The Children of Alsace (Les Oberlés)

"Because, my boy, at your age especially there are certain journeys which are crucial tests. But first, where do you come from, exactly?"

"From Berlin, where I passed my Referendar examination."

The uncle laughed a jerky laugh, which he repressed quickly, and which was lost in his grey beard.

"Let us call that the Licence en droit examination – if you kindly will."

"Most willingly, uncle."

"Then give me a fuller explanation and one more up-to-date, for you must have had your diploma in your pocket more than a year. What have you done with your time?"

"It's very simple. The year before last I passed my examination, as you know, in Berlin, so finishing my law studies. Last year I worked with a lawyer till August. Then I travelled through Bohemia, Hungary, Croatia, and the Caucasus – with father's permission. I took six months over it. I returned to Berlin to get my student's luggage and to pay some farewell visits – and here I am."

"Well, and your father? In my haste to see you again I have not asked after him. Is he well?"

"He is not here."

"What! Was he obliged to be absent on the very evening of your return?"

Jean answered with a little bitterness:

"He was obliged to be present at a great dinner at the Councillor von Boscher's. He has taken my sister. It is a very grand reception, it seems."

There was a short silence. The two men smiled no longer. They felt between them – quite near – the supreme question, imposing itself upon them after a three minutes' conversation, that exasperating and fatal question which cannot be avoided, which unites and divides, which lurks beneath all social intercourse, honours, mortifications, and institutions, the question which has kept Europe under arms for thirty years.

"I dined alone," said Jean, "that is to say, with my grandfather."

"Not much of a companion, poor man. Is he not always so depressed, and so very infirm?"

"But his mind is very much alive, I assure you!"

There was a second silence, after which M. Ulrich asked, hesitatingly:

"And my sister? Your mother? Is she with them?"

The young man nodded an affirmative.

The elder man's grief was so intense that he turned away his eyes so that Jean might not see all the suffering they expressed. He raised them by chance to a water-colour by that master of decorative art, Spindler, hanging on the wall, and which represented three beautiful Alsatian girls amusing themselves swinging. Quickly he looked his nephew straight in the face, and, his voice broken with emotion, said:

"And you? You, too, could have dined with the Councillor von Boscher, considering how intimate you are with these Germans. Did you not wish to follow your parents?"

"No."

The word was said decidedly, simply. But M. Ulrich had not got the information he sought. Yes, Jean Oberlé had certainly become a man. He refused to blame his family, to voice any opinion which would be an accusation of the others. His uncle continued with the same ironical accent:

"Nevertheless, my nephew, all the winter through your Berlin successes were dinned into my ears. They did not spare me. I knew you were dancing with our fair enemies. I knew their names."

"Oh, I beg you," said Jean seriously, "do not let us joke about these questions – like people who dare not face them and give their opinion. I have had a different education from yours, it is true, uncle – a German education. But that does not diminish my love for this country; on the contrary…"

M. Ulrich stretched his hand across the table and pressed that of Jean.

"So much the better," he said.

"Did you doubt it?"

"I did not doubt it, my child – I did not know. I see so many things that pain me – and so many convictions surrendered."

"The proof that I love our Alsace is shown by my intention to live in Alsheim."

"What!" said M. Ulrich, stupefied. "You give up the idea of entering the German Administration – as your father desires you should do? It is grave – a serious thing, my friend, to rob him of his ambition. You were the subject of the future. Does he know?"

"He suspects; but we have not yet had any explanations on the matter. I have not had time since my return."

"And what will you do?"

The youthful smile reappeared on the lips of Jean Oberlé.

"I shall cut wood, as he does, as my grandfather Phillipe does; I shall settle among you here. When I travelled in Germany and in Austria, after my examination, it was chiefly that I might study the forests, the saw-mills, and the factories like our own. You are weeping?"

"Not quite."

M. Ulrich was not weeping, but he was obliged to dry his wet eyelids with the tip of his finger.

"It would be for joy, in any case, my dear boy. Oh, for a true and great joy. To see you faithful to what I love best in the world. To keep you with us – to see you determined not to accept appointments and honours from those who have violated your country… Yes, it was the dream I dared no longer dream… Only, quite frankly, I cannot understand it. I am surprised. Why are you not like your father, or like Lucienne, who have so openly rallied to the enemy? You studied law in Munich, in Bonn, in Heidelberg, in Berlin; you have just passed four years in Germany, without speaking of your college years. How did you avoid becoming German?"

"I am less so than you."

"That is hardly possible."

"Less than you, because I know them better. I have judged them by comparison. Well, they are our inferiors."

"Well, I am pleased. We hear nothing but the opposite of this. In France, above all, the praise of the conquerors of 1870 continues without intermission."

The young man, touched by M. Ulrich's emotion, leaned no longer on the sofa, but bending forwards, his face lit up by the lamp, which made his green eyes appear more brilliant, said:

"Do not mistake me, Uncle Ulrich. I do not hate the Germans, and in that I differ from you. I even admire them, for in some things they are admirable. Among them I have friends I esteem greatly. I shall have others. I belong to a generation which has not seen what you have seen, and which has lived differently – I have not been conquered!"

"Happily, not!"

"Only the more I know them, the more I feel myself different from them; I feel I am of another race, with another category of ideals into which they do not enter, which I find superior, and which, without knowing why, I call 'France.'"

"Bravo, Jean, bravo!"

The old dragoon officer bent forward – he also was quite pale – and the two men were only separated by the width of the table.

"What I call France, uncle, what I have in my heart, like a dream, is a country where there is a greater facility for thought."

"Yes – "