The Fires of Autumn by Irène Némirovsky Read Free Book Online

a medal for valour … we’ll celebrate it here. Everyone will drink a toast to me. Then
I’ll
be able to say, just like Détang: “I held the enemy back with my sharp bayonet. Strike! I pinned him to a wall like a butterfly.” Yes, but what if it’s the enemy who … Humph! I’m not going to think about that. One thing at a time. For now, I’m happy,’ he told himself, and had some more to drink. He settled back in his chair like an old veteran, legs apart and hands in his pockets. It wasn’t very polite, but too bad! It was the audacity of the hero: theyjust had to put up with it. Détang offered him a cigar; he lit it while looking furtively at his mother. Would she finally understand that he was now a man, that you don’t forbid a man from having a cigar, especially the night before he’s heading for battle? But no! She would not let it go: she clasped her hands together and spoke to him as if he were a child she’d caught playing with matches:
    ‘Oh, Bernard!’
    ‘What do you mean, oh, Bernard!’ he thought. ‘These women are unbelievable, honestly!’
    ‘Won’t that be bad for you, my dear?’
    ‘Of course not, Mama, not at all,’ he replied with affectionate indulgence. He even added: ‘I’m used to it, you know,’ even though it was the first cigar he’d ever had in his life. He took a long puff of it with a serious expression on his face.
    Thérèse had no white dress, no bouquet of lilies, no crown of orange blossom. She was a war bride so wore a modest grey suit and a black hat.
    ‘Twenty-four hours,’ thought Martial, ‘twenty-four hours and six have already gone by. One day and one night! That’s all? My God, is that all? And what if I don’t come back? To think that we might have been born fifty years ago … or twenty-five years from now, when there would be no war … Ah, we haven’t been lucky! Détang has assured me that I could have been sent to the rear if I’d used my connections. But that would not have been honest. There are so few men in the first-aid post at the front that students and veterans from the Territorial Army are given the most terrifying responsibilities. It’s true that I could also be useful elsewhere and … No! No! That’s cheating! You don’t compromise, you don’t make a deal when it comes to your duty. You don’t go into things half-heartedly. You sacrifice everything, your life, your work, everything you love.’
    He slowly rubbed his closed eyes, picturing once more thecellar, half under water, where he tended the wounded. That was home to him. For a long time he would know no other. He smiled as he recalled the 14th July, the day when he stood on the staircase at the Rue Monge and planned his future. It was sad and funny to think about that …‘Ah,’ he sighed, ‘this filthy war.’
    Adolphe Brun looked at him, outraged. Yes, he had forgotten the rules of the game. Here, among civilians, it was not acceptable to speak ill of the war. It had to be described as wonderful, savage, but inspiring. My God, those things were true, of course. But as a doctor, he mostly saw the other face of war, a face with a deadly grimace. How did young Bernard Jacquelain see it? Eighteen years old with a broad chest, strong muscles, sharp reflexes, piercing eyes … Perfect prey for the war! He felt sorry for him, but his pity was the cold, clear-eyed pity of a doctor. During an operation, the arms and legs are sacrificed to save the rest of the body; men are snatched up and thrown into the fire, him along with many others, so that the country may survive … He accepted this. It made him sad, but he accepted it. ‘You can’t cheat,’ he said to himself once more.
    All the while, he was growing more and more desperately impatient; he looked at the time and wondered when he could politely leave with his wife. A small gold clock sat opposite him on the mantelpiece; it ticked away very quickly, with the sound of a rodent gnawing away at a piece of