The Children of Alsace (Les Oberlés)

"Deceivers, the French! Look at their novels and plays! France is decadent! A worn-out nation! What will she do against fifty-five millions of Germans?"

Jean let the avalanche pass; he looked now at Fincken, who was gesticulating, now at von Farnow, who was silent, with head held high and frowning brows.

"I believe France is very much calumniated," he said at last. "She may be governed badly. She may be weakened by dissensions; but since you attack her, I am delighted to tell you that I look upon her as a very great nation. Even you yourselves have no other opinion."

Veritable clamours arose. Ah! Oh! Indeed.

"Your very fury against her proves this. You have conquered her, but you have not left off envying her!"

"Do you read the commercial statistics, young man?" asked the resolute voice of Herr Rosenblatt.

"Her merchant navy is in the sixth rank!" whispered one of the students.

Professor Knäpple fixed his spectacles on his nose and very clearly articulated the following proposition:

"What you say, my dear Oberlé, is true as regards the past. Even to-day I think I can add, that if we had France to ourselves she would rapidly become a great country. We should know how to improve her."

"I beg you," added von Fincken insolently, "not to discuss an opinion which is not tenable."

"I beg you, in my turn," said Jean, "not to use in discussion arguments which are not conclusive, and do not really touch the question. One cannot judge a country simply and solely by its commerce, its navy, or its army."

"On what would you form your judgment then, sir?"

"On the soul of the country, sir. France has hers; that I know from history and from I know not what filial instinct I feel within me; and I firmly believe that there are many superior virtues, eminent qualities, generosity, disinterestedness, love of justice, taste, delicacy, and a certain flower of heroism, which are to be found more often than elsewhere in the past and in the present of this nation. I could give many proofs of it. Even if she were as weak as you assert, she holds treasures which are the honour of the world, which must be torn from her before she merits death, and by the side of these things the remainder seems very small. Your Germanisation, sir, is only destruction or diminution of those virtues or French qualities in the Alsatian soul. And that is why I maintain that it is bad!"

"Come now," said Fincken, "Alsace belongs naturally to Germany; she has made her come back. We make our repossession sure. Who would not do as much?"

"France!" answered Oberlé; "and that is why we love her. She might have taken the territory, but she would not have done violence to the soul. We belong to her by right of love."

The baron shrugged his shoulders.

"Go back then to her!"

Jean almost shouted, "Yes." The servants stopped to listen, in passing round the sweets. He went on:

"I find your attempt bad in itself, because it is a repression of consciences; but I also find that it is clumsy, even from a German point of view."

"Charming," said the little falsetto of Madame Knäpple. "You should have the interest to keep what originality and independence remains to us. It would be a useful example to Germany."

"Thanks," said a voice.

"And more and more useful," insisted the young man. "I was educated in Germany and I am sure of my contention. What struck me most, and shocked me, is the want of personality in Germans, their increasing forgetfulness of liberty, their effacement before the power of – "

"Take care, young man!" interrupted the Geheimrath quickly.

"I shall say before the power of Prussia, Geheimrath, which devours consciences, and which allows only three types of men to live, and these she has moulded from childhood – taxpayers, officials, and soldiers."

From the end of the table one of the students rose from his chair:

"The Roman Empire did the same, and it was the Roman Empire!"

A vibrating voice near him cried:

"Bravo!"

All the guests looked up. It was Wilhelm von Farnow, who had said only this one word since the beginning of the discussion. The violence of the debate had irritated him like a personal provocation. It had excited others. Herr Rosenblatt clenched his fists. Professor Knäpple muttered stormy sentences as he wiped his spectacles. His wife laughed nervously.

Then the beautiful Madame Rosenblatt, letting her pearl necklace run through her fingers, smiled, and looking pleasantly at the Alsatian, said:

"M. Oberlé has at least the courage of his opinions. No one could be more openly against us."

Jean felt far too irritated to answer pleasantly. He looked intently at the faces of Fincken, Rosenblatt, and Knäpple, at the student who was moving restlessly near Lucienne, and then leaning slightly towards Madame Rosenblatt, said:

"It is only through the women that the German nation can acquire the refinement which is wanting, madame. Germany has some accomplished women."

"Thank you for us!" answered three men's voices.

Madame Knäpple, furious at the compliment paid to Madame Rosenblatt, said:

"What is your scheme then, sir, for shaking off the yoke of Germany?"

"I have none."

"Then what do you ask for?"

"Nothing, madame; I suffer."

It was one of the Alsatian artists, the painter with the yellow beard, who looked like one of Giotto's pupils, who continued the conversation, and all the table turned towards him.

"I am not like M. Oberlé, who asks for nothing. He has only just come into the country after a long absence. If he had lived here some time, he would come to a different conclusion. We Alsatians of the new generation through our contact with three hundred thousand Germans have had the difference of our French culture from that of Germany conclusively demonstrated. We prefer our own; that is permitted? In exchange for the loyalty that we have shown to Germany, the taxes we pay, the military service we perform – we desire to remain Alsatians. And you determinedly refuse to understand. Our demand is that we should not be compelled to submit to exceptional laws, to this sort of state of siege which we have endured for thirty years. We demand that we should not be treated and governed as a country of the Empire – after the fashion of the Cameroons, Togoland, and New Guinea, the Bismarck Archipelago, or the Isles of Providence, but like a European province of the German Empire. We shall not be satisfied until that day comes when we can feel we are in our own home here – Alsatians in Alsace, as the Bavarians are Bavarians in Bavaria. Whilst as things are, we are the conquered ones waiting on the good pleasure of a master. That is my demand!"

He spoke clearly, with apparent coldness, and his golden beard looked like the point of an arrow. His measured words succeeded in exciting their minds – and one could foresee the angry answer when Geheimrathin Brausig rose.

Her guests followed suit, and went into the blue drawing-room.

"You were absurd! What were you thinking about?" Lucienne asked in an undertone as she passed Jean.

"Perhaps what you said was imprudent," added Madame Oberlé, a moment after; "but you defended Alsace well – and I approve of you."

The Geheimrath was already turning to all sides, making use of the usual formula, which he murmured into the ears of Fincken, von Farnow, of Rosenblatt and Professor Knäpple, the two students, Jean, and the two Alsatian artists:

"Do me the pleasure of following me to the smoking-room!"

The smoking-room was a second drawing-room, separated from the first by plate-glass.

M. Brausig's guests were soon reunited there. Cigars and beer were brought. Smoke spirals went up, mingled together, and rose to the ceiling. M. Rosenblatt became a centre of conversation. The Professor Knäpple became another. The loud voices seemed to be wrangling, but were only explaining simple ideas with difficulty.

Alone, two men were talking of a serious subject and making but little noise. They were Jean Oberlé and von Farnow. Scarcely had the former lit his cigar when von Farnow touched Jean's arm and said:

"I want to have a little conversation with you apart."

To be more free, the young men seated themselves near the monumental mantelpiece, facing the bay which opened into the drawing-room, while the other smokers grouped round M. Rosenblatt and Baron von Fincken occupied the embrasure of the windows.

"You were violent to-night, my dear fellow," said von Farnow, with the haughty politeness which he often adopted; "I was tempted twenty times to answer you, but I preferred waiting. Were you not aiming at me a little?"

"Much of what I said was meant for you. I wanted to tell you very clearly what I was and to teach it to you before witnesses, so that it should be clearly understood that if you persevere in your projects, I have made no concessions to you, no advances; that I have nothing whatever to do with the marriage you are contemplating. I am not going to oppose my father's wishes, but I will not have my ideas confused with his."

"That is how I understood it. You have evidently learned that I have met your sister in society and that I love her?"

"Yes."

"Is that all you have to answer?"

A rush of blood suffused the German's cheeks.

"Explain yourself quickly!" he went on. "My family is of the nobility; do you recognise that?"

"Yes."

"Do you recognise that it is an honour for a woman to be sought by a German officer?"

"For any except an Alsatian woman. But although you do not understand that feeling, we are not like other people – we are the people of Alsace. I esteem you very much, Farnow, but your marriage with my sister will cruelly affect three persons among us – myself first of all."

"How? I ask you!"

They were obliged to speak in an undertone and to avoid any gestures, because of the presence of the Geheimrath's guests at the farther end of the room, who were observing the young men, and were trying to interpret their attitudes. All their emotion and their irritation was in their eyes and in the whispering of words which must only be heard by one person.

Through the sheet of plate-glass, Lucienne could see von Farnow, and getting up and crossing the drawing-room, or pretending to admire the basket of flowers which stood out from the frame-work, she looked inquiringly at the faces of the officer and of her brother.

"You are a man of heart, von Farnow. Think what our home in Alsheim will be when this fresh cause of dissension is added to the others?"

"I shall go away," said the officer; "I can exchange and leave Strasburg."

"The memory will remain with us. But that is not all. And from now on there is my mother, who will never consent…"

With a movement of his hand von Farnow showed that he brushed aside that objection.

"There is my grandfather, whom Alsace once elected to protest, and who cannot to-day give the lie to all his past life."

"I owe nothing to M. Philippe Oberlé," interrupted Farnow.

His voice became more imperious.

"I warn you that I never give up a resolution once taken. When M. von Kassewitz, the prefect of Strasburg, and the only near relation remaining to me, returns from the holiday he is going to take in a few days' time, he will go to Alsheim, to your house; he will ask for the hand of Mlle. Lucienne Oberlé for his nephew, and his request will be granted, because Mlle. Lucienne Oberlé wishes to accept me, because her father has already consented, and because I will have it so – I, Wilhelm von Farnow!"

"It remains to be seen whether you have done well…"

"According to my will: that is sufficient for me."

"How much pride there is in your love, Farnow!"

"It is in everything I do, Oberlé!"

"Do you think I am mistaken? My sister pleases you because she is pretty?"

"Yes."

"Intelligent?"

"Yes."

"But also because she is an Alsatian girl! Your pride has seen in her a victory to be gained. You are not ignorant of the fact that the women of Alsace are in the habit of refusing Germans. They are queens not easily accessible to your amorous ambitions, from the country girls, who at their gatherings refuse to dance with the emigrants, up to our sisters, who are not often seen in your drawing-rooms or on your arms. In the various regiments you will belong to you will boast that you have won Lucienne Oberlé. It will even be a good mark for you in high quarters? Will it not?"

"Perhaps," said Farnow with a sneer.

"Go on then, break, or finish breaking, three of us!"

They were getting more and more irritated, each trying to control himself.

The officer rose, threw away his cigar, and said haughtily:

"We are civilised barbarians – that is understood, less burdened than you with prejudices and pretensions to justice. That is why we shall conquer the world. But in the meantime, Oberlé, I am going to join your mother and talk to her, as amiably as an enemy possibly can. Will you accompany me?"

Jean Oberlé shook his head in the negative.

Farnow crossed the smoking-room, leaving Oberlé there.

Lucienne was anxiously awaiting him in the drawing-room. She saw him direct his steps towards Madame Oberlé, and, forcing himself to smile, place a chair near the arm-chair in which the fragile Alsatian lady in black was sitting. At the same time the Geheimrath called out, "Oberlé! You have smoked a cigar without even drinking one glass of beer. But that is a crime! Come. Professor Knäpple is explaining the measures the Government is taking to prevent the Russianising of the eastern provinces of Germany."

Late that night, a landau bore away to Alsheim three travellers; it had fetched them from the station at Molsheim.

The way there was a long one, and Lucienne soon went to sleep in the carriage. Her mother, who had hardly said anything up to then, bent towards her son, and, pointing to the beautiful creature sound asleep, asked him:

"You knew?"

"Yes."

"I guessed it. There was no need to tell me much. I have seen her look at him. Oh, Jean, this trial that I hoped to escape! – the fear of which has made me accept so many, many things! I have only you left, my Jean! But you remain to me!"

She kissed him fervently.