No Quarter Page #2

"No Quarter" (original title: "Sans Quarter") is a short story by the renowned French writer Guy de Maupassant, known for his keen observations of human nature and society. The narrative unfolds during the Franco-Prussian War, delving into the grim realities of conflict and the moral complexities that arise in the face of survival. Through vivid characterizations and poignant imagery, Maupassant explores themes of loyalty, betrayal, and the psychological toll of war, capturing the stark contrasts between honor and cowardice in tumultuous times. As with many of his works, "No Quarter" reflects Maupassant's masterful storytelling and his deep understanding of the human condition.

								


Once he had accomplished this murder, the peasant lived with only one
thought: "To kill the Prussians!" He hated them with the sly and
ferocious hatred of a countryman who was at the same time covetous and
patriotic. He had got an idea into his head, as he put it. He waited for
a few days.

He was allowed to go and come freely, to go out and return just as he
pleased, as long as he displayed humility, submissiveness, and
complaisance towards the conquerors.

Now, every evening he saw the cavalrymen bearing dispatches leaving the
farmhouse; and he went out one night after discovering the name of the
village to which they were going, and after picking up by associating
with the soldiers the few words of German he needed.

He made his way through his farm-yard slipped into the wood, reached the
bake-house, penetrated to the end of the long passage, and having found
the clothes of the soldier which he had hidden there, he put them on.
Then, he went prowling about the fields, creeping along, keeping to the
slopes so as to avoid observation, listening to the least sounds,
restless as a poacher.

When he believed the time had arrived he took up his position at the
roadside, and hid himself in a clump of brushwood. He still waited. At
length, near midnight, he heard the galloping of a horse's hoofs on the
hard soil of the road. The old man put his ear to the ground to make
sure that only one cavalryman was approaching; then he got ready.

The Uhlan came on at a very quick pace, carrying some dispatches. He
rode forward with watchful eyes and strained ears. As soon as he was no
more than ten paces away, Pere Milon dragged himself across the road,
groaning: "Hilfe! Hilfe!" ("Help! help!")

The cavalryman drew up, recognized a German soldier dismounted, believed
that he was wounded, leaped down from his horse, drew near the prostrate
man, never suspecting anything, and, as he stooped over the stranger, he
received in the middle of the stomach the long curved blade of the
saber. He sank down without any death throes, merely quivering with a
few last shudders.

Then, the Norman radiant with the mute joy of an old peasant, rose up,
and merely to please himself, cut the dead soldier's throat. After that,
he dragged the corpse to the dike and threw it in.

The horse was quietly waiting for its rider. Pere Milon got on the
saddle, and started across the plain at the gallop.

At the end of an hour, he perceived two more Uhlans approaching the
staff-quarters side by side. He rode straight towards them, crying,
"Hilfe! hilfe!" The Prussians let him come on, recognizing the uniform
without any distrust.

And like a cannon-ball, the old man shot between the two, bringing both
of them to the ground with his saber and a revolver. The next thing he
did was to cut the throats of the horses--the German horses! Then,
softly he re-entered the bake-house, and hid the horse he had ridden
himself in the dark passage. There he took off the uniform, put on once
more his own old clothes, and going to his bed, slept till morning.

For four days he did not stir out, awaiting the close of the open
inquiry as to the cause of the soldiers' deaths; but, on the fifth day,
he started out again, and by a similar stratagem killed two more
soldiers.

Thenceforth he never stopped. Each night he wandered about, prowled
through the country at random, cutting down some Prussians, sometimes
here, sometimes there, galloping through the deserted fields under the
moonlight, a lost Uhlan, a hunter of men. Then when he had finished his
task, leaving behind the corpses lying along the roads, the old horseman
went to the bake-house, where he concealed both the animal and the
uniform. About midday he calmly returned to the spot to give the horse a
feed of oats and some water, and he took every care of the animal,
exacting therefore the hardest work.

But, the night before his arrest, one of the soldiers he attacked put
himself on his guard, and cut the old peasant's face with a slash of a
saber.

He had, however, killed both of them. He had even managed to go back and
hide his horse and put on his everyday garb, but, when he reached the
stable, he was overcome by weakness, and was not able to make his way
into the house.

He had been found lying on the straw, his face covered with blood.

When he had finished his story, he suddenly lifted his head, and glanced
proudly at the Prussian officers.

The Colonel, tugging at his moustache, asked:

"Have you anything more to say?"

"No, nothing more; we are quits. I killed sixteen, not one more, not one
less."

"You know you have to die?"

"I ask for no quarter!"

"Have you been a soldier?"

"Yes, I served at one time. And 'tis you killed my father, who was a
soldier of the first Emperor, not to speak of my youngest son, Francois,
whom you killed last month near Exreux. I owed this to you, and I've
paid you back. 'Tis tit for tat!"

The officers stared at one another.

The old man went on:

"Eight for my father, eight for my son--that pays it off! I sought for
no quarrel with you. I don't know you! I only know where you came from.
You came to my house here, and ordered me about as if the house was
yours. I have had my revenge, and I'm glad of it!"

And stiffening up his old frame, he folded his arms in the attitude of a
humble hero.

The Prussians held a long conference. A captain, who had also lost a son
the month before, defended the brave old scoundrel.

Then the Colonel rose up, and, advancing towards Pere Milon, he said,
lowering his voice:

"Listen, old man! There is perhaps one way of saving your life--it is--"

But the old peasant was not listening to him, and fixing his eyes
directly on the German officer, while the wind made the scanty hair move
to and fro on his skull, he made a frightful grimace, which shriveled up
his pinched countenance scarred by the saber-stroke, and, puffing out
his chest, he spat, with all his strength, right into the Prussian's
face.

The Colonel, stupefied, raised his hand, and for the second time the
peasant spat in his face.

All the officers sprang to their feet and yelled out orders at the same
time.

In less than a minute, the old man, still as impassive as ever, was
stuck up against the wall, and shot while he cast a smile at Jean, his
eldest son, and then at his daughter-in-law and the two children, who
were staring with terror at the scene.
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