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Read Ebook: The Frontier by Leblanc Maurice Teixeira De Mattos Alexander Translator
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Ebook has 2359 lines and 60250 words, and 48 pages
PART I
I A HEAD BETWEEN THE BUSHES 3
II THE GIRL WITH THE BARE ARMS 17
V THE SHEET OF NOTE-PAPER 58
VI THE PLASTER STATUE 66
PART II
I THE TWO WOMEN 107
II PHILIPPE TELLS A LIE 118
V THE THUNDERCLAP 164
VI THE BUTTE-AUX-LOUPS 177
I THE ARMED VIGIL 233
II THEY WHO GO TO THEIR DEATH 249
THE FRONTIER
PART I
A HEAD BETWEEN THE BUSHES
"They've done it!"
"What?"
"The German frontier-post ... at the circus of the Butte-aux-Loups."
"What about it?"
"Knocked down."
"Nonsense!"
"See for yourself."
Old Morestal stepped aside. His wife came out of the drawing-room and went and stood by the telescope, on its tripod, at the end of the terrace.
"I can see nothing," she said, presently.
"Don't you see a tree standing out above the others, with lighter foliage?"
"Yes."
"And, to the right of that tree, a little lower down, an empty space surrounded by fir-trees?"
"Yes."
"That's the circus of the Butte-aux-Loups and it marks the frontier at that spot."
"Ah, I've got it!... There it is!... You mean on the ground, don't you? Lying flat on the grass, exactly as if it had been rooted up by last night's storm...."
"What are you talking about? It has been fairly felled with an axe: you can see the gash from here."
"So I can ... so I can...."
She stood up and shook her head:
"That makes the third time this year.... It will mean more unpleasantness."
"Fiddle-de-dee!" he exclaimed. "All they've got to do is to put up a solid post, instead of their old bit of wood." And he added, in a tone of pride, "The French post, two yards off, doesn't budge, you know!"
"Well, of course not! It's made of cast-iron and cemented into the stone."
"Let them do as much then! It's not money they're wanting ... when you think of the five thousand millions they robbed us of!... No, but, I say ... three of them in eight months!... How will the people take it, on the other side of the Vosges?"
He could not hide the sort of gay and sarcastic feeling of content that filled his whole being and he walked up and down the terrace, stamping his feet as hard as he could on the ground.
But, suddenly going to his wife, he seized her by the arm and said, in a hollow voice:
"Would you like to know what I really think?"
"Yes."
"Well, all this will lead to trouble."
"No," said the old lady, quietly.
"How do you mean, no?"
"We've been married five-and-thirty years; and, for five-and-thirty years, you've told me, week after week, that we shall have trouble. So, you see...."
She turned away from him and went back to the drawing-room again, where she began to dust the furniture with a feather-broom.
He shrugged his shoulders, as he followed her indoors:
"Oh, yes, you're the placid mother, of course! Nothing excites you. As long as your cupboards are tidy, your linen all complete and your jams potted, you don't care!... Still, you ought not to forget that they killed your poor father."
"I don't forget it ... only, what's the good? It's more than forty years ago...."
"It was yesterday," he said, sinking his voice, "yesterday, no longer ago than yesterday...."
"Ah, there's the postman!" she said, hurrying to change the conversation.
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