THE AFTERMATH OF WAR

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1626, 29 April 1903, Page 8

THE AFTERMATH OF WAR

(By Fred J. Cox)

Antoine Verdeau, the cobbler of Angeldo'rf, sat smoking his long pipo a,t his cottage door. It was a pleasant evening in July, and the streets in the little town Avere full of people eager to get a" breath of cool air after the intolerable heat of the day. Some, as they passed, saluted Verdeau; but, as lie either ignored their greetings or simply nodded his head with gloomy indifference, no) 'one felt encouraged to stop and talk with him. Between himself and all the rest of Angeldorf there had long been a barrier of reserve; for what had lie to do Avith the foolish, chattering township, its petty j interests, its miserably short memory? His only concern in the feAV years of | life that remained to him was to j think, to brood!, to remember. ! Thirty years ago, and it seemed bull | yesterday! Thirty years: soi long? He j felt ho Avas getting old, and the fear j froze at his heart lest the shadoAVS i should gather round him ere his great ! dream Avas realised. j Yes, it Avas thirty years since the j bombardment of Angeldorf. Verdeau, j then in the prime of life, had, been ' spared the barbarous spectacle. He AA'as aAvav at the time, far from Avife and child, fighting for his belo\'ed Franco Avith the Army of the Loire. He received the aAvful tidings, which had turned the Avliole current of his life, from the lips of a comrade during the dark hours of bivouac: how his little Alphonse, then his only child, had been killed outright by a German shell; and lioav another missile had struck and shattered! the Avail of the neAV house which he had built AA’ith the hard earn- i ed savings of his daily toil. i As he thought of it all again—when ! was he not thinking of it?—he became greatly agitated, and his eyes greAV ; dim. It Avould drive him mad in time, j this silent brooding. He must fly from j his thoughts, if that Avere possible. Ris- j ing suddenly from his chair, he put j his pipe aside and hobbled doAvn the warden path into the street. He tottered as lie walked; he was getting more feeble every year. Adjoining the cottage garden was a strip of land wdiich he had bought for building purposes, many, many years . ao-o. It lay neglected and full of rubbish, for the misfortunes which had overtaken old Verdeau had paralysed most of his energies, diverting those j that remained into one channel, con- j centrating them upon one great ideal: that of "La Revanche 1” - | At the extreme end ctf this fallow i land stood! the house which- he had I built, intending it for Alphonse when j he grew to be a man —the house which the Grmans had made a target for their cruel shells. The old man paused, contemplating the structure in silence. It was much larger than the cottage

where he lived, having all the pretensions of a A'illa. But signs of dilapidation Avere everywhere; the windows Avere broken, the inside Avails were damp and mildewed, and the mortar in places AV'9-S crumbling aAvay. The lions© Avas, as it had always been, untenanted, and the ragged aperture at the top of the outer wall, Avhere the shell ha-d pierced, went unrepaired. Soi it Avould remain as long as Antoine Verdeau, had his Avay ! As ho gazed at the unsightly breach a look of bitterness came into his eyes; not the bitterness Avhicli a man feels for a particular enemy, bub the large hatred Avhicli one Avliose spirit is unbroken by defeat might feel for a whole conquering race. The gap should never be filled up! He had sworn it. Never, until "La Revanche” had come. Till then it should remain, to remind Alsace of her shame, Franco of her duty ! a sign and a token, concrete, tangible, insistent! Some fools in Angeldorf had many times advised him to repair the Avail and put the house in order. Ah, they did not understand —those cravens! it avould bring in rent —something for Victorine’s dowry, they said. But he had always spurned their miserly advice —• tiie. German slaves I Silently (brooding, he retraced hig steps through the growing dusk. The light fr<jm a lamp inside glimmered through the diamond-shaped panes of the cottage AvindoAv ; and on entering old Verdeau found the table laid for the evening meal. A young Avoman of tAVenty-five years or thereabouts, set the old man’s chair near the table. Flump and well-formed, with fair hair and grayish-blue eyes, and an eA r en, pleasant expression of face, she might have passed for a German maiden. So appearances can ceive ; there Avas not a, drop of Teutonic blood in her veins. She A\as Antoine Verdean’s daughter. The old man sank into his chair listlessly and sipped his glass of cheap wine, ’ while the girl repeated rapidly the more important items from the budget of toAvn gossip. A thin smile played round her father’s lips as she rattled on. "So that is wffiat they say?” he remarked. "You gather gossip as the bees gather honey, Victorine. Indeed, you hear so much, perhaps you can tell ule if the new stationmaster is appointed yet ?” "The stationmaster” she echoed in a tone of surprise. “Why, ‘ he came nearly two months ago.” "I hadn’t heard,” said Verdeau wearily. "There is little to interest me in Angeldorf now. But who is the man? An Alsatian, I hope?” . From the eagerness of his look, Victorina knew that she Avas on dangerous ground. . . _ "I think not, father,” she said. In! fact” —his searching glance compelled the truth —-*T— l knoAV ’tis not so. } The neAV stationmaster is Herr Bauer. A fierce expression leapt from the cobbler’s lips. “A German’ he cried, with supreme contempt. I thought as much 1” . - _ „ «•. “But not a Prussian, father, . Victorine exclaimed. “Herr Bauer is out of Bav-aria.” , „ , -+l- - old patriot looked at her with contemptuous pity. “ If a J, 10 £ h * d tacked you, girl,” he retorted ‘ would you ask what breed it was? Prussian

or Bavarian, ’tis all the same. Ami how do-es the township take this latest insult to Franco? With its wonted servility, I warrant, smiling' back its thanks for every lash of the German taskmaster!” “Herr Bauer seems to be popular in Angcidorf,” the girl ventured timidly. Her father shrugged hi.s shoulders. “Yon have seen him?' 5 he risked. “He has been at the Berniers’ once or twice, 55 she replied. “Yes, I have met him there. 5 ' She rose quickly from her chair. “And of coui'se you like him, with the rest? 55 lie returned 'sarcastically. “It would not he Victorine if she were not in the fashion ! 55 The girl reddened. “He seems an agreeable man, 55 she said ; “hut even if lie were otherwise, I don’t sec how it can concern me, father,” sho added naively. “Fierro Michel should have had the job,” testily cried tho old man. “Ho is an Alsatian born and bred: but thor > was no one in the place to speak a word for him. Angeklorf fears vt ho oppressor too much for that. It has conic to believe that ‘La Revanche’ is an i leery—that she will never come. But sho will come,” lie cried, with wild intensity, lifting his eyes and talking to tho ceiling rather than to Victorine; “she shall come !” “So you have always said, father,” was the girl’s response; “but bow long tlio time seems!” “Only to those who have lost hope and courage,” ne replied lOiemn,y. “Thanks to the good God, I have both still, Victorine. Tnough i am sometimes impatient. I feel in nny hearo that the hour is not yet ripe. But that hour will come, and witn it the Man—-the new iNapo-.eon, the saviour of France, tho Liberator of Alsace. Oil, if my boy bad only lived, tills glorious mission might have been his!” - Little Alphonse, whose death had first kindled and afterwards kept alive the idea of La Revanche in the old patriot’s bosom, had become the very genius of the great event, so long delayed, which Avould staunch the wounds of France and recover her lost provinces. It was tho cobblerY fond hope that this bright boy, inheriting his father’s zeal, would have acquired the culture to shape its promptings. To Paris he would have gone in the flower of his manhood, no peevish railer at destiny but the victor over incredible- obstacles. With .convincing force he would have rendered . articulate the vague aspirations of the people for revenge, and perhaps—such was the fond parent’s conceit —would even have headed the attack against the lieredit-, ary foe. The death cf her brother, whom Vio-t-orine had never known, was the sole means by which she could obtain any conception of the central idea which dominated her father’s mind. In all oHer respects La Revanche was unintelligible to her. Born a full five years after tike war, she unconsciously accepted German ascendency as part of tho established order of things; a French Alsace was historically too remote to be passionately apprehended. “Why not, lot the matter rest ?” she thought. Like lier mother, who had died in giving her birth, sho shrank from the idea of war between the nations. Of an eminently practical bent, she considered her father’s preference for cobbling shoes in penury instead of repairing the house which the shell had shattered a sad piece of infatuation. To sum up the matter, there was little suggestive of La Revanche about Victorine except her name, which contained, as it were, the promise of the fulfilment of her father’s hopes. Immersed, as he so often was. in dreamy speculations, Antoine Verdeau was nevertheless keen enough to perceive that his daughter was not enthusiast. She had imbibed instead the lethargy of the township, and as a consequence ho seldom spoke of his ideas to her. But that last blow to French pride—the appointment of a Germain stationmaster tin a town so near the frontier as Angleldorf—affected him so acutely that he was obliged to talk. “I saw Pierre Michel to-day,” he said a few daiys later. “He should have had the post. 55 “But is lie a more capable .man than Herr Bauer ? 55 Victorine asked, somewhat needlessly, for she knew Pierre to be a hopeless ne’er-do-well. “He is an Alsatian,” was the curt response. The reason was much too sentimental to appeal to Victorine, and she found herself, before she was well aware of it, blundering into an advocacy of the Bavarian’s claims. “People say, father, that -Herr Bauer is well up to his work,” she observed, with some warmth.. “He has been sergeant in the Elisenbahn regiment, and has a good record. 55 “Where did you hear all this, girl?” Verdeau asked impatiently. “Ah, I see —you have met him again? 55 Victorine avoided her father’s gaze. ‘Wes —last might—at the Berniers 5 / 5 she replied in a low voice. “Why does he go there so much? 55 he inquired fiercely. “And what does old Bernier mean by encouraging him? As a lover for the fair Julie, perhaps? Ha! ha! ’Tis glorious, 55 he shouted. “The Deutschers have made their conquest complete. We give them our sons for their army, our daughters for

their wives! They have conquered us body and soul!” At the conclusion of this outburst Vic tonne’s cheeks were flaming red. “V, hat are you saying, father?” she cried. “Tiio new stationmaster marry Ju.io Bernier? Eugene marry her? In over!” Tho intensity of her voice caused him to look up suddenly, and the telltale flush of her cheeks was revealed to him. Victorine had betrayed her secret —that secret which she had so jea.ously guarded for a whole month ! Antoine Verdeau sank back in his chair like one smitten with the palsy. “Victorine !” ho said in .a hoarse whisper, “you yourself love this man —this Prussian ?” Sho throw herself at his foot. “Not Prussian,” sho protested vehemently, “but Bavarian. He is different from all other Germans, for ho hato«. ihe ! Prussians and admires Franco and her brave people.” Apparently ho did net hear this pas--1 si-on ate pretest, or even notice the disi tress which tho sudden disclosure of | her love had caused her. He simply 1 looked down upon her sadly, reprcachj fully as at some weak and unworthy j object; such a look in his eyes as a schoolmaster might give a child who | was unable to grasp a theme tG' him I so .simple. Then he left her to her I tears, and slowly ascended the creaking j staircase. When he I’cachod his bodroom at tho back of the cot-tago he j throw open tho window and locked out. ( Tho white radiance of the mo-on ven- | do red all the more prominent objects of the landscape plainly visible. Ho could see the clearing in the forest which ram up to the borders of Angelderf, and near by glistened one of the white stones marking the frontier line. Suddenly, as if by magic, his illusion fell away from him, and the bubble of his dream was burst. He realised for the first time since the war the mad futility of it all. Tho landmarks yonder set by the Germans —the forest clearing, the white stones —were fixed and immovable. La Revanche would never come. He had been a fool for cherishing his hopes so long. France cared nothing for her lest provinces. Her glory had departed; she was supino and asleep. The occasional frontier troubles, the restiveness of a few Alsatian’s under the conqueror’s iron decrees, Boulanger the charlatan, that overpraised alliance with Russia, the verses cf Paul Derouledo. the stagey heroics of a few hot-headed Parisians: where did al] these things lead? Nowh°ro! The ideal was burnt out and these were the miserable flickerings from its smouldering embers. He heard Victorine sobbing in the next room, and a great pity surged at his heart. He had never tried to understand the girl. Leaving her to her own devices, ho had lived with La- Revanche, and cared for no one else. Small wonder, then, that- to escape his dreary society Victo-rine had thrown herself into the arms of the foe. Before lie fell asleep- he had again become the Antoine Verdca-u of the days before the war: the pi'a.ctical tradesman, intent upon affairs, eager to save and acquire, to benefit his family. What had ivorkod the miracle? It may have been his daughter’s grief, or the strange immutable look of the frontier stones in the cold moonlight. He could not tell. When he awoke he felt numbed and listless. Tho dream which had fed his vitality had departed. There was a marked change in the girl as well. Her vivacity was gone. She no longer gathered gossip as the bees gather honey ; no longer lavishly retailed it. Subdued and careworn, she went about- her duties mechanically; and when her father wouid have spoken with her, the mute appeal for silence in her eyes restrained him.

For a vt hole week she remained indoors, and then one balmy summer evening she went out of the cottage, leaving the old man still at his Avork. She returned late, her eyes bearing traces of recent tears. Then it was that Verdeau found it within him to break the silence. ‘You haA r e been to the Berniers’. Victorine?” he said. “Yes.” He hesitated a moment, and then inquired, “You have seen him agsiin—the stationmaster?” “Yes,” she replied, in a le\~el voice. “He asked me to be his Avife.” Her father showed no surprise. “You consented?” She caught her breath. “No, I refused.” -= “Ah!” He breathed heavily. “But Avhy P” “I gave no reason,” she replied in the same monotone.. “But”—her voice now faltered—“l think he guessed. He says—he is coming to see you to-mor-row.” “He shall liaA'o his answer,” said Verdeau quietly. “Yoq love him, Victorine ?” The umvo-nted tenderness in his voice caused her to look up suddenly. There wa-s a new light in her father’s eyes, which showed him to be no longer the patriot busy with his dreams, no longer the recluse hugging his burden of bitter memories, but- the man and the father eager to perceive and sympathise with the desires and weaknesses of a woman’s heart. She threw herself at his feet and kissed his hands with, passionate en-

orgy. “’Father!” was all she could say through her tears. ■* When Eugene Bauer entered the cottage the next day, he found Antoine Verdeau very different indeed from tho descriptions given of him by the Angeldo-rf townsfolk. He was courteously received, and encouraged to talk on matters dear to his heart: tho hills of his native country, the glories of Munich, its art, its music, even its beer. He spoke with the firo and animation of tho South German, and revealed no trace cf Prussian stolidity. But when these impersonal matters were left behind, and the main business of his mission called for attention, his fluency forsook him, and it was only when Victorine entered the room that he summoned up courage to speak. “But it was not to- talk about Bavaria I came hero to-day, 55 he said hesitatingly. “for there is another matter which affects mo much more deeply. The fact is. Monsieur Verdeau, Victorine and I are in love with each other, and—and— 55 “And so would marry ?” said the old man. “Ah, monsieur, when there are two willing parties to a- contract, what right has a third to stand in the way?” Victorine uttered a glad cr’y as her lover replied in a burst- of fervour, “You make mo the happiest man in the world, Monsieur Verdeau. But I am not wholly so’fish in my joy. I know what Victorine is to you, and I shall not take her far away. “Why,” he cried, reassuringly, “from here to the cottage at the station ’tis little mere than a stone’s throw. 55 “Sho need not live as far away as that.” said the old man quietly. “There is the house yonder. You see monsieur Victorine does not go to her husband quite dowerless.” Victorine stared at the old man in amazement. “But, father, that house was never to be repaired until La Revanche had come! 55 Antoine Verdeau shook his head. “La Revanche is dead, child. She will never dome —now. —You see, monsieur” —he turned to the stationmaster —“it was my dream once.” Ho smiled sadly, but there were tears in Iris eyes. The younger man bowed his head in respectful silence. He was a soldier and patriot too, and so understood. And thus it was that Angeldorf lost that insistent reminder of its shame, and once -more the havoc wrougnt through the hatred of the nations was repaired by the love of a man for a maid.—“Ch-amb ers’ s Jou rn a 1. 55