Victorin remounted his horse. A moment later our army set itself upon the march, with the scouts on horseback riding ahead of the vanguard. Victorin placed himself at the head of the army. We had the bank of the Rhine on our right. A few light bodies of mounted archers rode forward as scouts, to the end of guarding our left wing against a surprise. Victorin called me to his side; I drove my horse abreast his own, and as he hastened the step of his mount we were soon beyond the escort that accompanied him.
"Schanvoch," he said to me, "you are an old and experienced soldier. I wish to explain my plans to you. I confided the plan to the chief who is to take my place in the event of my being killed. I wish you also to be posted on it. You will be all the better able to help in its execution."
"I listen. Speak, Victorin."
"It is now nearly three hours since the rafts of the Franks were seen by our scouts at about the middle of the river. Those rafts, towed by barks and loaded with troops navigate slowly. It must have taken them fully an hour to reach the bank and disembark on this side of the Rhine—"
"Your calculation is correct. But why did you not hasten the march of the army in order to arrive at the spot before the Franks disembarked? Landing forces are always in disorder. Their disorder would have favored our attack."
"Two reasons kept me from doing so. I shall tell them to you. How long, do you calculate, did it take the officer, who notified us of the enemy's approach, to ride in all haste from our advanced posts to Mayence?"
"About an hour and a half. It is nearly five leagues from there to Mayence."
"And how long will it take an army to cover the same distance, even at forced marches, but not rapid enough to be tired out and breathless when it reaches the spot and offers battle?"
"It would take about three hours and a half."
"Accordingly, you will perceive, Schanvoch, that it would have been impossible for us to have arrived in time to attack the Franks at the moment of their landing. Those barbarians' lack of discipline is surprising. They must have consumed considerable time in forming their ranks. This will enable us to arrive before and wait for them at the defile of Armstadt—the only military route open to them in order to attack our camp, unless they throw themselves across the marsh and the forests, where their cavalry, their principal arm, could not deploy."
"That is true."
"I temporized in order to give the Franks time to approach the defile."
"If they undertake the passage, they are lost."
"I hope so. With our swords in their loins we shall drive them back towards the river bank. Our hundred and sixty well armed barks, that left port under my orders and at the same time that we started on the march, will scatter the barbarians' rafts and cut off their retreat. Besides that, Captain Marion crossed the river with a picked body of men; he will effect a juncture with the friendly tribes on the other bank, and will march straight upon the Frankish camp, where the enemy must have left a strong reserve force together with all their wagons. These will all be destroyed!"
Victorin was thus engaged in unfolding to me his ably conceived plan of battle, when we saw several of the scouts, who were sent forward, running back to us at full gallop. One of these reined in his foaming steed and cried out to Victorin:
"The army of the Franks is advancing. It can be seen at a distance from the top of the hills. Their scouts approached the defile; they were all shot down by the arrows of our archers who were ambushed behind the shrubs. Not one of the Frankish scouts escaped with his life."
"Well done," replied Victorin. "Those scouts would have ridden back and warned the Frankish army of our approach. It might not then have entered the defile. But I shall ride forward and judge the enemy's position myself. Follow me, Schanvoch!"
Victorin put his horse to a gallop; I did likewise. The escort followed us; we quickly overtook and passed our vanguard, to whom Victorin gave the order to halt. We arrived at a place that dominated the defile of Armstadt. The rather broad road lay at our feet, hemmed in by two steep escarpments. The one to the right seemed cut with the pick, it rose so perpendicular over the road and formed a sort of promontory on the side of the Rhine. The escarpment to the left consisted of a rocky series of shelves, and served, so to speak, as the basis to the vast plateau through the heart of which the deep and wide gully was cut. The gully or road dipped gently till it ran out into a vast plain, bordered to the east and north by the curve of the river, to the west by woods and marshes, and behind us by the elevated plateau where our troops were ordered to halt. We presently distinguished at a great distance from where we stood and down in the direction of the plain, a large and confused black mass. It was the army of the Franks.
Victorin remained silent for a few seconds; he attentively examined the disposition of the enemy's forces and the field at our feet.
"My calculation and expectation did not deceive me," he observed. "The Frankish army is twice as large as ours. If their tactics were less savage, instead of entering the defile, as they will surely do, they would, despite the difficulty that accompanies that sort of assault, climb the plateau at several places simultaneously, and thereby compel me to divide my much inferior forces in order to attack them at a large number of places. Nevertheless, for greater certainty, and so as to lure the enemy into the defile, I shall resort to a ruse of war. Let us return to our vanguard; Schanvoch, the hour of battle has sounded!"
"And such an hour," I answered, "is always solemn!"
"Yes," he replied melancholically, "such an hour is always solemn, especially for the general, who, at this bloody game of war, plays with the lives of his soldiers and has his country's fate for stake. Come, let us ride back, Schanvoch—and may my mother's star protect me!"
I rode back with Victorin to our troops, asking myself due to what singular contradiction that young man, always so firm and so calculating at the great crises of his life, showed himself below mediocrity in the power to combat his foibles.
The young general was not long in rejoining the vanguard. After a hurried conference with the officers, the troops took their posts of battle. Three cohorts of infantry, each one thousand strong, received orders to march through the defile into the open plain, engage the vanguard of the Franks, and draw the bulk of the enemy's army into the dangerous passage. Victorin, several officers and myself stood grouped upon one of the highest bluffs that dominated the field on which the scrimmage was to take place. From where we stood we had a complete view of the immense Frankish army. Massed in a compact body, the bulk of their forces was still far away. A swarm of horsemen rode in advance and extended beyond the two wings. Our three cohorts had barely emerged from the pass into the plain when the Frankish horsemen rushed like a swarm of hornets towards them from all sides and sought to envelop them. Intent only upon taking the lead of one another, these horsemen gave the rein to their mounts, and tumultuously, without any order whatever, galloped towards our troops. When the former had drawn near enough, the latter formed themselves into a wedge in order to sustain the first shock of the cavalry; they were thereupon to feign a retreat back into the defile. The Frankish horsemen emitted such loud yells that, despite the considerable distance that separated us from the plain and the elevation of the plateau, their savage cries reached us like a muffled roar pierced from time to time by the distant notes of their wind instruments. As ordered, our soldiers did not yield to the first impetuous attack. In an instant we could see through the thick cloud of dust, raised by the Frankish horse, only a confused mass, in the midst of which our soldiers could be distinguished by their brilliant armor. Presently our troops began to operate their retreat towards the defile, yielding the ground before them foot by foot to the swarm of Frankish assailants, who received every moment fresh accessions from the cavalry of their vanguard, while their main body began to move at a quickened step.
"By heaven!" cried Victorin, his fiery eyes fixed upon the field, "our brave Firmian who commands those three cohorts seems to have forgotten in his ardor for the fray that he was steadily to fall back into the defile so as to draw the enemy in after him. Firmian is no longer retreating; he has stopped and does not budge back an inch—he will cause his troops to be uselessly sacrificed—"
And addressing one of the officers:
"Ride quick to Ruper, and order him to proceed with his three veteran cohorts to the support of Firmian's retreat. Ruper is to order the retreat to be made rapidly. The bulk of the Frankish army is now only a hundred bow-shots from the entrance of the defile."
The officer departed at a gallop. Obedient to the orders that he carried, the three veteran cohorts speedily emerged from the defile at the double quick; they hastened to join and sustain Firmian's troops; a little later the feigned retreat was effected in good order. Seeing the Gauls yield, the Franks set up a shout of savage joy, and charged impetuously upon our cohorts. The Frankish vanguard was soon close to the mouth of the defile. Suddenly Victorin grew pale. Anxiety was depicted on his face as he cried:
"By my father's sword! Can I have been mistaken as to the barbarians' plans? Do you perceive their movement?"
"Yes," I said, "instead of following their vanguard into the defile, the Frankish army has halted; it is forming into numerous separate columns of attack, and these are marching towards the plateau! Malediction! They are resorting to the skilful manoeuvre that you feared. Oh, we have taught the barbarians the art of war!"
Victorin did not reply. He seemed to be counting the enemy's columns of attack. Thereupon he galloped back to our main army and cried:
"My boys! It is not now in the defile that we are to await these barbarians—we shall have to fight them in the open field. Fall upon them from the height of the plateau that they are seeking to climb—drive their hordes into the Rhine! They are three to our one—so much the better! This evening, when we shall be back in camp, our mother, Victoria, will say to us: 'Children, you were brave!'"
At these words, Rolla, the druid bard, improvised the following war song, which he struck up with a powerful, resonant voice:
| "This morning we say:— |
| ‘How many are there of these barbarous hordes, |
| Who thievishly aspire to rob us of land. |
| Of homes, of wives, and of sunshine? |
| Yes, how many are there of these Franks?’ |
| "This evening we'll say:— |
| ‘Make answer, thou sod, red drenched |
| In the blood of the stranger; |
| Make answer, ye deep-rolling waves of the Rhine; |
| Make answer, ye crows that flutter for carrion, |
| Make answer—make answer! |
| How many were they, |
| These robbers of land, of homes, of wives and of sunshine? |
| Aye, how many were there, |
| Of these blood-thirsty, ravenous Franks?’" |
And the several detachments of our troops ran up the plateau at the double quick to the refrain of the chant that flew from mouth to mouth until it reached the rearmost ranks.
Our army was promptly deployed on the crest of the plateau that dominated the vast plain whose edge was bordered by the curve of the Rhine in the distant horizon. Instead of awaiting the attack from that advantageous position, Victorin wished, by sheer audacity, to terrify the enemy. Despite our numerical inferiority, he issued the orders to pounce down upon the Franks from the crest of our elevated position. At the same moment, the enemy's column, which, deceived by the feigned retreat of our cohorts, had allowed itself to be lured into the defile, was being hurled back into the plain by the Gallic troops which confronted them. Our whole army thereupon reassumed the offensive, and not unlike an avalanche our full forces poured down from the summit of the plateau. The battle began; it was engaged all along the line.
I promised Victoria not to leave the side of her son. Nevertheless, such was the impetuosity with which, from the very start of the action, he dashed upon the enemy at the head of a legion of cavalry, that the flux and reflux of the melee at first separated me from him. We were at the time engaged hand to hand with a picked, well mounted and well armed body of Franks. Their soldiers wore neither casque nor cuirass; but their double jackets of hides covered with long hair and their iron-lined fur caps, were the equivalent of our own armor. These Franks fought with fury, often with stupid ferocity. I saw several allow themselves to be killed like animals while, at the hottest of the battle, they madly sought to hack off the head of some fallen Gaul with their axes in order to make to themselves a trophy of the gory spoils. I was defending myself against two of these horsemen, and my hands were full; a third barbarian, a warrior who had been unhorsed and disarmed, clinched my leg and sought to pull me off the saddle, and as he found his efforts vain bit me with such rage in the ankle that his teeth cut through the leather of my gaiter and penetrated to the very bone. Without neglecting my two mounted adversaries, I found time to deal a blow with my mace upon this third Frank's skull. Freed from him, I was vainly endeavoring to discover and join Victorin, when I descried Neroweg, the Terrible Eagle, only a few paces from me, in the melee which his gigantic stature overtowered. At the sight of that man, there thronged to my mind the recollection of the outrageous insults heaped upon me only the day before, which I had only partly avenged by smiting him over the head with a firebrand; my blood, already warm with the ardor of the fray, now seethed. Over and above the anger that Neroweg inspired in me by reason of his cowardly insults of the previous day, I experienced for the man an unexplainable, mysterious, profound hatred. It was as if I saw in him the incarnation of that thievish and ferocious race that sought to subjugate us. It was to me, strange and unaccountable as it may seem, as if I abhorred Neroweg by reason of the future as much as of the present; as if that hatred was to perpetuate itself not only between our two races of Franks and Gauls, but also between our families, individually. What shall I say to you, my child! I even forgot the promise I made to my foster-sister of watching over her son. Instead of any longer striving to find and join Victorin, I now only strove to draw close to Neroweg. I was bent upon having that Frank's life—he alone, among so many other enemies, incited in me personally the thirst for blood. I happened at the time to find myself surrounded by several horsemen of the legion at the head of which Victorin had just charged the Frankish army with such impetuosity. Our troops were steadily pushing forward at that point, the enemy was being crowded towards the Rhine. Two of the soldiers in front of me fell under the heavy francisque of the Terrible Eagle. I now saw him across that human breach.
Clad in a Gallic armor, the spoils of one of our captains who was killed at one of the previous battles, Neroweg wore a casque of gilded bronze, the visor of which partly covered his face, tattooed in blue and scarlet. His long copper colored beard reached down to the iron corselet that he had donned over his jacket of hides. Thick fleeces of sheep, held fast by criss-crossing strips of cloth, covered his legs from the thighs down to the feet. He rode a savage stallion from the forests of Germany, whose pale yellow coat was spotted with black. The tufts of the animal's thick mane fell below his square chest; his long tail, that streamed in the wind, lashed his sinewy haunches when he reared impatient under the restraint of his bit and silver-wrought reins, also the proceeds of some Gallic spoils. A wooden buckler ribbed with iron and roughly painted in yellow and red stripes, the colors of Neroweg's banner, covered the left arm of the Terrible Eagle. In his right hand he wielded his heavy francisque that now dripped blood. From his belt hung a sort of large butcher's knife with a wooden handle, together with a magnificent Roman sword with a hilt of chased gold, doubtlessly the fruit of some raid. Neroweg emitted a roar of rage as he recognized me. Rising in his stirrups he cried out:
"The man of the bay horse!"
Thereupon, striking the flank of his courser with the flat of his axe, he caused the animal to clear with an enormous leap both the bodies and mounts of the fallen horsemen who lay between us. The leap was so violent that when his horse touched ground again, the animal's head and chest struck the head and chest of my own mount. At the heavy shock the two animals were thrown upon their haunches and both fell over. Dazed at first by my fall, I quickly disengaged myself, took my stand firmly upon my feet and drew my sword, my mace having slipped from my hands with my fall. On his part, having had to disentangle himself from under his horse, as I was forced to do, Neroweg also rose to his feet and precipitated himself upon me. The chin-band of his casque had snapped with his fall, his head was bare, his thick red hair, tied over his head, floated behind him like the mane of a horse.
"Ha! This time, you Gallic dog," he cried out as he ground his teeth and aimed at me with his axe a furious blow that I parried, "this time I shall have your life and your skin!"
"And I, Frankish wolf, I shall once more put my mark on your face, whether dead or alive, so that the devil will recognize you!"
For a long time we fought with maddening fury, all the while exchanging insults that redoubled our rage.
"Dog!" cried Neroweg. "You carried off my sister!"
"I took her from your infamous love! In the bestiality of your unclean race it couples like animals—brother with sister!"
"Dare you insult my race, you bastard dog! Half Roman, half Gallic! My race will subjugate yours, vile revolted slaves! We shall clap the yoke back upon your necks—and we shall take possession of your goods, your lands, and your wives!"
"Just look yonder at your routed army, Oh, great king! Just take a look at your packs of Frankish wolves, as cowardly as they are ferocious—just look at them, fleeing from the fangs of the Gallic dogs!"
It was in the midst of such torrents of invectives that we fought with heightening rage without either being able to wound the other. Many a furiously aimed blow had glided harmlessly down our cuirasses; we seemed to manage our swords with equal dexterity. Suddenly and despite all the maddened rage of our duel, a strange spectacle drew away our attention for an instant. After our horses had rolled to the ground under the shock that they both received, they also rose to their feet. Immediately, as is usually the case with stallions, they rushed at each other neighing wildly, and with flashing eyes sought to tear each other to pieces. My brave Tom-Bras had raised himself on his haunches, and, holding the other steed by the neck between his teeth, was frantically battering his belly with his hoofs. Nettled at seeing his horse at the mercy of mine, Neroweg cried out without either he or I intermitting our battle:
"Folg! Will you allow that Gallic swine to vanquish you? Defend yourself with your hoofs and teeth! Tear him to pieces!"
"Steady, Tom-Bras!" I cried out in turn. "Disfigure and kill that horse, as I shall disfigure and kill his master."
I had hardly uttered these words when the Frank's sword penetrated my thigh between skin and flesh, and it did so at the very moment when I dealt him a blow over the head that would have been mortal but for the backward move that Neroweg made in withdrawing his sword from my thigh. My weapon thus missed its full aim, but struck him over the eye, and, by a singular accident, plowed his face on the side opposite the one which already bore my mark.
"I told you so! Dead or living the other side of your face would be also marked by me!" I cried at the moment when Neroweg, whose eye was put out by my blow and whose face was bathed in blood, precipitated himself upon me, roaring with pain and rage like an infuriated lion. Having calmly made up my mind to kill the man, I did not allow myself to be carried away with elation, but met his wrathful onset by throwing myself on the defensive, and watched for the opportunity to deal him a certain and mortal wound.
We were thus engaged when Neroweg's stallion rolled to the ground under the feet of Tom-Bras, whose rage seemed to increase with his success. The animal almost fell upon us. Half a foot nearer, and we would both have been thrown off our feet.
At the same instant, a legion of our reserve cavalry, the muffled sound of whose approaching tramp had struck my oars shortly before, hove in sight. In the impetuosity of its headlong dash, the heavily armed cavalry legion rode rough-shod and trampled over everything that lay in its path. The legion was three ranks deep, and approached with the swiftness of a gale. Both Neroweg and myself were doomed to be crushed to dust; the legion's line of battle was two hundred paces long; even if I had time to leap upon my horse, it would have been next to impossible to get in time out of the way of that long line of cavalry by endeavoring to ride, however swiftly, beyond the reach of either of its wings. Escape seemed impossible from the threatened shock. Nevertheless, I undertook it, despite my chagrin at not having been allowed time to despatch the Frankish king—so inveterate was my hatred of him! I took quick advantage of the accident, that, due to the fall of Neroweg's horse, interrupted our battle a second before, and I leaped upon the back of Tom-Bras that was near me. It required a rude handling of the reins and of the flat of my sword before I could cause my courser to desist from his infuriated assault upon the other stallion that he held under and kicked and bit unmercifully. Finally I succeeded. The long line of cavalry reaching far to my right and left was now only a few paces from me. I rushed ahead of it, adding with my voice and my spurs to the speed of Tom-Bras's rapid gallop; I rode on, keeping well in the lead of the legion, and from time to time casting a look behind to see the Frankish king, and what became of him. With his visage streaming blood he sought distractedly to run after me and wildly brandished his sword. Suddenly I saw him vanish in the cloud of dust raised by the rapid gallop of the legion of cavalry.
"Hesus hearkened to my prayer!" I cried out. "Neroweg must be dead. The legion has trampled over his body."
Thanks to Tom-Bras's exceptional swiftness, I was soon far enough in advance of the cavalry line that followed me to think of imparting to my course a direction that enabled me to take my place to the right of the legion's line. I immediately addressed one of the officers, inquiring after Victorin and the turn of the battle. He answered:
"Victorin is fighting like a hero. A rider who brought to our reserve the orders to advance said to us that never before did the general reveal such consummate skill in his manoeuvres. Being more than twice our numbers, and above all displaying unwonted military skill, the Franks fought stubbornly. All the indications are that the day is ours, but it shall have been paid for dearly. Thousands of Gauls will have bitten the dust."
The officer's report was correct. Victorin again fought with a soldier's intrepidity and the consummate skill of an experienced general. I found him, his heart overflowing with joy, in the midst of the melee. Miraculously enough, he had received only a slight wound. His reserve forces, skilfully managed by him, decided the fate of the battle. The routed Franks, rolled back three leagues with our triumphant forces pressing close upon their heels, were being crowded towards the Rhine despite the stubbornness of their retreat. After enormous losses a portion of their hordes were hurled headlong into the river, others succeeded in regaining their rafts in disorder, and in towing them with their barks from the shore. But at that moment the flotilla of a hundred and sixty large vessels fell upon the fleeing Franks on the river. Upon orders from Victorin, the flotilla had sped forward, doubled a tongue of land behind which it had kept itself concealed until then, and came into action. After a number of volleys of arrows that threw the Franks on the rafts into utter demoralization, our barks boarded the rafts from all sides. The episode that took place on the floating battlefield was the last, but not the least bloody of that day. The barks that towed the Frankish rafts were sunk under the blows of battle axes; the small number of Franks who survived this supreme struggle gave themselves over to the mercy of the river; clinging to some of the planks that were loosened from their rafts, they were carried helplessly down stream.
Although cruelly decimated, still our army thrilled with the ardor of the fray as, massed along the bluffs of the river, it witnessed the enemy's disastrous rout, upon which the rays of the westering sun shed their parting light. At that sublime moment, the soldiers struck up in chorus the heroic chant of the bard to the words and melody of which they had stepped to battle in the morning:
| "This morning we say:— |
| ‘How many are there of these barbarous hordes, |
| Who thievishly aspire to rob us of land. |
| Of homes, of wives, and of sunshine? |
| Yes, how many are there of these Franks?’ |
| "This evening we'll say:— |
| ‘Make answer, thou sod, red drenched |
| In the blood of the stranger; |
| Make answer, ye deep-rolling waves of the Rhine; |
| Make answer, ye crows that flutter for carrion, |
| Make answer—make answer! |
| How many were they, |
| These robbers of land, of homes, of wives and of sunshine? |
| Aye, how many were there, |
| Of these blood-thirsty, ravenous Franks?’" |
The last strophes of the refrain were falling from the lips of our soldiers when, from the other side of the river—which was so wide at that place that the opposite bank could hardly be distinguished, veiled moreover, as it was by the rising evening haze—I noticed a gleam that, rapidly gaining in brightness and extent, soon spanned the horizon like the reflection of a gigantic conflagration.
Victorin immediately cried:
"Our brave Marion has carried out his plans at the head of his picked men and the allied tribes on the other side of the Rhine. He marched with them upon the camp of the Franks. The last reserve force of the barbarians must have been cut to pieces, and their huts and wagons given over to the flames! By Hesus! Rid at last of the neighborhood of those savage marauders, Gaul will now enjoy the sweets of a friendly peace! Oh, my mother! Your prayers have been heard!"
Victorin had just uttered these words with a face beaming with bliss, when I saw a considerable body of our soldiers belonging to different cavalry and infantry corps of the army marching slowly towards him. All of these soldiers were old men. Douarnek marched at their head. When the body had drawn near, Douarnek advanced alone a few steps and said in a grave and firm voice:
"Listen, Victorin! Each legion of cavalry, each cohort of infantry, chose its oldest soldier. They are the comrades who accompany me yonder. Like myself, they have known you from the day of your birth; like myself they have seen you as a baby in the arms of Victoria, the Mother of the Camps, the august mother of the soldiers. We long have loved you out of love both for her and yourself. We acclaimed you our general and one of the two Chiefs of Gaul. We, veterans in war, have loved you as our son while we obeyed you as our father. And then came the day when, ever obeying you as our general and a Chief of Gaul, our love for you was less—"
"And why did your love for me decline?" Victorin interrupted, struck by the solemn tone of the old soldier. "Why, pray, did your love for me decline?"
"Because we respected you less. But if you have faults, we also have ours; to-day's battle proves it to us. We have come to make the admission to you."
"Let us hear it," replied Victorin affectionately; "let us hear what are my faults and which are yours!"
"Your faults, Victorin, are these—you love too much, much more than is meet, both wine and pretty girls!"
"By all the sweethearts that you have had, my old Douarnek, by all the cups that you have emptied and that you will still empty, why such words on the evening of a battle that we have won?" merrily answered Victorin, who was slowly returning to his natural weakness, now no longer held under by concern for the battle. "In truth! There was no need for you and your comrades to put yourselves to the trouble of reproaching me with my peccadillos. Speak up frankly, are these reproaches that are usual from soldier to soldier?"
"From soldier to soldier, no, Victorin!" resumed Douarnek with severity, "but from soldier to general, yes! We freely chose you our chief; we must speak freely to you! The more we have loved you, you, young man, the more we have honored you, all the more are we entitled to say to you: Keep yourself at the height of your mission!"
"I endeavor to, brave Douarnek, by fighting at my best, by leading our legions in the hottest of the fray."
"All is not said when one has done his duty in battle. You are not a captain only, you are also a Chief of Gaul!"
"Be it so! But why, in the name of all the devils, do you imagine, my brave Douarnek, that as a general and a Chief of Gaul I should be less sensitive than a soldier to the splendor of two beautiful black or blue eyes, or to the bouquet of good old white or red wine?"
"The man chosen by free men should, even in matters that appertain to his private life, observe wise moderation if he wishes to be beloved, obeyed and respected. Have you observed such moderation? No! And accordingly, having seen you swallow a pea, we have believed you capable of gulping down an ox. It is in that that we did wrong!"
"What! My boys!" the young general replied smiling. "Did you really think I had such a maw as to be able to swallow a whole ox?"
"We often saw you in your cups—we knew you to be a runner after girls. We were told that on one occasion, being intoxicated, you violated a woman, a tavern-keeper's wife on one of the isles of the Rhine, who thereupon killed herself in despair. We believed the story. Were we perhaps mistaken in that?"
"Malediction!" cried Victorin indignantly and with grief depicted on his face. "And you believed such a thing of my mother's son!"
"Yes," answered the veteran, "yes—in that lay the wrong that we did. So that we each did wrong—you and we. We have come to notify you that we are ready to forget the past, and that our hearts remain loyal to you. We wish you, in turn, to forgive us, so that we may love you and you us as in the past. Is it agreed, Victorin?"
"Yes," answered Victorin, deeply moved by the veteran's loyal and touching words; "it is agreed."
"Your hand!" replied Douarnek, "in the name of our comrades."
"Here it is," said the young general, stooping down over his horse's neck in order cordially to clasp the veteran's hand. "I thank you for your frankness, my children. I shall be to you as you are to me for the glory and peace of Gaul. Without you I can do nothing; although it is the general who carries the triumphal chaplet, it is the soldier's bravery that weaves it, and imparts to it the purple of his own blood!"
"It is, then, agreed, Victorin," Douarnek replied with moistening eyes. "Our blood belongs to you, to the last drop—and to our beloved Gaul—to your glory!"
"And to my mother who made me what I am," interrupted Victorin with increasing emotion; "and to my mother our respect, our love, our devotion, my children!"
"Long live the Mother of the Camps!" cried Douarnek in a resonant voice. "Long live Victorin, her glorious son!"
Douarnek's companions, the rest of the soldiers and officers, in short, all of us present at this scene joined in the cheers of Douarnek:
"Long live the Mother of the Camps! Long live Victorin, her glorious son!"
The whole army thereupon set itself in march back to the camp while, under the protection of a legion that was ordered to watch our prisoners, the medical druids and their aides remained on the field of battle to gather the dead, and tend the wounded, both Frank and Gallic.
It was a superb summer's night, that in which the army struck the road to Mayence. As it marched, the banks of the Rhine re-echoed to the chant of the bard:
| "This morning we say:— |
| ‘How many are there of these barbarous hordes, |
| Who thievishly aspire to rob us of land. |
| Of homes, of wives, and of sunshine? |
| Yes, how many are there of these Franks?’ |
| "This evening we'll say:— |
| ‘Make answer, thou sod, red drenched |
| In the blood of the stranger; |
| Make answer, ye deep-rolling waves of the Rhine; |
| Make answer, ye crows that flutter for carrion, |
| Make answer—make answer! |
| How many were they, |
| These robbers of land, of homes, of wives and of sunshine? |
| Aye, how many were there, |
| Of these blood-thirsty, ravenous Franks?’" |
In his haste to inform his mother of our splendid victory, Victorin passed the command of the troops to one of the oldest chiefs. We changed our tired horses for two fresh ones which were always led by the reins ready for Victorin's use, and he and I rode rapidly towards Mayence.
The night was serene; the moon shone superbly among myriads of stars—those unknown worlds where we shall proceed to live when we leave this world. Strange! In the very midst of the ineffable bliss that I experienced at the triumph of our army, a triumph that insured the peace and prosperity of Gaul; in the very midst of the pleasurable thoughts of soon again seeing your mother and you, my son, after a hard day's fighting; in the very midst of all these pleasing emotions a sudden fit of profound melancholy came over me, a painful presentiment saddened my heart.
In the fulness of my gratitude to the gods, I had raised my eyes to heaven in order to thank them for our success. The moon shed its brilliant light upon our path. I know not for what reason, but that moment my thoughts traveled back to our ancestors, and I recalled with sad piety all the glorious, the touching and the terrible deeds that they had done, and upon which also the sacred luminary of Gaul shed its never-ceasing light generations and generations ago. The sacrifice of Hena; the journey of Albinik the mariner and his wife Meroë to Caesar's camp, across a region that was heroically given up to the flames by our fathers during their war with the Romans; the nocturnal expeditions of Sylvest the slave to the secret meetings of the Sons of the Mistletoe and to the palace of Faustina, his escape and flight from the circus of Orange where he came near being devoured by ferocious beasts; and finally the bold insurrections, the formidable revolts, the signal for which was ever given by the courses of the moon, as prearranged by our venerable druids; all these events that lay in the distant past rose at that moment before my mind like pale phantoms of the past.
The merry voice of Victorin drew me from my meditations:
"What are you dreaming about? How can you, one of the vanquishers in this fair day's battle, be as mute as one of the vanquished?"
"Victorin, I was thinking of days that are no more—of events that took place during the centuries that have rolled by—"
"A curious thought!" replied the young general; and giving a loose to his exuberant feelings he proceeded to say: "Let us leave the past to the empty cups and the departed sweethearts! As for me, I am thinking first of all of my mother's joy when she will learn of our victory; next, my thoughts run, and they run strongly, upon the burning black eyes of Kidda the Bohemian girl, who is waiting for me. When I left her this morning, at the close of the protracted banquet to which she drew me by a ruse, she made an appointment with me for this evening. This will be a well rounded day, Schanvoch! A battle in the morning, and, in the evening, a festive supper with a charming sweetheart on my knees! Ah! It is pleasurable to be a soldier and twenty years of age!"
"Listen, Victorin. So long as the cares of battle lay upon your mind, I saw you wise, thoughtful and grave, as becomes a Chief of Gaul, and at all points worthy of your mother and yourself—"
"And by the beautiful eyes of Kidda, am I not still worthy of myself when my thoughts turn to her after battle?"
"Do you know, Victorin, that Douarnek's mission to you in the name of the whole army is an evidence of the proud independence that animates our soldiers, whose free will alone made you a general? Do you realize that such words, pronounced by such men, are not, and will not be vain—and that it will be fatal to forget them?"
"Why, Schanvoch! It was a whim of veterans who grieve over their lost youth—old men's words, censuring pleasures that their age can no longer taste."
"Victorin, you affect an indifference that your heart does not share. I saw you touched, deeply affected by the language of that old soldier—and also by the attitude of his comrades."
"One feels so happy on the evening of a battle won, that everything pleases. Besides, although his words were peevish enough, did they not betoken the army's affection for me?"
"Do not deceive yourself, Victorin! The army's affection for you ebbed—it returned at floodtide with to-day's great victory. But, be careful! Fresh acts of imprudence will furnish the basis for fresh calumnies, started by those who would wish to undo you—"
"And who wishes to undo me?"
"A chief always has rivals who envy him secretly; and you will not have every day a triumph on the battle field to confound those envious souls with. Thanks to the gods, the utter annihilation of these barbarous hordes insures the peace of our beloved Gaul for many a year to come!"
"All the better, Schanvoch! All the better! Becoming again one of Gaul's most obscure citizens, and hanging my sword, that will have become useless, beside that of my father, I shall then be free to empty innumerable cups without restraint, and to make love to all the Bohemian girls of the universe!"
"Victorin! Be careful, I repeat! Remember the words of the old soldier!"
"The devil take the old soldier and his foolish harangue! At this hour I think only of Kidda! Ah! Schanvoch, if you only saw her dance with her short skirt and her silvery corsage!"
"Be careful! Both the camp and the town have their eyes upon those Bohemian dancers! Your friendly relations with them will make a scandal! Take my advice! Be reserved in your conduct; at any rate, veil your amours in secrecy and obscurity!"
"Obscurity? Secrecy? No hypocrisy! I love to display to the eyes of all, the sweethearts that I am proud of! And I am even prouder of Kidda than of to-day's victory!"
"Victorin! Victorin! Be careful, or that woman will be fatal to you!"
"Oh! Schanvoch! If you heard Kidda sing and dance, accompanying herself with a tambourine—Oh! If you heard and saw her you would become as crazily in love with her as I am! But," added the young general breaking off the thread of his delighted description, and pointing ahead of him, "look at yonder torches! Heaven be praised! It is my mother! In her anxiety to know the issue of the day she must have ridden out towards the battle field! Oh, Schanvoch! I am young, impetuous, ardent after pleasures, that never leave me. I enjoy them with the delight of intoxication—and yet, I swear to you by my father's sword, I would exchange all my future pleasures for the happiness that I am about to experience when my mother will press me to her heart!"
Saying this, the young general gave the reins to his horse and without waiting for me rode forward to meet Victoria, who was, indeed, approaching. When I reached the group, they had both alighted. Victoria held Victorin in a close embrace, and was saying to him in accents impossible to describe:
"My son, I am a happy mother!"
It was only then that I perceived by the light of the torches of Victoria's escort that her right hand was bandaged. Victorin inquired with anxiety:
"Are you wounded, mother?"
"Only slightly," answered Victoria. And addressing me she extended her hand affectionately, saying:
"Brother, you are with us! My heart overflows with joy!"
"But who gave you the wound?"
"The Frankish woman whom Ellen and Sampso brought to my house after your departure—"
"Elwig!" I cried horrified. "Oh! The accursed creature! She has approved herself worthy of her race!"
"Schanvoch," Victoria said to me gravely, "we must not curse the dead. She whom you call Elwig lives no more—"
"Mother!" cried Victorin with increased anxiety. "Dear mother! Are you certain the wound is slight?"
"Here, my son; I shall let you see it!"
And in order to reassure Victorin, she unwound the bandage in which her right hand was wrapped.
"You can see for yourself," she added. "I cut myself only in two places in the palm of my hand as I sought to disarm the woman."
Indeed, the wounds that my foster-sister exhibited were two long but by no means deep cuts. They were in no respect serious.
"And Elwig was armed?" I inquired, seeking to recollect the events of the previous evening. "Where could she have found a weapon? Unless last evening, before starting to swim after us, she picked up her knife from the beach and hid it under her clothes."
"And how and when did the woman try to stab you, mother? Were you alone with her?"
"I asked Schanvoch to have Elwig brought to me at noon; I wanted to see her and give her my help. Ellen and Sampso brought her to me. I happened to be speaking with Robert, the chief of our reserves; we were considering measures for the defense of the camp and town in the event of our army's defeat. Elwig was taken to a contiguous apartment, and Schanvoch's wife and sister-in-law left the stranger alone while I sent for an interpreter to help us understand each other. At the close of my conversation with Robert on military matters, he asked me for some help for the widow of an old soldier. That took me to the chamber where Elwig was waiting for me. I went in for some silver pieces which I kept in a little casket in which were also several Gallic jewels, necklaces and bracelets that I inherited from my mother—"
"If the casket was open," I cried, the savage cupidity of Neroweg's sister flashing through my mind, "Elwig, like the true daughter of a race of thieves, must have wished to seize some of the precious articles."
"And that was how it happened, Schanvoch. When I entered, the young Frankish woman was holding in her hand a gold necklace of exquisite workmanship. She was contemplating it greedily. The moment she saw me she dropped the necklace at her feet, and crossing her arms over her breast she looked at me for a moment in silence and with a savage expression. Her pale face became red with shame and rage. She then gave me a somber look, and pronounced my name. I supposed she asked whether I was Victoria. I nodded my head affirmatively and said: 'Yes, I am Victoria.' I had hardly uttered the words when Elwig threw herself at my feet. Her forehead almost touched the floor, as if she humbly implored my protection. The woman must doubtlessly have profited by the movement to draw her knife from under her clothes without my perceiving it. I stooped down to raise her, when she suddenly leaped up, and with eyes that shot fire sought to stab me, while saying 'Victoria!' 'Victoria!' in a tone of rooted hatred."
Although the danger was over, Victorin shuddered at the report that his mother was making; he approached her, gently took the wounded hand between his own, and kissed it tenderly and lovingly.
"When I saw Elwig's knife raised over me," added Victoria, "my first and involuntary movement was to parry the blow and try to seize the knife, while I cried aloud to Robert for help. Robert rushed in and saw me struggling with Elwig. I was cut in the hand and my blood flowed. Robert believed me dangerously wounded, drew his sword, seized Elwig by the throat, and despatched her before I had time to stay his hand. I deplore the death of the Frankish woman—she came voluntarily to my house."
"You pity her, mother!" cried Victorin. "That creature thievish and savage like the rest of her kith! You pity her! I feel certain that she followed Schanvoch only in order to find an opportunity to introduce herself into your house, cut your throat and then rob you!"
"I pity her for being born of such a stock," answered Victoria sadly. "I pity her for having harbored murder in her heart."
"Believe me," I said to my foster-sister. "That woman's death is a just punishment; besides it puts an end to a life that was soiled with crimes at which nature shudders. May it have pleased the gods that, like Elwig, her brother Neroweg lost his life to-day, and that his stock may be extinguished in him. I will otherwise regret all my life that I did not finish the man when I had a chance. I have a presentiment that his descendants will be fatal to mine."
Victoria gave me a look of astonishment at hearing me utter these words, the sense of which she could not comprehend.
But Victorin turned her thoughts and mine into other channels, exclaiming:
"Hesus be blessed, mother! This was a happy day for Gaul! You escaped a grave danger, and our arms are victorious! The Franks are driven from our frontier!—"
Victorin broke off; he seemed to listen to a sound in the distance; with flashing eyes he resumed:
"Do you hear, mother? Do you hear the song that the wind carries to our ears?"
We all remained silent; and repeated in chorus by thousands of voices tremulous with the joy of triumph, the following refrain reached us across the stillness of the night:
| "This morning we said:— |
| ‘How many are there of these barbarians?’ |
| This evening we say:— |
| ‘How many were there of these blood-thirsty Franks!’" |
Several years have elapsed since I wrote for you, my child, the account that closed with the great battle of the Rhine.
The utter annihilation of the Frankish hordes and the simultaneous destruction of their establishment on the other side of the river, freed Gaul of the perpetual fear that she stood in, of a threatened invasion of barbarians. Perhaps from their retreat in the woods of northern Germany the Franks are now only awaiting a favorable opportunity to swoop down again upon Gaul. But for all the joy of this deliverance, I now resume my narrative after having experienced years of bitter sorrow. Great misfortunes have befallen me across this interval. I have seen a frightful intrigue of hypocrisy and malice unfold before my eyes. Since then an incurable sadness has taken possession of my soul. I left the borders of the Rhine for Brittany; here I established myself with your second mother and you, my son, at the identical place that long ago was the cradle of our family—near the sacred stones of Karnak, the witnesses of the heroic sacrifice of our ancestress Hena.
Only yesterday, as I was returning from the fields with you—from a soldier I have become a field laborer like our fathers in the days of their independence—only yesterday I pointed out to you, on the border of the stream, two hollow willow trees; they were old. Their age must now be more than three hundred years. They are so very, very old that they no longer put forth but a few straggling leaves. You asked me to tie a rope between the two trees for you to swing yourself. You noticed with surprise that I grew sad at your request, and that I suddenly became pensive.
It occurred to me how, nearly three hundred years ago, by a strange coincidence it occurred to Sylvest and his sister Syomara to tie a rope between those identical trees in order to disport themselves. Nor were, alas! those recollections the only ones that those two centenarian trunks brought back to my mind. I said to you:
"Look at those two trees with sadness and veneration, my son. One of our ancestors, Guilhern, the son of Joel, the brenn of the tribe of Karnak, died an atrocious death bound to one of them; Guilhern's son, a lad a little older than yourself and named Sylvest, was tied to the other willow to die the same death as his father. An unexpected accident snatched him from the frightful fate."[3]
"And what was their crime?" you asked me.
"The crime of the father and of his son was to have tried to escape from bondage, so as not to be forced to cultivate under a master's whip, with the slave's collar on their necks and chains to their feet, the fields that were their own patrimony. They wished to escape cultivating those fields for the benefit of the Romans who had robbed them of them."
My answer astonished you still more, my child—you who always lived happy and free, who until now have known no other grief than that of the loss of your dear mother, of whom you have preserved only a vague memory. You were barely four years and two months old a short time after the victory that Gaul won over the Franks on the border of the Rhine.
You will remember that I broke off our conversation, and that I relapsed into one of those fits of melancholy that I find it impossible to overcome every time I recall the terrible domestic catastrophes that befell us on the Rhine. But I always regain courage when I remember the duty imposed upon me by our ancestor Joel, who lived nearly three hundred years ago in the same place where we are now again established after our family's having experienced innumerable vicissitudes.
When you will be old enough to read these pages, my son, you will understand the cause of these mortal fits of sadness in which you have often seen me steeped, despite your second mother's tenderness, whom I could not cherish too dearly. Yes, when you will have read the last and solemn words of Victoria, the Mother of the Camps, dreadful words, you will then understand that, however painful may be to me the past that will throw a shadow over my path until death, the future that is perhaps in store for Gaul by the mysterious will of Hesus, must fill me with still greater anguish—and you will share my anguish, my son, when you reflect over the wise and profound observation of our ancestor Sylvest:
"Alas, every time the nation is wounded the family bleeds."
Aye, if Victoria was endowed with the science of foreseeing the future, as so many of our venerable female druids have been before her; if ever her redoubtable prophecies are verified—then, woe is Gaul! Woe is our race! Woe is our family! A longer period of even more cruel sufferings will lie before our country under the yoke of the Rome of the Bishops than it experienced under the yoke of the Rome of the Caesars and the Emperors!
As I said before, I now resume the thread of my narrative where I dropped it several years ago.
After an extensive conversation on the events of the day, Victorin and his mother returned to Mayence, where they arrived late in the evening. Pretending great fatigue and some pain from the light wound that he received, the young general retired. The moment he reached his house he threw off his armor, and wrapping himself in his cloak repaired to the Bohemian girls.
"That woman will be fatal to you," were my words to the young general on our way from the battle field. Alas! My foresight was destined to prove true. By the way of these creatures, keep in mind, my son, a circumstance with which I later became acquainted; you will presently appreciate its importance—those Bohemian girls came to Mayence two days after the arrival of Tetrik in the same town, and they arrived from Gascony, the department that he governed.
This discovery, together with many others, imparted to me such accurate information on certain facts that I am enabled to describe them the same as if I had been present.
As I said, Victorin left his house at night to keep his assignation with Kidda, the Bohemian girl. He had met her only the previous evening for the first time. She made a deep impression upon him. He was young, handsome, bright and generous. That very day he had won a glorious battle. He was well aware of the easy morals of those strolling singers, who, in effect, were nothing but courtesans. He felt certain that he would possess the object of this latest whim. How great must his surprise have been when Kidda said to him with well simulated firmness, sadness and repressed passion:
"Victorin, I shall not speak to you of my virtue; you will laugh at the virtue of a strolling Bohemian singer. But you may believe me when I say that long before I saw you, your glorious name had reached me. Your renown for valor and goodness made my heart beat, unworthy of you as that heart is, seeing that I am a poor, degraded creature. Believe me, Victorin," she added with tears in her eyes, "if I were pure, you would have my love and my life; but I am soiled; I do not deserve your attention. I love you too passionately, I honor you too much ever to offer to you the remains of an existence debased by men, who are not worthy of being compared with you."
So far from cooling, the hypocritical language fired the ardor of Victorin; it exalted him beyond measure. His sensual whim for the woman was speedily transformed into a consuming and mad passion. Despite his protestations of devotion, despite his entreaties, despite his tears—he actually wept at the feet of the execrable woman—the Bohemian remained inexorable. Victorin's nature underwent thereupon a marked change. From mirthful, pleasant and open, it became retired and morose. He grew somber and taciturn. Both his mother and I were ignorant at the time of the cause of the change. To our pressing questions the young general would answer that, being struck by the manifestations of displeasure that the army had shown towards him, he did not wish to expose himself to a recurrence of their anger; thenceforth his life was to be austere and retired. With the exception of a few hours that he consecrated every day to his mother, Victorin now rarely left his house, and he avoided the company of his former boon companions. Struck, on their part, by his sudden change of deportment, the soldiers saw in it only the salutary effect of the remonstrances made to their young general in their name by Douarnek. They cherished him more than ever before. I later learned that, in his self-imposed solitude, the unhappy man habitually drank himself into utter stupor in order to forget his fatal passion, and that every evening he repaired to the Bohemian dancer's, only, however, to find her pitiless as ever.
About a month passed in this manner. Tetrik remained in Mayence in order to overcome Victoria's repugnance to the idea of having her grandson acclaimed the heir of his father's office. But Victoria ever answered the Governor of Gascony, saying:
"Ritha-Gaur, who made himself a blouse of the beard of the kings whom he shaved, overthrew royalty in Gaul about ten centuries ago. He held that, under royalty, it is the people and their descendants who are transmitted by hereditary right, to kings, and that these are rarely good, and generally bad. More and more enlightened by our venerable druids, the Gauls have wisely preferred to elect the chief whom they consider worthiest to govern them. They thus constituted themselves into a Republic. My grandson is still a child in his cradle; no one can know whether he will later have the qualities that are necessary for the government of a great people like ours. To acknowledge this child to-day as the heir of his father's office is tantamount to restoring the royalty that we have wisely overthrown. I hate royalty as much as did Ritha-Gaur."
Still hoping to overcome the resolution of the Mother of the Camps by his persistence, Tetrik prolonged his stay in Mayence—at least I was long under the impression that such was the only reason for his postponing his departure. Nor did Tetrik seem to be less surprised at the unaccountable change that came over Victorin. The latter, although plunged in brooding sadness, still preserved his affection for me. I even thought that more than once he was on the point of opening his heart to me and of confiding to me what he there kept hidden. Later, however, he ceased calling at my house as he formerly used to, and seemed even to avoid meeting me. His features, once so handsome and open, were no longer the same. Pale with suffering, worn by excessive and solitary indulgence in wine, their expression gradually assumed a sinister aspect. At times a sort of dementia seemed to speak out of his alternately fixed and wandering gaze.
About five weeks after the great battle of the Rhine, Victorin resumed his visits to my house. The turn was marked, both in point of suddenness and assiduity. Noticeable was the circumstance that the hours which he chose for his visits were those during which Sampso and my wife were home alone, I being at Victoria's writing the letters which she dictated. Ellen received the son of my foster-sister with her wonted affability. At first I imagined that, sorry at having kept himself away from me without cause and by a mere whim, he sought to bring about a reconciliation by means of my wife. I believed this all the more seeing that, despite his persistence in seeking to avoid me, he never spoke of me to Ellen except in terms of deep affection. Sampso was usually present at the conversations between her sister and Victorin. Only once did she leave them alone, and then, when she returned she was struck by the painful expression on my wife's face and the visible embarrassment shown by Victorin, who speedily took his departure.
"What is the matter, Ellen?" asked Sampso.
"Sister, I conjure you, never again leave me alone with Victoria's son. May it please the gods that I am mistaken! But to judge from some broken words that Victorin let drop, to judge by the expression of his face, I imagine that he is moved by a guilty love for me—and yet he is aware of my devotion to Schanvoch!"
"Sister!" exclaimed Sampso, "Victorin's excesses have ever shocked me, but latterly he seems to have changed. The sacrifice of his unregulated pleasures doubtlessly costs him much; notwithstanding the young general's changed conduct is praised by everyone, they all comment on his profound sadness. I can not believe him capable of thinking of dishonoring your husband, who loves Victorin as if he were his own child, and who even saved his life in battle. You must be mistaken, Ellen! No! Such baseness is not possible!"
"I only hope you are right, Sampso; nevertheless, I must conjure you not to leave me alone with Victorin if he comes again. At any rate, I mean to tell all to Schanvoch."
"Be careful, Ellen. If, as I believe, you are mistaken, you would but raise a frightful and unjustified suspicion in your husband's breast. You know how attached he is to Victoria and her son. Only imagine Schanvoch's despair at such a revelation! Ellen, follow my advice, receive Victorin once more alone. Should your suspicions grow into certainty, then, hesitate no longer—reveal Victorin's treachery to Schanvoch. It would otherwise be imprudent on your part to awaken in him suspicions that may be wholly baseless. An infamous hypocrite, however, should be unmasked, when there is no longer any doubt as to his purpose."
Ellen promised her sister to follow her advice. But Victorin never returned. I learned all these details only later. This happened in the course of the fifth or sixth week after the great battle of the Rhine, and exactly eight days before the catastrophe that it is my duty, my son, to relate to you.
On that fateful day I spent the early part of the evening near Victoria conferring with her upon an urgent mission on which I was to depart on that very evening, and which might keep me several days from home. Although Victorin promised his mother to be present at the conference, the purpose of which was known to him, he remained away. I did not wonder at his absence. For some time, and without it being possible for me to fathom his whimsical conduct, he had avoided all opportunity of encountering me. Victoria said to me pathetically when I left her at the usual hour:
"Private feelings must be hushed before interests of state. I have spoken to you fully on the subject of the mission that I have charged you with, Schanvoch. And now the mother will unbosom her private grief. I had this morning a sad conversation with my son. I vainly implored him to confide to me the cause of the secret sorrow that is consuming him. He answered me with a distressful smile:
"'Mother, one time you reproached me with my levity and my too strong taste for pleasures—those days are now far behind—I now live in solitude and meditation. My lodging, where formerly the joyful din of song and revelry by torch light used to keep the night astir, is now lonely, silent and somber—like myself. Our scrupulous soldiers feel edified at my conversion, and now no longer reproach me with too much love for joy, wine and women! What more do you want, mother?'
"'I want much more,' I replied to him, unable to restrain my tears. 'I want to see you happy as in the past. You suffer, my son; you suffer a pain that you conceal from me. The consciousness of a wise and thoughtful life, as becomes the chief of a great people, imparts to his face a grave yet serene expression. Your face, however, is haggard, sinister, pale, like that of a man distracted and in despair—'"
"And what did Victorin say to that?"
"Nothing. He relapsed into the gloomy brooding in which I find him so often plunged, and from which he emerges only to cast wandering looks about. I then showed him his child, whom I held in my arms. He took it, kissed it several times with great tenderness, put it back into its cradle, and left abruptly without saying a word. I believe he wished to hide his tears from me. I saw that he wept. Oh! Schanvoch, my heart breaks when I think of the future that seemed to me so rosy for Gaul, for my son and for me!"