The Children of Alsace (Les Oberlés)

Stalks, leaves, and flowers were thrown down and placed in heaps – to be carried away by the wagons. The workers did not wait to pick the hops which they would gather at Alsheim in the farmyard in the afternoon. But, already covered with yellow powder and pieces of leaves, the men and women were hurrying to strip the lowered poles. The hops exhaled their bitter, healthy odour, and the humming of the band of workers, like the noise of early vintage, spread out over the immense stretch of country, striped with meadows, stubble, and lucerne, and the open and fertile Alsatian land which the sun was beginning to warm.

This light, the repose of the night still neighbouring the day, the full liberty which they did not enjoy every day of the week, the instinctive coquetry evoked by the presence of the men, even the desire of being pleasant to M. Bastian, whom they knew to be of a gay disposition, made these girls and children who picked the hops joyful with a boisterous joy. And one of the farm servants having called out while his horses stopped to take breath: "Is no one singing then?" the daughter of the sacristan, Juliette, with the regular features and the beautiful deep eyes under her well combed and nicely dressed hair, answered:

"I know a lovely song."

As she answered she looked at the owner of the property, who was smoking, seated on the first row of stubble above the hop-field, and who was contemplating with tenderness now his hops and now his Alsace, where his mind always dwelt.

"If it is pretty; sing it," said the master. "Is it a song that the police may hear?"

"Part of it."

"Then turn round to the forest side: the police do not often go that way because they find nothing to drink there."

The workers who were stooping and those who were standing upright laughed silently because of the detestation in which they held the gendarmes. And the beautiful Juliette began to sing – of course in Alsatian – one of those songs which poets compose who do not care to sign their works, and who rhyme in contraband.

The full, pure voice sang:

"I have cut the hops of Alsace – they have grown on the soil we tilled – the green hops are certainly ours – the red earth is also ours."

"Bravo!" said gravely M. Bastian's farmer. He took his pipe from his mouth in order to hear better.

"They have grown in the valley – in the valley where every one has passed along, many sorts of people, and the wind, and also anguish – we have chosen our own friends.

"We will drink beer to the health of those who please us. We will have no words on our lips – but we will have words in our hearts – where no one can efface them."

The heavy, solid heads, young and old, remained motionless for a moment when Juliette had finished. They waited for the remainder. The young girls smiled because of the voice and because of life. The eyes of M. Bastian and the Ramspachers shone because of bygone days. The two sons had grown grave. Juliette did not begin to sing again: there was no more to follow.

"I think I know the miller who composed that song," said M. Bastian. "Come, my friends, hurry yourselves; there is the first cart starting for Alsheim. All must be gathered and put in the drying-house before night."

Everybody except that big young François, who had to do his military service in November, and who was driving the wagon, bent again over the hop roots. But at the same moment, from the copse on the border of the great forest, from among the shrubs and the clematis, which made a silky fringe to the mountain forests, a man's voice answered.

What was happening? Who had heard them? They thought they knew the voice, which was strong and unequal, worn, but with touches of a youthful quality; and whisperings arose.

"It is he. He is not afraid!"

The voice answered, in the same rugged tongue:

"The black bow of the daughters of Alsace – has bound my heart with sorrow – has bound my heart with joy. It is a knot of love.

"The black bow of the daughters of Alsace – is a bird with great wings. It can fly across the mountains – and look over them.

"The black bow of the daughters of Alsace is a cross of mourning which we carry in memory of all those – whose soul was like our own soul."

The voice had been recognised. When it had finished singing, the hop-pickers, men and women, began to talk to M. Ulrich, who, barely tolerated in Alsace, had nevertheless more freedom of language than the Alsatians who were German subjects. The noise of laughter and words exchanged grew louder and louder in the hop-field, so the master withdrew.

M. Bastian, with his heavy, sure step, mounted to the edge of the forest whence came the voice, and plunged under the beeches. Some one had seen him coming and waited for him. M. Ulrich Biehler, seated on a rock starred with moss – bare headed, weary with having walked in the sun – had hoped, by singing, to make his old friend Xavier Bastian climb up to him. He was not mistaken.

"I have a place for you here, hop-picker!" he cried from afar, pointing to a large block of stone which had rolled to the foot of the mountain, between two trees, and on which he was seated.

Although they were friends, M. Ulrich and the Mayor of Alsheim saw each other but seldom. There was between them less intimacy than a community of opinions and of aspirations and of memories. They were chosen friends, and old Alsace counted them among her faithful ones. That was enough to make them feel the meeting was a happy one, and to make the signal understood. M. Ulrich had said to himself that M. Bastian having set the workers to work would not be sorry to have a diversion. He had sung in answer to Juliette's song, and M. Bastian had come. Now the pale, fine face of the hermit of Heidenbruch reflected a mixture of pleasure in welcoming his friend and an anxiety difficult to conceal.

"You still sing?" said M. Bastian, pressing M. Ulrich's hand. "You hunt, you run about the hills!"

He sat down breathless on a stone, his feet in the ferns, and looking towards the descending slopes wooded with oaks and beeches and bushes.

"That only in appearance. I am a walker, a forester, a wanderer. You, on the contrary, are the least travelled of men. I visit – you cultivate: these are at bottom two kinds of fidelities. Tell me, Xavier, may I speak to you of something which I have very much at heart?"

The heavy face trembled, the thick lips moved, and one could see by the great change which took place in M. Bastian's face how sensitive he was. As he was of just as reticent a nature, he did not make any reply. He waited.

"I am going to tell you about something which touches me as nearly as if it were a personal matter. He who begged me to see you is my dearest relative. I take the direct method with you, Xavier. Have you guessed that my nephew loves your daughter Odile?"

"Yes."

"Well?"

Suddenly these two, who had been gazing into the distance for a while, looked at each other eye to eye, and they were afraid, one because of the refusal he read there – and the other because of the pain he was going to give.

"No!" said the voice, grown harsh in order to dominate its emotion, which would have made it tremble. "I will not!"

"I expected that; but if I tell you that they love each other?"

"That may be. I cannot!"

"You have some very serious reason then?"

"Yes."

"What is it?"

M. Bastian pointed through the trees to the house of the Oberlés.

"To-day, in that house, they are expecting the visit of the Prefect of Strasburg."

"I could not tell you, and I had to wait before speaking about it till every one knew it."

"It is public property now. All the town of Alsheim has been told by the servants. They even say that M. von Kassewitz is coming to ask for the hand of Lucienne for his nephew, Lieutenant von Farnow."

"I know it!"

"And you would have it so?"

"Yes!"

"That I should give my daughter to Jean Oberlé so that she should have a father-in-law who will be a governmental candidate in the coming elections and a brother-in-law who is a Prussian officer?"

M. Ulrich kept calm under the indignant gaze of M. Bastian and answered:

"Yes; these are terrible things for him, but it is not Jean's fault. Where will you find a man more worthy of you and of your daughter?"

"What is he doing to oppose this marriage? He is here – his silence gives consent. He is weak."

M. Ulrich stopped him with a movement.

"No; he is strong!"

"Not like you – you who knew how to close your house."

"My house belongs to me."

"And I have the right to say 'Not like me!' All these young people accept things too easily, my friend. I do not mix myself up with politics. I keep silent. I plough my land. I am looked on with suspicion by the peasants, who no doubt like me, but who begin to find me 'compromising.' I am hated by Germans of every kind and colour. But, as God hears me, that only makes me drive my roots deeper in, and I do not change. I will die with all my old hatreds intact – do you understand – intact?"

His eyes had a gleam in them such as a sharpshooter has when, with gun in hand, and sure that his hand will not tremble, he covers his enemy.

"You stand for something in this generation, Xavier; but you must not be unjust. This man you refuse, because he is not like us, is not the less valiant for that."

"That has to be seen."

"Has he not declared that he will not enter the Government employ?"

"Because the country pleases him better – and my daughter pleases him also!"

"No; firstly because he is Alsatian."

"Not like us, I will answer for that!"

"In a new way. They are obliged to live in the midst of Germans. Their education is carried out in German schools, and their way of loving France leaves room for more honour and more strength of mind than was necessary in our time. Think, it is thirty years ago!"

"Alas!"

"They saw nothing of those times, they have only a traditional love, or a love which is of the imagination, or of family, and examples of forgetfulness are frequent around them!"

"Jean has had, in truth, examples of that sort."

"That is why you ought to be more just to him. Think that your daughter in marrying him will found here an Alsatian family – very powerful, very wealthy. The officer will not live in Alsheim, nor even long in Alsace. He will soon be only a name."

M. Bastian placed his heavy hand on M. Ulrich's shoulder, and spoke in a tone which did not allow the discussion to be continued.

"Listen, my friend, I have only one word. It cannot be, because I will not have that marriage: because all those of my generation, dead and living, would reproach me. And then, even if I yielded, Ulrich, there is a will near me stronger than mine, who will never say yes, do you understand, never!"

M. Bastian slipped down among the ferns, and shrugging his shoulders, and shaking his head – like some one who will hear no more – went downwards to his day workers. When he had passed between the rows of the cut hops and reprimanded each of the workers, there was no more laughing, and the girls of Alsheim, and the farmer's sons, and the farmer himself, stooping under the burning sun, went on in silence with their work, which had been so joyously begun.

Already M. Ulrich was going up to his hermitage on Sainte Odile, distressed, asking himself what serious effect the refusal of M. Bastian was going to have on Jean's destiny, and anxious to tell his nephew the news. Without hoping, without believing that there was any chance of it, he would try to make Odile's father give way, and plans hummed round him, like the gadflies in the pine woods, drunk with the sun, and following the traveller in his lonely climb. The streams were singing. There were flocks of thrushes, harbingers crossing the ravines, darting through the blue air to get to the vines and fruits of the plain. It was in vain – he was utterly downcast. He could think of nothing but of his nephew, so badly rewarded for his return to Alsheim. Between the trees and round the branches he gazed at the house of the Oberlés.

Any one going into that house just then would have found it extraordinarily quiet. Every one there was suffering. M. Philippe Oberlé, as usual had lunched in his room. Madame Oberlé, at the express wish of her husband, had consented to come out of her room when M. von Kassewitz should be announced.

"All the same, I repeat," she said, "that I shall not go out of my way to entertain him. I will be there because by your orders I am bound to receive this person. But I shall not go beyond what is strictly necessary."

"Right," said M. Oberlé, "Lucienne, Jean, and I will talk to him. That will suffice."

And after his meal he had gone at once to his workroom, at the end of the park. Jean, who had shown no enthusiasm, had gone out, for his part, promising to return before three o'clock. Lucienne was alone in the big yellow drawing-room. Very well dressed in a grey princess dress, which had for its only ornament a belt buckle of two shades of gold, like the decorations in the dining-room; she was placing roses in crystal glasses and slender vases of transparent porcelain, which contrasted well with the hard, definite colour of the velvet furniture. Lucienne had the collectedness of a gambler who sees a game coming to an end, and knows she has won. She had herself, in two recent soirées at Strasburg carried the business through, which now wanted only the signatures of the contracting parties; the official candidature promised to M. Joseph Oberlé in the first vacant district.

The visit of M. von Kassewitz was equivalent to the signing of the treaty. The opposing parties held their tongues, as Madame Oberlé held hers, or stood aside in silent sulkiness, like the grandfather. The young girl went from the mantelpiece to the gilt console, surmounted by a mirror, in which she saw herself reflected, and she thought the movement of her lips very pretty when she made them say "Monsieur the Prefect!" One thing irritated her, and checked the pride she felt in her victory: the absolute emptiness which was making itself felt around her.

Even the servants seemed to have made up their minds not to be there when they were wanted. They did not answer the bell. After lunch M. Joseph Oberlé had been obliged to go into the servants' hall to find his father's valet, that good-tempered big Alsatian who looked upon himself as being at the beck and call of every one.

"Victor, you will put on your livery to receive the gentleman who will come about three o'clock!"

Victor had grown red and answered with difficulty:

"Yes, sir!"

"You must be careful to watch for the carriage, and to be at the bottom of the steps – "

"Yes, sir."

Since this promise had been given, which no doubt went very much against Victor's feelings – he had hid himself, and only came at the third or fourth call, quite flustered and pretending that he had not heard.

The Prefect of Strasburg is coming. These words which Lucienne had spoken, Madame Oberlé thought over shut up in her room. They weighed, like a storm cloud, on the mind of the old protesting representative of Alsace – that old forester, Philippe Oberlé, who had given orders that he was to be left alone; they agitated the nervous fingers of M. Joseph Oberlé, who was writing in his room at the saw mills, and he left off writing in order to listen; they rang sadly, like the passing bell of something noble in Jean's heart taking refuge with the Bastians' farmer. They were the theme – the leitmotiv which recurred in twenty different ways, in the animated and sarcastic conversation of the hop-pickers.

For these women and girls of the farm, and the day labourers who had worked in the morning in the hop-field, had assembled, since the mid-day meal in the narrow, long yard of the Ramspachers' farm. Seated on chairs or stools, each one having on their right a hamper or a basket and on their left a heap of hops, they picked off the flowers and threw away the stripped stalks. They formed two lines – one along the stable walls and the other the length of the house. This made an avenue of fair heads and bodies in movement among the piles of leaves, which stretched from one woman to another and bound them together as it were with a garland. At the end, the cart door opened wide on to the square of the town of Alsheim, and allowed the gables of several houses situated opposite to be seen – with their wooden balconies and the flat tiles of their roofings. By this road every half hour fresh loads of hops arrived drawn by one of the farm horses. Old Ramspacher, the farmer, was at his post, in the enormous barn in front of the dwelling-house, and before which sat the first pickers, at work on the little hop cones.

In this building, whose vast roof was supported by a wall on one side, on the other by Vosges pines, the greater part of the work of the farm was done, and much wealth was stored here. Here they trod the grapes; in the autumn and winter months they threshed corn. They kept all the implements of labour in the corner – the covered carts, planks and building materials, empty barrels, and a little hay. There were also many great wooden cases piled up, tiers of screens, on which they put the hops to dry every year. The farmer never allowed others to do this delicate work. So he was at his place, in front of the drying-room, where the first shelves were already full, and standing on a ladder he spread equal layers of the gathered hops, which his sons brought him in hampers.

The heat of the afternoon, at the end of August, the odour of crushed leaves and flowers, which clung to their hands intoxicated the women slightly. The laughter rose louder than in the hop-fields in the morning, and questions were asked and remarks made which called forth twenty answers. Sometimes it was the work which furnished a pretext for this fusillade of words. Sometimes it was a neighbour passing across the square all white with dust and sunshine; but mostly the talk was about two things: the visit of the Prefect and the probable marriage of Lucienne.

The beautiful Juliette, the sacristan's daughter, had begun the conversation saying:

"I tell you Victor told it to the mason's son: the Prefect is to arrive in half an hour. Do you think I shall move when he comes?"

"He would see a very pretty girl," said Augustine Ramspacher, lifting up two hampers of hops. "It is only the ugly ones who will let themselves be seen."

Ida, who had lifted up her blue-and-white-spotted dress, and then Octavie the cow-woman, who wore her hair plaited and rolled like a golden halo round her head, and Reine the daughter of the poor tailor, and others answered together laughing:

"I shall not be seen then. Nor I, nor I!"

And an old woman's voice, the only old woman among them, muttered:

"I know I am as poor as Peter and Paul, but I would rather that he went to other folk's houses than to mine – the Prefect!"

"Certainly."

They were all speaking freely. Words re-echoed from the walls and were lost amid bursts of laughter and the rustling of the broken and crushed leaves. In the barn in the half light, seated on a pile of beams, his chin in his hands, there was a witness who heard, and that witness was Jean Oberlé. But the inhabitants of Alsheim began to know the young man, who had lived among them for five months. They knew he was a good Alsatian. On the present occasion they guessed that Jean had taken refuge there with the Bastians' tenant farmer because he disapproved the ambition to which his father was sacrificing so many things and so many persons. He had come in, under the pretext of resting and taking shelter from the sun; in reality because the triumphant presence of Lucienne was torture to him. And yet he knew nothing of the conversation which his uncle had had in the morning with M. Bastian. The thought of Odile returned to his unhappy mind and he drove it out that he might remain master of himself, for soon he would require all his powers of judgment and all his strength. At other moments he gazed vaguely at the hop-pickers and tried to interest himself in their work and their talk; often he thought he heard the sound of a carriage, and half rising, he remembered the promise he had made, to be at home when M. von Kassewitz arrived.

Juliette's voice rose in decidedly spirited tones.

"What does this Prefect of Strasburg want to come to Alsheim for? We get on so well without the Germans."

"They have sworn to make themselves hated," quickly added the farmer's elder son, who was giving out the hops to the women who had no more. "It seems that they are prohibiting the speaking of French as much as they possibly can."

"A proof – my cousin, François Joseph Steiger," said little Reine, the tailor's daughter. "A gendarme said he had heard him shout 'Vive la France!' in the inn. Those were, I believe, the only French words my cousin knew. That was enough – my cousin got two months in prison."

"Your cousin called out more! But at Alberschweiler they have forbidden a singing society to execute anything in the French tongue."

"And the French conjurer who came the other day to Strasburg? Do you know? It was in the newspaper. They let him pay the tax, hire the hall, print his advertisements, and then they said: 'You will do it in German, my good friend – or you will go!'"

"What happened to M. Haas, the house-painter, is much worse."

"What then?"

"He knew that he could not paint an inscription in French on a shop any more. M. Haas would never – I know it – have painted a stroke of a brush in contravention of the law. But he thought he could at least put a coat of varnish on the sign he was painting, where he had painted a long time ago the word 'Chemiserie.' They made him appear and threatened to take proceedings against him, because he was preserving the inscription with his varnish. Why, that was last October!"

"Oh, oh, would not M. Hamm be pleased if the rain, the wind, and the thunder threw down the sign of the inn here, which is called: 'Le Pigeon blanc' as happened to 'La Cigogne.'"

It was old Josephine the bilberry-picker who said to the farmer's wife, who at this moment appeared on the threshold of her house:

"Sad Alsace! How gay she was when we were young! Wasn't she, Madame Ramspacher?"

"Yes. Now – for nothing – evictions, lawsuits, and prison! The police everywhere."

"You had better keep silence!" said Ramspacher in a reproachful tone.

The younger son Francis took his mother's side.

"There are no traitors here. And then, how can one keep silence? They are too hard. That is why so many young men emigrate!"

From his corner in the shadow, Jean looked at these young girls who were listening – with flashing eyes, some motionless and erect, others continuing to bend and rise over their work of stripping the hop-plants.

"Work then – instead of so much chattering!" said the master's voice.

"One hundred and seventy unsubdued, and condemned by the tribunal at Saverne, in a single day, last January," said Juliette with a laugh that shook her hair. "One hundred and seventy!"

Francis, the great careless boy, who was close by Jean Oberlé at this moment, turned a basketful of hops on the shelf, and bending towards him said:

"It is at Grand Fontaine that one can easily get over the frontier," he said in low tones. "The best crossing, Monsieur Oberlé, is between Grande Fontaine and Les Minières. The frontier is opposite, like a spur. That is the nearest part, but one has to take care of the Forest Guard and the Custom officials. Often they stop people to ask where they are going."

Jean trembled. What did that mean? He began:

"Why do you speak to…?"

But the young peasant had turned away, and was going on with his work. Doubtless he had spoken for himself. He had trusted his plan to his melancholy and silent countryman, whom he would amuse, astonish, or sympathise with.

But Jean had been touched by this confidence.

A clear voice called out:

"There is the carriage coming into the town. It is going to pass M. Bastian's avenue!"

All the hop-pickers raised their heads. Little Franzele was standing up near the pillar which kept the door open – leaning the top of her body over the wall, her curly hair blown by the wind. She was looking to the right, whence came the sound of wheels. In the yard the women had stopped working. She murmured: