No Quarter

The broad sunlight threw its burning rays on the fields, and under this
shower of flame life burst forth in glowing vegetation from the earth.
As far as the eye could see, the soil was green; and the sky was blue to
the verge of the horizon. The Norman farms scattered through the plain
seemed at a distance like little woods inclosed each in a circle of thin
beech-trees. Coming closer, on opening the worm-eaten stile, one fancied
that he saw a giant garden, for all the old apple-trees, as knotted as
the peasants, were in blossom. The weather-beaten black trunks, crooked,
twisted, ranged along the inclosure, displayed beneath the sky their
glittering domes, rosy and white. The sweet perfume of their blossoms
mingled with the heavy odors of the open stables and with the fumes of
the steaming dunghill, covered with hens and their chickens. It was
midday. The family sat at dinner in the shadow of the pear-tree planted
before the door--the father, the mother, the four children, the two
maidservants, and the three farm laborers. They scarcely uttered a word.
Their fare consisted of soup and of a stew composed of potatoes mashed
up in lard.

From time to time one of the maidservants rose up, and went to the
cellar to fetch a pitcher of cider.

The husband, a big fellow of about forty, stared at a vine-tree, quite
exposed to view, which stood close to the farmhouse, twining like a
serpent under the shutters the entire length of the wall.

He said, after a long silence:

"The father's vine-tree is blossoming early this year. Perhaps it will
bear good fruit."

The peasant's wife also turned round, and gazed at the tree without
speaking.

This vine-tree was planted exactly in the place where the father of the
peasant had been shot.

It was during the war of 1870. The Prussians were in occupation of the
entire country. General Faidherbe, with the Army of the North, was at
their head.

Now the Prussian staff had taken up its quarters in this farmhouse. The
old peasant who owned it, Père Milon, received them, and gave them the
best treatment he could.

For a whole month the German vanguard remained on the lookout in the
village. The French were posted ten leagues away without moving, and
yet, each night, some of the uhlans disappeared.

All the isolated scouts, those who were sent out on patrol, whenever
they started in groups of two or three, never came back.

They were picked up dead in the morning in a field, near a farmyard, in
a ditch. Their horses even were found lying on the roads with their
throats cut by a saber stroke. These murders seemed to have been
accomplished by the same men, who could not be discovered.

The country was