The Sortie

 

by Brett Rutherford

Translated from Victor Hugo l’Annee Terrible, “January 1871”

VIII

The cold dawn pales, vaguely appearing.
A crowd marches in line down the street;
I follow, carried along by the great living noise
that human footsteps make, moving forward together.
These are citizens preparing to go to battle.

Pure soldiers! Among the ranks, smaller in size,
but equal in heart, the child keeps up
tugged by the hand of his father;
the woman alongside shoulders her husband's rifle.
It is the tradition of the women of Gaul
to help the man put on their armor,
and to be on hand, ready to taunt a Caesar
or brave an Attila and his Huns.
The child exults and laughs,
and the clear-eyed woman does not cry.
Paris suffered this infamous war;
and Parisians agree on this,
that only through shame is a people
thrown into the shade of night,
that today they will make their ancestors happy,
no matter what happens,
and that Paris will die so that France lives.

We will guard honor, we shall offer it rest.
All are walking in the same direction.
Their eyes are indignant, their foreheads
pale; one reads on these faces:
     Faith, Courage, Famine.

And the troop traverses the crossroads,
heads held high; they raise their flag,
some already tattered to holy rags.
The battalion is always an order of families,
who only part ways at the final barriers.
These tender men, these warrior women sing
of the human race’s glory and triumph.
Paris defends all rights for everyone, after all.

An ambulance passes; we shudder; and we think
of those kings whose whim causes rivers of blood
to flow onto the pavement as the stretchers pass.

The time of the sortie is approaching;
masses of drums beat the march
from deep in the old suburbs.
Everyone hastens — Woe to the besiegers!
They do not fear traps, because the traps
that the valiant encounter,
only make the defeated proud,
and bring shame to the victor
who will not show his face openly.
They arrive at the walls, they join the army
already there awaiting them.

We hear a rumble of voices saying:
Farewell! Farewell! — Our rifles, women!
And the broken-hearted women,
    feigning serenity
    with unruffled eyes and brows,
after a kiss return their rifles to them.