被压垮； 死 | |
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318
razed
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| v.彻底摧毁，将…夷为平地( raze的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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319
riddled
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| adj.布满的；充斥的；泛滥的v.解谜，出谜题(riddle的过去分词形式) | |
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320
citadel
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| n.城堡；堡垒；避难所 | |
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321
doomed
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| 命定的 | |
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