And if he should meet the French army? The advance guard would take him for a spy, for some brave and hardy rogue of a trooper sent out alone to reconnoitre, and would shoot him down at once. And he could already hear the irregular reports of the guns of soldiers concealed in the woods, while he, standing in the middle of a field, would be riddled with bullets like a strainer, and he could feel them entering his flesh. He sat down again in despair. His situation appeared to be hopeless.
Night had now come, night still and dark. He no longer moved and started at every unknown and slight noise which passed in the shadows. A rabbit, bobbing up and down on the edge of his burrow, almost put Walter Schnaffs to flight. The cries of the screech-owl tore his soul, rending it with sudden fear, as painful as wounds. He stared with his big eyes, trying to penetrate the shadows; and he imagined every moment that he heard someone walking near him.
After interminable hours and the anguish of the damned, he perceived through his ceiling of branches that the sky was becoming bright. Then immense relief came to him; his members relaxed in sudden repose; his heart was easy; his eyes closed. He fell asleep.
When he awoke, the sun seemed to him to be nearly in the middle of the sky; it should, therefore, be midday. No noise troubled the dull peace of the fields; and Walter Schnaffs perceived that he was seized with acute hunger. He yawned, his mouth watering at the thought of sausage, the good military sausage, and he got a pain in his stomach.
He stood up, took some steps, felt that his legs were feeble, and sat down again to think. For three or four hours more he argued for and against, changing his mind every moment, unhappy, drawn this way and that by the most contradictory arguments.
One idea seemed to him logical and practical: that was to watch until some villager passed, alone, without arms or dangerous tools, to run up to him and deliver himself into his hands, making him understand that he was giving himself up. Then he removed his helmet, the point of which might betray him, and put his head out of his hole with infinite precautions.
No single human being was in sight. Down there, to the right, a little village sent to the sky the smoke from its roofs, the smoke from its kitchens! To the left, he perceived at the end of an avenue of trees, a great castle flanked with turrets. He waited until evening, suffering frightfully, seeing nothing but flocks of crows, and hearing nothing but the dull rumbling of his stomach.
Again the night fell upon him. He stretched himself out at the bottom of his retreat and fell into a feverish sleep, haunted by nightmares, the sleep of a famished man. The dawn again rose upon him. He again set himself to watch, but the countryside was as empty as the day before. And a new fear entered the mind of Walter Schnaffs—the fear of dying of hunger. He saw himself stretched at the bottom of that hole, on his back, his eyes closed. Then some animals, small animals of every sort, would come and begin to eat his dead body, attacking him everywhere simultaneously, slipping in under his garments to bite his cold flesh. And a great raven would pick his eyes out with its sharp beak.
Then he became mad, imagining that he was swooning from weakness and could no longer walk. And he prepared to start toward the village, resolved to dare all, to defy all; but he perceived three peasants going to the fields with their forks on their shoulders, and he plunged back into his hiding-place.
When evening darkened the plain again, he got out slowly from the ditch, and started on the way, crouching, fearful, his heart beating, towards the far-off castle, preferring to enter that rather than the village, which seemed to him as dangerous as a den of tigers.
The lower windows were brilliantly lighted, one of them being open; and a strong odour of food, cooked food, came from it, entering Walter Schnaffs’ nostrils and penetrating to the depths of his body, causing his body to become tense and his breath to come in gasps. It drew him irresistibly, inspiring his heart with desperate audacity. And suddenly, without thinking, he appeared at the window with his helmet on his head.
Eight servants were dining around a big table. Suddenly a maid sat still with her mouth open, letting her glass fall, her eyes staring. Then, every glance followed hers.
They perceived the enemy! My God! The Prussians are attacking the castle!
At first this was a single cry, made up of eight cries in eight different tones, a cry of horrible fear, then there was a tumultuous moving, a hustling, a melee, a general flight for the farthest door. Chairs fell, men knocked over the women to get ahead of them. In two seconds the room was empty, abandoned, with a table covered with eatables in front of Walter Schnaffs, who stood still in amazement outside the window.
After some moments of hesitation, he jumped over the windowsill, and advanced towards the plates. His keen hunger made him tremble like one in a fever; but terror still held him and paralyzed him. He listened. The whole house seemed to tremble; doors opened and shut, and rapid steps sounded on the floor above. The uneasy Prussian strained his ears to catch these confused noises; then he heard heavy sounds as if bodies were falling in the soft earth at the foot of the walls, human bodies jumping from the first story.
Then all movement, all agitation ceased, and the great castle became silent as a tomb.
Walter Schnaffs seated himself before a plate still intact, and began to eat.
