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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Home Fires in France + +Author: Dorothy Canfield + +Release Date: March 20, 2011 [EBook #35616] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOME FIRES IN FRANCE *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + + + + +<h1>HOME FIRES IN FRANCE</h1> + +<h2>By DOROTHY CANFIELD</h2> + +<h3>Author of "The Bent Twig," "The Squirrel-Cage," "Hillsboro People," etc.</h3> + + +<h3>NEW YORK<br /> +HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY<br /> +1918</h3> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Copyright</span>, 1918,<br /> +BY HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY</h3> + +<h3>PRINTED IN THE U. S. A.</h3> + +<h3>THE QUINN & BODEN CO. PRESS<br /> +RAHWAY, N. J.</h3> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h3>DEDICATED<br /> +TO<br /> +GENERAL PERSHING</h3> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="PUBLISHERS_NOTE" id="PUBLISHERS_NOTE"></a>PUBLISHER'S NOTE</h2> + + +<p>This book is fiction written in France out of a life-long familiarity +with the French and two years' intense experience in war work in France. +It is a true setting-forth of personalities and experiences, French and +American, under the influence of war. It tells what the war has done to +the French people at home. In a recent letter, the author said, "What I +write is about such very well-known conditions to us that it is hard to +remember it may be fresh to you, but it is so far short of the actual +conditions that it seems pretty pale, after all."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<!-- Autogenerated TOC. Modify or delete as required. --> +<p> +<a href="#PUBLISHERS_NOTE">PUBLISHER'S NOTE</a><br /> +<a href="#NOTES_FROM_A_FRENCH_VILLAGE_IN_THE_WAR_ZONE">NOTES FROM A FRENCH VILLAGE IN THE WAR ZONE</a><br /> +<a href="#THE_PERMISSIONAIRE">THE PERMISSIONAIRE</a><br /> +<a href="#VIGNETTES_FROM_LIFE_AT_THE_REAR">VIGNETTES FROM LIFE AT THE REAR</a><br /> +<a href="#A_FAIR_EXCHANGE">A FAIR EXCHANGE</a><br /> +<a href="#THE_REFUGEE">THE REFUGEE</a><br /> +<a href="#A_LITTLE_KANSAS_LEAVEN">A LITTLE KANSAS LEAVEN</a><br /> +<a href="#EYES_FOR_THE_BLIND">EYES FOR THE BLIND</a><br /> +<a href="#THE_FIRST_TIME_AFTER">THE FIRST TIME AFTER</a><br /> +<a href="#HATS">HATS</a><br /> +<a href="#A_HONEYMOON_VIVE_LAMERIQUE">A HONEYMOON ... VIVE L'AMERIQUE!</a><br /> +<a href="#LA_PHARMACIENNE">LA PHARMACIENNE</a><br /><br /> +<a href="#BY_DOROTHY_CANFIELD">BY DOROTHY CANFIELD</a><br /> +<a href="#BY_SIMEON_STRUNSKY">BY SIMEON STRUNSKY</a><br /> +<a href="#BY_MARGARET_WIDDEMER">BY MARGARET WIDDEMER</a><br /> +<a href="#By_ROMAIN_ROLLAND">By ROMAIN ROLLAND</a><br /> +</p> +<!-- End Autogenerated TOC. --> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>HOME FIRES IN FRANCE</h2> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="NOTES_FROM_A_FRENCH_VILLAGE_IN_THE_WAR_ZONE" id="NOTES_FROM_A_FRENCH_VILLAGE_IN_THE_WAR_ZONE"></a>NOTES FROM A FRENCH VILLAGE IN THE WAR ZONE</h2> + + +<p>Perhaps the first thing which brought our boys to a halt, and a long, +long look around them, was the age of the place. Apparently it has—the +statement is hardly exaggerated—always been there. As a matter of +historical fact it has been there for more than a thousand years. On +hearing that, the American boys always gasped. They were used to the +conception of the great age of "historical" spots, by which they meant +cities in which great events have occurred—Paris, Rome, +Stratford-on-Avon, Granada. But that an inconsiderable settlement of a +thousand inhabitants, where nothing in particular ever happened beyond +the birth, life, and death of its people, should have kept its identity +through a thousand years gave them, so they said, "a queer feeling." As +they stood in the quiet gray street, looking up and down, and taking in +the significance of the fact, one could almost visibly see their minds +turning away from the text-book idea of the Past as an unreal, sparsely +settled period with violent historical characters in doublet and ruff or +chain mail thrusting broadswords into one another or signing treaties +which condemned all succeeding college students to a new feat of memory; +you could almost see their brilliant, shadowless, New World youth +deepened and sobered by a momentary perception of the Past as a very +long and startlingly real phenomenon, full, scaringly full of real +people, entirely like ourselves, going about the business of getting +born, being married and dying, with as little conscious regard as we for +historical movements and tendencies. They were never done marveling that +the sun should have fallen across Crouy streets at the same angle before +Columbus discovered America as to-day; that at the time of the French +Revolution just as now, the big boys and sturdy men of Crouy should have +left the same fields which now lie golden in the sun and have gone out +to repel the invader; that people looked up from drawing water at the +same fountain which now sparkles under the sycamore trees and saw +Catherine de Medici pass on her way north as now they see the gray +American Ambulance rattle by.... "And I bet it was over these same +cussed hard-heads!" cried the boy from Ohio, trying vainly to ease his +car over the knobby paving-stones.</p> + +<p>"No, oh no," answered the town notary reasonably. "The streets of Crouy +were paved in comparatively recent times, not earlier than 1620."</p> + +<p>"Oh, the Pilgrim Fathers!" cried the boy from Connecticut.</p> + +<p>"And nothing ever happened here all that time?" queried the boy from +California incredulously.</p> + +<p>"Nothing," said the notary, "except a great deal of human life."</p> + +<p>"Gee! what a lot o' that!" murmured the thoughtful boy from Virginia, +his eyes widening imaginatively.</p> + +<p>After the fact that it had been there so long, they were astonished by +the fact that it was there at all, existing, as far as they could see, +with no visible means of support beyond a casual sawmill or two. "How do +all these people earn their living?" they always asked, putting the +question in the same breath with the other inevitable one: "<i>Where</i> do +the people live who care for all this splendid farming country? We see +them working in the fields, these superb wheat-fields, or harvesting the +oats, but you can drive your car for mile after mile and never see a +human habitation. We thought Europe was a thickly populated place!"</p> + +<p>Of course you know the obvious answer. The people who till the fields +all live in the villages. If you inhabit such a settlement you hear +every morning, very, very early, the slow, heavy tread of the big +farm-horses and the rumble of the huge two-wheeled carts going out to +work, and one of the picturesque sights of the sunset hour is the +procession of the powerful Percherons, their drivers sitting sideways on +their broad backs, plodding into the village, both horses and farmers +with an inimitable air of leisurely philosophy; of having done a good +day's work and letting it go at that; of attempting no last nervous +whack at the accumulated pile of things to be done which always lies +before every one; with an unembittered acceptance of the facts that +there are but twenty-four hours in every day and that it is good to +spend part of them eating savory hot soup with one's family. According +to temperament, this appearance, only possible, apparently, when you +have lived a thousand years in the same place, enormously reposes or +enormously exasperates the American observer.</p> + +<p>You do not see the cows going out to pasture, or coming back at night +through the village streets, because those farmers who have a dairy live +on the outskirts of the town, with their big square courtyards adjacent +to the fields. The biggest farmhouse of this sort in Crouy is lodged in +the remnants of the medieval castle of the old seigneurs (symbol of +modern France!) where at night the cows ramble in peaceably through the +old gate where once the portcullis hung, and stand chewing their cud +about the great courtyards whence marauding knights in armor once +clattered out to rob.</p> + +<p>Of course this arrangement whereby country folk all live in villages +turns inside out and upside down most of those conditions which seem to +us inevitable accompaniments of country life; for instance, the +isolation and loneliness of the women and children. There is no +isolation possible here, when, to shake hands with the woman of the next +farm, you have only to lean out of your front window and have her lean +out of hers, when your children go to get water from the fountain along +with all the other children of the region, when you are less than five +minutes' walk from church and the grocery-store, when your children can +wait till the school-bell is ringing before snatching up their books to +go to school.</p> + +<p>You do not have to wait for your mail till some one can go to town or +till the R. F. D. man brings it around six hours after it has arrived in +town. The village mail-carrier brings it to you directly it arrives, +just as though you lived in a city. You do not have to wait for your +community news till it filters slowly to your remote door by the +inaccurate medium of the irresponsible grocery-boy. The moment anything +of common interest happens, the town crier walks up your street. At the +sound of his announcing drum or bell you drop your work, stick your head +out of your door, and hear at once, hot off the griddle, as soon as any +one, that there will be an auction of cows at the Brissons on Saturday +next, that poor sick old Madame Mantier has at last passed away, or that +school reopens a week from Monday and all children must be ready to go. +And if one of the children breaks his arm, or if a horse has the colic, +or your chimney gets on fire, you do not suffer the anguished isolation +of American country life. The whole town swarms in to help you, in a +twinkling of an eye. In fact, for my personal taste, I must confess that +the whole town seemed only too ready to swarm in, on any friendly +pretext at all. But then, I have back of me many generations of +solitary-minded farmer ancestors, living sternly and grimly to +themselves, and not a thousand years of really sociable community life.</p> + +<p>"But if they are country-people who live in these dry-looking villages," +asked our American Ambulance boys, "what makes them huddle up so close +together and run the houses into one long wall of buildings that look +like tenement-houses? Why don't they have nice front yards like ours, +with grass and flowers, and people sitting on the front porch, enjoying +life? You can go through village after village here and never see a +thing but those ugly, stony streets and long, high, stone walls, and +bare, stony houses, and never a soul but maybe an old woman with a gunny +sack on her back, or a couple of kids lugging water in a pail."</p> + +<p>The best answer to that was to open the door into our own bare, stone +house, which, like all the others on the street, presented to the public +eye an unalluring, long, gray-white, none-too-clean plastered wall, +broken by square windows designed for utility only. The big door opening +showed a stone-paved corridor leading straight to what seemed at first +glance an earthly Paradise of green; an old, old garden with superb +nut-trees, great flowering bushes, a bit of grass, golden graveled +paths, and high old gray walls with grapevines and fruit-trees carefully +trained against them.</p> + +<p>Our American visitor stared about him with dazzled eyes. "What a +heavenly place! But who ever would have guessed such a garden was in +Crouy!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, but this is not one of the really good gardens of the town," we +assured him. "This is a poor old neglected one compared with those all +around us."</p> + +<p>"But where <i>are</i> they?" asked our American incredulously, his vision cut +off by the ten-foot wall.</p> + +<p>At this we invited him upstairs to a lofty window at the back of the +house, leaning from which he had a totally new view of the town whose +arid gray streets he had traversed so many times. Back of every one of +these gray-white, monotonously aligned plastered houses stretched a +garden, often a very large one, always a jewel, gleaming, burnished, and +ordered, with high old trees near the house, and flowers and vines; and, +back of this pleasure spot, a great fertile stretch of well-kept +vegetables and fruit. He stared long, our American, reconstructing his +ideas with racial rapidity. On withdrawing his head his first comment +was, usually:</p> + +<p>"But for the Lord's sake, how ever do they get the money to pay for +building all those miles of huge stone walls? It must cost every family +a fortune."</p> + +<p>Upon learning that those walls had stood exactly there in those very +lines for hundreds of years, requiring only to be periodically kept in +repair, he sank into another momentary reconstructive meditation.</p> + +<p>Then came the inevitable American challenge, the brave new note from the +New World which I always rejoiced to hear:</p> + +<p>"But what's the <i>point</i> of shutting yourself up that way from your +neighbors and making such a secret of your lovely garden that nobody +gets any good of it but yourself? Why not open up and let everybody who +goes by take pleasure in your flowers and your lawn and see the kids +playing and hear them laughing?"</p> + +<p>Of course I always went duly through the orthodox historical and social +explanations. I pointed out that it was only in comparatively late +times—only since that very recent event the French Revolution or the +beginning of our life as a nation—that isolated houses in the fields +would have been safe; that up to that time people were obliged to huddle +together inside the walls of a town at night as a safeguard against +having their throats cut; that an age-old habit of apprehension and +precaution leaves ineradicable marks on life; and that it still seems +entirely natural for French people to conceal their gardens behind +ten-foot stone walls with broken bottles on top, although for +generations the community life has been as peaceful as that of any +drowsy New England village. But, having given this academic explanation, +I went on to hazard a guess that age-old habits of fear leave behind +them more than material marks, like stone walls and broken bottles. They +shape and form human minds into tastes and preferences and prejudices, +the uncourageous origin of which the owners of the minds are far from +divining.</p> + +<p>"You know," I said to our boy from home, "they can't understand our open +villages with no fences or walls, with everybody's flowers open to +everybody's view, with our pretty girls showing their fresh summer +dresses and bright, sweet faces to the chance passerby as well as to the +selected few who have the countersign to enter. They can't understand +it, and they don't try to, for they don't like it. They don't like our +isolated houses. They, like all Europeans, apparently like the feeling +of having neighbors near so that they can enjoy shutting them out. They +say they like the feeling of 'being all to themselves'; they have a +passion for 'privacy' which often seems to mean keeping desirable things +away from other people; they can't see how we endure the 'staring eyes +of strangers.'"</p> + +<p>At this point I was usually interrupted by the boy from home who cried +out hotly:</p> + +<p>"Well, I hope <i>we</i> won't ever get so afraid of people we haven't been +introduced to! I guess we can stand it, not being so darned private as +all that! I don't see that you need take any less satisfaction in a +rosebush because it's given pleasure to a lot of work-people going by in +the morning!"</p> + +<p>On which proposition we always cordially shook hands.</p> + +<p>"And yet, d'you know," added the boy from home, a little wistfully, +looking down into the green, secluded peace of the walled-in garden, +"there <i>must</i> be something kind o' nice about the quiet of it, being +able to do as you please without everybody looking at you. It sort of +makes our front yards seem like a public park, instead of a home, +doesn't it?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," I said sadly, "it does, a little."</p> + +<p>Oh, Europe, Europe! seductive old Europe, ever up to thine old game of +corrupting the fresh candor of invading barbarians!</p> + +<p>"But, anyhow," ended the boy from home bravely, "I don't care. I think +our way is lots the nicest ... for <i>everybody</i>!"</p> + +<p>Dear boy from home!</p> + +<p>Then we went downstairs and visited our modest establishment, typical in +a small way of all those about us, and although made up of the same +essential features as those of a small American town home, differing in +a thousand ways.</p> + +<p>"Why, there are apples on this hedge, real apples!" said the American. +"Who ever heard of apples on a little low hedge plant?"</p> + +<p>"Those aren't hedge plants," we told him. "Those are real apple-trees, +trained to grow low, cut back year after year, pruned, watched, nipped, +fertilized, shaped, into something quite different from what they meant +to be. They produce a tenth, a twentieth part of what would grow if the +tree were left to itself, but what golden apples of Hesperides they are! +The pears are like that, too. Here is a pear-tree older than I, and not +so tall, which bears perhaps a dozen pears, but <i>what</i> pears! And you +see, too, when the trees are kept small, you can have ever so many more +in the same space. They don't shade your vegetables, either. See those +beans growing up right to the base of the trees."</p> + +<p>The chicken-yard was comforting to our visitors because it was like any +chicken-yard; if anything, not so well kept or so well organized as an +American one. But beyond them is a row of twelve well-constructed brick +rabbit-hutches with carefully made lattice gates and cement floors, +before which visitors always stopped to gaze at the endlessly twitching +pink noses and vacuous faces of the little beasts. I hastened to explain +that they were not at all for the children to play with, but that they +form a serious part of the activities of every country family in the +region, supplying for many people the only meat they ever eat beyond the +very occasional fowl in the pot for a fête-day. They take the place, as +far as I could see, of the American farm family's hog, and are to my +mind a great improvement on him. Their flesh is much better food than +the hog's, and since the animal is so small and so prolific, he provides +a steady succession all the year round of fresh meat, palatable and +savory, not smoked and salted into indigestibility like most of our +country pork. In addition, he costs practically nothing to raise. This +is, under the usual conditions of the French countryside, almost +literally true. They are given those scraps from the kitchen and garden +which hens will not touch, the potato and vegetable parings, the +carrot-tops, the pea-vines after they have stopped bearing, the outer +leaves of the cabbages, and, above all, herbage of all sorts which +otherwise would be lost. Every afternoon, the old women of the town, +armed with gunny sacks and sickles, go out for an hour or so of fresh +air and exercise. The phrase is that they <i>va à l'herbe</i> (go for the +grass). It is often a lively expedition, with the children skipping and +shouting beside their grandmother, or one of the bigger boys pushing +the wheelbarrow, cherished and indispensable accessory of French country +life. They take what with us would be a "walk in the country," and as +they pass they levy toll on every sod beside the road, or in a corner of +a wall; on the fresh green leaves and twigs of neglected thickets; on +brambles and weeds—rabbits adore weeds!—on underbrush and vines. Since +seeing these patient, ruddy, vigorous, white-capped old women at their +work I have made another guess at the cause of the miraculously neat and +ordered aspect of French landscapes. It is an effect not wholly due to +the esthetic sense of the nation. Toward twilight, the procession of old +women and children, red-cheeked and hungry, turns back to the village, +with wheelbarrows loaded and sacks bursting with food which otherwise +would have served no human purpose. No need to give the rabbit, as we do +the hog, expensive golden corn, fit for our own food, and which takes +the heart out of the soil which produces it. The rabbit lives, and lives +well, on the unconsidered and unmissed crumbs from Mother Nature's +table.</p> + +<p>The rabbit-hutches being near the kitchen, we usually went next into +that red-and-white-tiled room, with the tiny coal-range (concession to +the twentieth century) with the immense open hearth (heritage of the +past) and the portable charcoal-stove, primitive, universal implement.</p> + +<p>"But you can't bake your bread in such a play-stove as that," commented +the American.</p> + +<p>And with that we were launched into a new phase of Crouy life, the +close-knit communal organization of a French settlement. Since all these +country people live side by side, they discovered long ago that there is +no need to duplicate, over and over, in each house, labors which are +better done in centralized activity. Instead of four hundred cook-stoves +being heated to the baking-point, with a vast waste of fuel and effort, +one big fire in the village <i>boulangerie</i> bakes the bread for all the +community. These French country women no more bake their own bread than +they make their own shoes. In fact, if they tried to they could not +produce anything half so appetizing and nourishing as the crusty, +well-baked loaves turned out by that expert specialist, the village +bakeress; and they buy those loaves for less than it would cost to +produce them in each kitchen.</p> + +<p>In addition to the <i>boulangerie</i> where you buy your bread, there is in +Crouy (and in all other French towns of that size) another shop kept by +a specially good cook among the housewives, where you can always buy +certain cooked foods which are hard to prepare at home in small +quantities. Ham, for instance. In American towns too small to have a +delicatessen shop, how many of us quail before the hours of continuous +heat needed to boil a ham, and the still more formidable enterprise of +getting it all eaten up afterward without a too dreary monotony! I have +known American villages where people said the real reason for church +suppers was that they might taste boiled ham once in a while. In Crouy, +backward, primitive, drainageless community that it is, they cater to +the prime necessity of variety in diet with a competence like that with +which the problem of good bread is solved all over France. Every +Wednesday morning you know that Madame Beaugard has a ham freshly +boiled. You may buy one slice, just enough to garnish a cold salad, or +ten slices to serve in a hot sauce for dinner. On Saturdays she has a +big roast of beef, hot and smoking out of her oven at a quarter of +twelve, and a family or two may thus enjoy this luxury without paying +the usual Anglo-Saxon penalty of eating cold or hashed beef for many +days thereafter. On another day she has beans, the dry beans which are +such a bother to prepare in small quantities and such an admirable and +savory food. She is the village fruit-seller, and when you go to buy +your fruit in her little shop, which is nothing more or less than her +front parlor transformed, you are sure to find something else appetizing +and tempting. Note that this regular service not only adds greatly to +the variety and tastefulness of the diet of the village, but enables +Madame Beaugard to earn her living more amply.</p> + +<p>In another big operation of housekeeping the simplest French country +community puts its resources together, instead of scattering them. On +wash days there is no arduous lifting and emptying out of water, no +penetrating odor of soapsuds throughout all the house, no waste of fuel +under hundreds of individual wash-boilers, no solitary drudging over the +washtubs. The French country housekeeper who does her own washing brings +around to the street door her faithful steed, the wheelbarrow, and +loads it up; first the big galvanized boiler full of soiled clothes, +then a wooden box open at one side, filled with clean straw, then the +soap, a flat, short-handled wooden paddle, and a stiff scrubbing-brush. +Leaving the children not yet at school in the charge of a neighbor—for +whom she will perform the same service another day of the week—her head +done up in a kerchief, her skirts kilted high to let her step free, she +sets off down the road for the <i>lavoir</i>. I use the French word because +the institution does not exist in English.</p> + +<p>This is usually a low stone building, with an open place in the roof, +either covered with glass or open to the air. In the center is a big +pool of water, constantly renewed, which gushes in clean and eddies out +soapy, carrying with it the impurities of the village linen. Here our +housewife finds an assortment of her friends and neighbors, and here she +kneels in the open air, in her straw-filled box, and soaps, and beats, +and rinses, and scrubs at the spots with her scrubbing-brush (they never +use a rubbing-board), and at the same time hears all the talk of the +town, gets whatever news from the outer world is going the rounds, jokes +and scolds, sympathizes and laughs, sorrows with and quarrels with her +neighbors,—gets, in short, the same refreshing and entire change from +the inevitable monotony of the home routine which an American housewife +of a more prosperous class gets in her club meeting, and which the +American housewife of the same class gets, alas! almost never.</p> + +<p>And, yes, the clothes are clean! I know it runs counter to all our fixed +ideas and what we are taught in domestic-science classes. I don't +pretend to explain it but the fact remains that clothes soaped and +beaten and rinsed in cold water, boiled in a boiler over the open fire +and dried on the grass, are of the most dazzling whiteness. It is just +another wholesome reminder that there are all kinds of ways to kill a +cat, and that our own, natural and inevitable as it seems to us, may not +even be the most orthodox.</p> + +<p>Another such reminder is the fashion in which they manage baths in +Crouy. There are not (you can hear, can't you, the supercilious +Anglo-Saxon tourist saying, "<i>Of course there are not</i>"?) any bathrooms +in the houses, nor in the one little inn. And yet the people take plenty +of baths, and in big porcelain bathtubs too, bigger and deeper and +fuller of hot water than those we have in our houses.</p> + +<p>Among the many curious little industries of the place is the +<i>établissement des bains</i>. As you go down the main street of a morning +you stop in and fill up a little printed card stating that you wish a +hot (or cold) plain (or perfumed or sulphur or starch or what not) bath, +at such and such an hour. The little old woman in charge (note that this +is another way for a little old woman to earn an honest living) notes +your hour, and stokes up her stove according to the schedule of the day. +When you arrive you are shown into an immaculately clean tiled bathroom, +with an enormous tub, lined with a clean sheet (it has been definitely +decided by doctors that this precaution obviates any possibility of +contagion) and filled with clear, sparkling hot water. You can rent your +towels for two cents apiece, and buy a bit of soap for three cents, or +you may bring them from home, if you prefer. Of course, being unused to +this particular way of killing the cat, you feel rather foolish and +queer to be taking a bath in a community bathtub instead of in your own. +But the bath is a fine one; with a cold rub-down at the end, there is no +danger of taking cold; and as you dress, glowing and refreshed, you +cannot put out of your mind some such colloquy as this:</p> + +<p>"Yes, of course I prefer a bathtub in my own house. Everybody would. But +suppose I haven't money enough to have one? At home, in a town like +this, you can only get a bath, or give it to your children, if you have +capital enough to buy, install, and keep up a bathroom of your own. Here +you can have an even better one, any time you can spare fifteen cents in +cash. Which method produces the bigger area of clean skin in a given +community?"</p> + +<p>You usually end your colloquy by quoting to yourself, laughingly, the +grandly American-minded remark of the boy from Illinois, whose reaction +to the various eye-openers about him was thus formulated:</p> + +<p>"Do you know, the thing we want to do at home is to keep all the good +ways of doing this we've got already, and then add all the French ones +too."</p> + +<p>We laughed over the youthful self-confidence of that ambition, but, as +the boy from Illinois would say, "Honestly, do you know, there is +something in it."</p> + +<p>In one of the few large, handsome houses in Crouy there is something +else I wish we might import into America. Very simply, with no brass +band of a formal organization, secretaries, or reports, the younger +girls of the town are brought together to learn how to sew and cook and +keep their household accounts. The splendid park which looks so lordly +with its noble trees is only the playground for the little girls in +gingham aprons in the intervals of their study; and the fine, +high-ceilinged, spacious old <i>salon</i>, a veritable Henry James room, is +employed in anything but a Henry James manner as the workroom where all +the children from the poorer houses round about sit in the sunshine, +setting beautiful fine stitches and chattering like magpies.</p> + +<p>A large room at the side has been fitted up—oh, so long before domestic +science "struck" America—as a kitchen, and here the little girls daily +prepare their own luncheons, after having, turn by turn, done the +marketing and made up their small accounts under the supervision of an +expert teacher. Their rosy cheeks and bright eyes testify to the good +training which their own mothers received in this very room, in these +very essentials of life.</p> + +<p>The gracious, gray-haired owner of the beautiful home has always been so +busy with her school and workroom that she almost never runs into Paris, +although she is not more than a couple of hours away.</p> + +<p>"I've only been there five or six times in my life," she says, shaking +her head in mocking contrition, and turning superb old rings around on +her soft, wrinkled hands. She adds, with a pretty whimsical smile: "To +tell the truth, it bores me awfully when I do go. I have so much to see +to here, that I'm uneasy to be away."</p> + +<p>You are to remember that this has been going on for at least two +generations. The quiet-eyed <i>châtelaine</i> of the manor mentions, in +passing, that she is but continuing the work of her aunt who lived there +before her, and who for fifty years gave all her life and property for +her neighbors' children in quite the same way. When you leave you try to +murmur something about what two such lives must have meant to the +community, but this entirely unmodern, unradical, unread provincial +Frenchwoman cuts you short by saying in a matter-of-fact tone, with the +most transparent simplicity of manner:</p> + +<p>"Oh, but of course property is only a trust, after all, isn't it?"</p> + +<p>Will some one please tell me what are the appropriate sentiments for +good Socialists to feel about such people?</p> + +<p>There is another <i>ouvroir</i> (sewing-room) in Crouy of another sort, where +the older girls, instead of being forced to go away from home, as in +most American villages, to work in factories or shops, may earn an +excellent living doing expert embroidery or fine sewing. They are well +paid, and the enterprise is successful commercially because the +long-headed philanthropist at the head of the organization manages to +sell direct to consumers—as will always be done as a matter-of-course +in the twenty-first century—instead of passing the product through the +acquisitive hands of many middlemen. But there is so much to report in +detail about this wholly admirable and modern undertaking that I must +make another story of it. It is really curious how often, in this +little, backward, drainageless French village, an American is brought to +a halt, a long, scrutinizing inspection, and much profitable meditation.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>So far you have seen Crouy as it was before the war, and as it is now in +the brief intervals between the departure of a regiment going back to +the front and the arrival of another with the trench mud still on its +boots. You have seen the long, gray, stony street filled morning and +evening with horses and laborers going out to work or returning, and in +the meantime dozing somnolent in the sun, with only a cat or dog to +cross it, an old woman going out for the grass, or a long, gray American +Ford Ambulance banging along over the paving, the square-jawed, +clean-shaven boy from the States zigzagging desperately with the vain +idea that the other side of the street cannot be so rough as the one he +is on. You have seen the big open square, sleeping under the airy shadow +of the great sycamores, only the occasional chatter of children drawing +water at the fountain breaking the silence. You have seen the beautiful +old church, echoing and empty save for an old, poor man, his ax or his +spade beside him, as he kneels for a moment to pray for his grandsons at +the front; or for a woman in black, rigid and silent before a shrine, at +whose white face you dare not glance as you pass. You have seen the +plain, bare walls of the old houses, turning an almost blank face to the +street, with closely shuttered or thickly curtained windows.</p> + +<p>But one morning, very early, before you are dressed, you hear suddenly, +close at hand, that clear, ringing challenge of the bugle which bids all +human hearts to rise and triumph, and the vehement whirring rhythm of +the drums, like a violent new pulse beating in your own body. The house +begins to shake as though with thunder, not the far-off roar of the +great cannon of the horizon which you hear every day, but a definite +vibration of the earth under your feet. You rush to your street window, +throw open the shutters, and, leaning from the sill, see that all Crouy +is leaning with you and looking up the street.</p> + +<p>There, at the turn, where the road leaves the yellow wheat-fields to +enter the village, the flag is coming, the torn, ragged, dingy, sacred +tricolor. Back of it the trumpets, gleaming in the sun, proclaim its +honor. They are here, the poilus, advancing with their quick, swinging +step, so bravely light for all the cruel heavy sacks on their backs and +the rifles on their shoulders. Their four-ranked file fills our street +from side to side, as their trumpets fill our ears, as the fatigue and +courage of their faces fill our hearts. They are here, the splendid, +splendid soldiers who are the French poilus. Everybody's brother, +cousin, husband, friend, son, is there.</p> + +<p>All Crouy leans from its windows to welcome them back from death—one +more respite. They glance up at the windows as they pass; the younger +ones smile at the girls' faces; the older ones, fathers certainly, look +wistfully at the children's bright heads. There are certain ones who +look at nothing, staring straight ahead at immaterial sights which will +not leave their eyes.</p> + +<p>One detachment has passed; the rumbling has increased till your windows +shake as though in an earthquake. The camions and guns are going by, an +endless defile of monster trucks, ending with the rolling kitchen, +lumbering forward, smoking from all its pipes and caldrons, with the +regimental cook springing up to inspect the progress of his savory +ragoût.</p> + +<p>After the formless tumult of the wheels, the stony street resounds again +to the age-old rhythm of marching men. Another detachment....</p> + +<p>You dress quickly, seize the big box of cigarettes kept ready for this +time, and, taking the children by the hand, go out to help welcome the +newcomers as they settle down for their three weeks' rest.</p> + +<p>I have told you that Crouy has a thousand inhabitants. There are twelve +hundred men in a regiment. Perhaps you can imagine that when the troops +are there men seem to ooze from every pore of the town. There are no +great barracks erected for them, you understand. Somehow Crouy people +make themselves small, move over to the edge, and make the necessary +room. There are seventy soldiers sleeping on straw in the big hall which +was before the war used for a concert-room or for amateur theatricals; +two hundred are housed in what is left of the old <i>salles de garde</i> of +the ruined castle, old guard-rooms which after five hundred years see +themselves again filled with French fighting-men; every barn-loft is +filled with them; every empty shed has a thick layer of straw on the +ground and twenty to thirty men encamped; every empty stable has been +carefully cleaned and prepared for them; every empty room harbors one or +more officers; every attic has ten or fifteen men. One unused shop is +transformed into the regimental infirmary, and hangs out the Red Cross +flag; another sees the quartermaster and his secretaries installed at +desks improvised from pine boards; a sentry stands before the Town Hall +where the colonel has his headquarters, and another guards the fine old +house which has the honor of sheltering the regimental flag.</p> + +<p>The street, our quiet, sleepy street, is like an artery pulsing with +rapid vibrations; despatch-riders dash up and down; camions rumble by; a +staff-car full of officers looking seriously at maps halts for a moment +and passes on; from out the courtyard where a regimental kitchen is +installed a file of soldiers issues, walking on eggs as they carry their +hot stew across the street to the lodging where they eat it. Our +green-vegetable woman, that supreme flower of a race of consummate +gardeners, arrives at the house, breathless and smiling, with only an +onion and a handful of potatoes in her usually well-garnished +donkey-cart.</p> + +<p>"<i>Que voulez-vous, madame?</i>" she apologizes, sure of your sympathy. "The +instant I leave the garden, they set upon me. You can't refuse your own +soldiers, can you! With my Jacques at the front?"</p> + +<p>Everywhere, everywhere where there is a scrap of cover from the sky, are +huddled horses, mules, guns, wagons, and camions. Every spreading +chestnut-tree harbors, not a blacksmith, but a dozen army mules tied +close to the trunk. Near the station the ground under the close-set +double line of trees in the long mall is covered to its last inch with +munition-wagons and camions, and to reach the post-office on the other +side of the little shady square you must pick your way back of lines of +guns, set end to end, without an inch to spare. The aviators, whose +machines wheel ceaselessly over the town, can see no change in its +aspect, unless perhaps the streets and courtyards send up to the sky a +gray-blue reflection like its own color. Not another trace of twelve +hundred men with all their impedimenta betrays to the occasional German +airman that Crouy's life is transformed.</p> + +<p>Three times a week, in the late afternoon, just before sunset, the +regimental band gives a concert, in our big open square under the +sycamores, where, in the softer passages of the music, the sound of +splashing water mingles with the flutes. All Crouy puts on its Sunday +best and comes out to join itself to the horizon-blue throngs, and the +colonel and his staff stand under the greatest of the sycamores, +listening soberly to the music and receiving paternally the salutes of +the men who saunter near him.</p> + +<p>Once during their stay there is a <i>prise-d'armes</i>, on the square, when +the men who have especially distinguished themselves are decorated with +the <i>croix de guerre</i>. All Crouy goes to see that, too—all Crouy means +now, you must remember, old men, women, little children, and babies—and +stands respectfully, with tear-wet eyes, watching the white-haired +colonel go down the line, pinning on each man's breast the sign of +honor, taking his hand in a comrade's clasp and giving him on both +cheeks a brother's kiss. That is a sight the children there will not +forget, those two, bronzed, grave soldiers' faces, meeting under their +steel casques in the salutation of blood-kin.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>And once there is a mass said for the regimental dead in the old, old +church. All Crouy goes there too, all Crouy lost in the crowd of +soldiers who kneel in close ranks on the worn stones, the sonorous chant +of whose deep voices fills the church to the last vaulting of the arches +which echoed to the voices of those other Crusaders, praying there for +their dead, six hundred years ago. The acolytes at the altar are +soldiers in their shabby honorable uniforms; the priest is a soldier; +the choir is filled with them singing the responses; in an interval of +the service up rise two of them near the organ, violin in hand, and the +French church rings with the angel's voice of whom but old Johann +Sebastian Bach—oh, generous-hearted, wise poilu musicians, who hate +only what is hateful!</p> + +<p>At the end, suddenly, the regimental music is there, wood-wind, +trumpets, and all. The service comes to a close in one great surging +chant, upborne on the throbbing waves of the organ notes. The church +rings to the pealing brass, thrilling violins, the men's deep voices....</p> + +<p>Ah, when will it resound to the song of thanksgiving at the end?</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="THE_PERMISSIONAIRE" id="THE_PERMISSIONAIRE"></a>THE PERMISSIONAIRE</h2> + +<h4>"<i>What was in the ground, alive, they could not kill.</i>"</h4> + + +<p>Two weeks after the German retreat from the Aisne was rumored, five days +after the newspapers were printing censored descriptions of the ravaged +country they had left, and the very moment the official bulletin +confirmed the news, Pierre Nidart presented himself to his lieutenant to +ask for a furlough, the long-delayed furlough, due for more than two +years now, which he had never been willing to take. His lieutenant +frowned uneasily, and did not answer. After a moment's silence he said, +gently, "You know, my old fellow, the Boches have left very little up +there."</p> + +<p>(Nidart was not an old fellow at all, being but thirty-four, and the +father of two young children. His lieutenant used the phrase as a term +of endearment, because he had a high opinion of his silent sergeant.) +Nidart made no answer to his officer's remark. The lieutenant took it +that he persisted in wanting his furlough. As he had at least three +furloughs due him, it was hard to refuse. There was a long silence. +Finally, fingering the papers on the dry-goods box which served him as +desk, the lieutenant said: "Your wife is young. They say the Germans +carried back to work in Germany all women under forty-five, or those +who hadn't children under three."</p> + +<p>Nidart swallowed hard, looked sick, and obstinately said nothing. His +lieutenant turned with a sigh and motioned the <i>fourrier</i> to start the +red tape for the authorization for the furlough. "All right, I think I +can manage a three weeks' 'permission' for you. They're allowing that, I +hear, to men from the invaded regions who haven't taken any furloughs +since the beginning of the war."</p> + +<p>"Yes, <i>mon Lieutenant</i>. Thank you, <i>mon Lieutenant</i>." Nidart saluted and +went back to his squad.</p> + +<p>His lieutenant shook his head, murmuring to the <i>fourrier</i>: "Those +north-country men! There is no use saying a word to them. They won't +believe that <i>their</i> homes and families aren't there, till they see with +their own eyes ... and when they do see.... I've heard that some of the +men in these first regiments that followed up the Boche retreat across +the devastated regions went crazy when they found their own villages ... +Nidart has just one idea in his head, poor devil!—to go straight before +him, like a homing pigeon, till ..." He stopped, his face darkening.</p> + +<p>"Oh, damn the Boches!" the <i>fourrier</i> finished the sentence fervently.</p> + +<p>"You see, Nidart is a master-mason by trade, and he built their own +little house. He carries around a snapshot of it, with his wife and a +baby out in front."</p> + +<p>"Oh, damn the Boches!" responded the <i>fourrier</i> on a deeper note.</p> + +<p>"And like all those village workmen, they got half their living out of +their garden and a field or two. And you've read what the Boches did to +the gardens and fruit-trees."</p> + +<p>"Isn't there anything else we can talk about?" said the <i>fourrier</i>.</p> + +<p>Nidart passed through Paris on his way (those being before the days of +strictly one-destination furloughs) and, extracting some very old bills +from the lining of his shoe, he spent the five hours between his trains +in hasty purchasing. At the hardware shop, where he bought an ax, a +hammer, some nails, and a saw, the saleswoman's vivacious curiosity got +the better of his taciturnity, and she screwed from him the information +that he was going back to his home in the devastated regions.</p> + +<p>At once the group of Parisian working-people and bourgeois who happened +to be in the shop closed in on him sympathetically, commenting, +advising, dissuading, offering their opinions with that city-bred, +glib-tongued clatter which Nidart's country soul scorned and detested.</p> + +<p>"No, no, my friend, it's useless to try to go back. The Germans have +made a desert of it. My cousin's wife has a relative who was in the +regiment that first followed the Germans after their retreat from Noyon, +and he said ..."</p> + +<p>"The Government is going to issue a statement, saying that land will be +given in other parts of France to people from those regions, because +it's of no use to try to rebuild from under the ruins."</p> + +<p>"No, not the Government, it's a society for the Protection of the People +in the Invaded Regions; and they are Americans, millionaires, every one. +And it's in America they are offering land, near New York."</p> + +<p>"No, near Buenos Aires."</p> + +<p>"The Americans want the regions left as a monument, as a place to see. +You'll make much more money as a guide to tourists than trying to ..."</p> + +<p>"Your family won't be there, you know. The Boches took all the +able-bodied women back with them; and the children were sent to ..."</p> + +<p>"<i>Give me my change, won't you!</i>" said Nidart with sudden fierceness, to +the saleswoman. He turned his back roughly on the chattering group and +went out. They shrugged their shoulders. "These country-people. Nothing +on earth for them but their little hole of a village!"</p> + +<p>Down the street, Nidart, quickening to an angry stride his soldierly +gait, hurried along to a seed-store.</p> + +<p>That evening when he got into the battered, dingy, third-class +compartment of the train going north, he could hardly be seen for the +innumerable packages slung about his person. He pulled out from one +bulging pocket a square piece of bread, from another a piece of cheese, +and proceeded to dine, bent forward with the weight of his burdens and +his thoughts, gazing out through the dirty windows at the flat farming +country jerking by him in the moonlight. It was so soon after the +retreat that the train went no further north than Noyon, and Nidart had +lived far beyond Noyon. About midnight, he rolled off the train, +readjusted his packages and his knapsack, and, after showing his +perfectly regular <i>sauf-conduit</i> to five or six sentries along the way, +finally got out of town.</p> + +<p>He found himself on the long, white road leading north. It was the road +down which they had driven once a week, on market-days. Of all the +double line of noble poplar-trees, not one was standing. The utterly +changed aspect of the familiar road startled him. Ahead of him as he +tramped rapidly forward, was what had been a cross-roads, now a gaping +hole. Nidart, used to gaping holes in roads, walked down into this, and +out on the other side. He was panting a little, but he walked forward +steadily and strongly....</p> + +<p>The moon shone full on the place where the first village had stood, the +one where his married sister had lived, where he and his wife and the +children used to come for Sunday dinners once in a while. He stood +suddenly before a low, confused huddle of broken bricks and splintered +beams, and looked about him uncomprehending. The silence was intense. In +the instant before he understood what he was seeing, he heard and felt a +rapid vibration, his own heart knocking loudly. Then he understood.</p> + +<p>A moment later, mechanically, he began to move about, clambering up and +down, aimlessly, over the heaps of rubble. Although he did not know it, +he was looking for the place where his sister's house had stood. +Presently his knees gave way under him. He sat down suddenly on a +tree-stump. The lopped-off trunk beside it showed it to have been an old +cherry-tree. Yes, his sister's big cherry-tree, the pride of her garden. +A long strip of paper, one end buried in a heap of bits of plaster, +fluttered in the night-wind. It beat against his leg like some one +calling feebly for help. The moon emerged from a cloud and showed it to +be a strip of wall-paper; he recognized the pattern; he had helped his +brother-in-law put it on the bedroom of the house. His sister's four +children had been born within the walls of that bedroom. He tried to fix +his mind on those children, not to think of any other children, not to +remember his own, not to ...</p> + +<p>The paper beat insistently and rhythmically against his leg like a +recurrent thought of madness—he sprang up with the gesture of a man +terrified, and stumbling wildly among the formless ruins sought for the +road again.</p> + +<p>He walked heavily after this, lifting his feet with an effort. Several +miles further, at the heap of débris which had been Falquières, where +his wife's family had lived, he made a wide detour through the fields to +avoid passing closer to the ruins. At the next, Bondry, where he had +been born and brought up, he tried to turn aside, but against his will +his feet carried him straight to the center of the chaos. When the first +livid light of dawn showed him the two stumps of the big apple-trees +before the door, which his grandfather had planted, he stopped short. Of +the house, of the old walled garden, not a trace beyond the shapeless +heap of stones and plaster. He stood there a long time, staring +silently. The light gradually brightened, until across the level fields +a ray of yellow sunshine struck ironically through the prone branches of +the murdered trees upon the gray face of the man.</p> + +<p>At this he turned and, walking slowly, dragging his feet, his head +hanging, his shoulders bent, he followed the road which led like a white +tape laid straight across the plain, towards—towards ... The road had +been mined at regular intervals, deep and broad craters stretching +across it, enough to stop a convoy of camions, not enough to stop a +single soldier, even though he stumbled along so wearily, his cumbersome +packages beating against his legs and arms, even though he walked so +slowly, more and more slowly as he came in sight of the next heaped and +tumbled mound of débris. The sun rose higher....</p> + +<p>Presently it shone, with April clarity, on Nidart lying, face downwards, +upon a heap of broken bricks.</p> + +<p>For a long hour it showed nothing but that,—the ruins, the prostrate +trees, the man, like them stricken and laid low.</p> + +<p>Then it showed, poor and miserable under that pale-gold light, a +wretched ant-like procession issuing from holes in the ground and +defiling slowly along the scarred road towards the ruins; women, a few +old men, a little band of pale and silent children. They approached the +ruins and dispersed. One of the women, leading three children, picked +her way wearily among the heaps of stone, the charred and twisted +beams ... stopped short, both hands at her heart.</p> + +<p>And then the sun reeled in the sky to a sound which rang as strangely +from that silent desolation as a burst of song out of hell, scream after +scream of joy, ringing up to the very heavens, frantic, incredulous, +magnificent joy.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>There they stood, the man and wife, clasped in each others' arms in the +ruins of their home, with red, swollen eyes, smiling with quivering +lips, silent. Now that the first wild cries had gone rocket-like to the +sky and fallen back in a torrent of tears, they had no words, no words +at all. They clasped each other and the children, and wept, constantly +wiping the tears from their white cheeks, to see each other. The two +older children, a little shy of this father whom they had almost +forgotten, drew away constrained, hanging their heads, looking up +bashfully under their bent brows. Nidart sat down on a heap of stone and +drew the little girl to him, stroking her hair. He tried to speak, but +no voice issued from his lips. His wife sat down beside him, laying her +head on his shoulder, spent with the excess of her relief. They were all +silent a long time, their hearts beginning to beat in the old rhythm, a +sweet, pale peace dropping down upon them.</p> + +<p>After a time, the youngest child, cowering under the woman's skirts, +surprised at the long silence, thrust out a little pale face from his +shelter. The man looked down on him and smiled. "That's a Dupré," he +said in his normal voice, with conviction, all his village lore coming +back to him. "I know by the Dupré look of his nose. He looks the way my +cousin Jacques Dupré used to, when he was little."</p> + +<p>These were the first articulate words spoken. With them, he turned his +back on the unfriendly, unknowable immensity of the world in which he +had lived, exiled, for three years, and returned into the close familiar +community of neighbors and kin where he had lived for thirty-four +years,—where he had lived for hundreds of years. The pulverized wreck +of this community lay all about him, but he opened its impalpable doors +and stepped once more into its warm humanity. He looked at the little +child whom he had never seen before and knew him for kin.</p> + +<p>His wife nodded. "Yes, it's Louise and Jacques' baby. Louise was +expecting him, you know, when the mobilization ... he was born just +after Jacques went away, in August. We heard Jacques was killed ... we +have heard everything ... that Paris was taken, that London was +burned.... I have heard twice that you were killed. Louise believed it, +and never got out of bed at all after the baby came. She just turned +over and let herself die. I took the baby. Somebody had to. That's the +reason I'm here now. 'They' carried off all the women my age unless they +had children under three. They thought the baby was mine.'</p> + +<p>"But Jacques isn't killed," said Nidart; "he's wounded, with one wooden +leg, frantic to see Louise and the baby...." He made a gesture of blame. +"Louise always was a fool! Anybody's a fool to give up!" He looked down +at the baby and held out his hand. "Come here, little Jeannot."</p> + +<p>The child shrank away silently, burrowing deeper into his +foster-mother's skirts.</p> + +<p>"He's afraid," she explained. "We've had to make the children afraid so +they would keep out of sight, and not break rules. There were so many +rules, so many to salute and to bow to, the children couldn't remember; +and when they forgot, they were so dreadfully cuffed, or their parents +fined such big fines...."</p> + +<p>"<i>I</i> never saluted!" said the boy of ten, wagging his head proudly. "You +have to have something on your head to salute, they won't let you do it +bareheaded. So I threw my cap in the fire."</p> + +<p>"Yes, he's gone bareheaded since the first days, summer and winter, rain +and shine," said his mother.</p> + +<p>"Here, Jean-Pierre," said his father, wrestling with one of his +packages, "I've got a hat for you. I've been saving it for you, lugged +it all over because I wanted my boy to have it." He extracted from its +brown canvas bag a German helmet with the spike, which he held out. +"And I've got something for my little Berthe, too." He fumbled in an +inner pocket. "I made it myself, near Verdun. The fellows all thought I +was crazy to work over it so, when I didn't know if I'd ever see my +little girl again; but I was pretty sure Maman would know how to take +care of you, all right." He drew out from a nest of soft rags a roughly +carved aluminum ring and slipped it on the child's forefinger.</p> + +<p>As the children drew off a little, to compare and examine, their parents +looked into each other's eyes, the deep, united, serious look of man and +wife before a common problem.</p> + +<p>"<i>Eh bien</i>, Paulette," said the man, "what shall we do? Give up? Move +away?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Pierre!" cried his wife. "You <i>wouldn't</i>?"</p> + +<p>For answer, he shook himself free of his packages and began to undo +them, the ax, the hammer, the big package of nails, the saw, the trowel, +the paper bags of seeds, the pickax. He spread them out on the clutter +of broken bricks, plaster, splintered wood, and looked up at his wife. +"That's what I bought on the way here."</p> + +<p>His wife nodded. "But have you had your breakfast? You'd better eat +something before you begin."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>While he ate his bread and munched his cheese, she told him, speaking +with a tired dullness, something of what had happened during the years +of captivity. It came out just as she thought of it, without sequence, +one detail obscuring another. "There wasn't much left inside the house +when they finally blew it up. They'd been taking everything little by +little. No, they weren't bad to women; they were horrid and rough and +they stole everything they could, but they didn't mistreat us, only some +of the foolish girls. You know that good-for-nothing family of Boirats, +how they'd run after any man. Well, they took to going with the Boches; +but any decent woman that kept out of sight as much as she could, no, I +wasn't afraid of them much that way, unless they were drunk. Their +officers were awfully hard on them about everything—<i>hard</i>! They +treated them like dogs. <i>We were sorry for them sometimes.</i>"</p> + +<p>Yes, this ignorant woman, white and thin and ragged, sitting on the +wreck of her home, said this.</p> + +<p>"Did you hear how they took every single thing in copper or +brass—Grandfather's candlesticks, the andirons, the handles of the +clothes-press, the door-knobs, and all, <i>every one</i> of my saucepans and +kettles?" Her voice trembled at this item. "The summer after that, it +was everything in linen. I had just the chemise I had on my back ... +even what was on the clothes-line, drying, they took. The American +Committee distributed some cotton material and I made a couple for me +and Berthe, and some drawers for Jean-Pierre and the baby. That was when +we could still get thread. The winter after that, it was woolen they +took, everything, especially mattresses. Their officers made them get +every single mattress in town, except the straw ones. Alice Bernard's +mother, they jerked her mattress right out from under her, and left her +lying on the bed-ropes. And M. le Curé, he was sick with pneumonia and +they took his, that way, and he died. But the Boches didn't dare not to. +Their officers would have shot them if they hadn't."</p> + +<p>"I can make beds for you," he said. "There must be trenches somewhere, +near,"—she nodded,—"they'll have left some wire-netting in an <i>abri</i>. +You make a square of wood, and put four legs to it, and stretch the +wire-netting over it and put straw on that. But we had some wire-netting +of our own that was around the chicken-yard."</p> + +<p>"Oh, they took that," she explained,—"that, and the doors of the +chicken-house, and they pried off our window-cases and door-jambs and +carried those off the last days, too ... but there was one thing they +wouldn't do, no, not even the Boches, and that was <i>this</i> dirty work!" +She waved her hand over the destruction about her, and pointed to the +trees across the road in the field, all felled accurately at the same +angle. "We couldn't understand much of what happened when they were +getting ready to leave, but some of them had learned enough French to +tell us they wouldn't 'do it'—we didn't know what. They told us they +would go away and different troops would come. And Georges Duvalet's boy +said they told <i>him</i> that the troops who were to come to 'do it' were +criminals out of the prisons that the officers had let out if they would +'do it'—all this time we didn't know what, and somebody said it was to +pour oil on us and burn us, the way they did the people in the barn at +Vermadderville. But there wasn't anything we could do to prevent it. We +couldn't run away. So we stayed, and took care of the children. All the +men who could work at all and all the women too, unless they had very +little children, were marched away, off north, to Germany, with just +what few extra things they could put in a big handkerchief. Annette +Cagnon, she was eighteen, and had to go, but her mother stayed with the +younger children—her mother has been sort of crazy ever since. She had +such a long fainting turn when Annette went by, with a German soldier, +we thought we never could bring her to life...." The rough, tired voice +shook a moment, the woman rested her head again on her husband's arm, +holding to him tightly. "Pierre, oh Pierre, <i>if we had known what was to +come</i>,—no, we couldn't have lived through it, not any of us!" He put +his great, working-man's hand on her rough hair, gently.</p> + +<p>She went on: "And then the troops who had been here did go away and the +others came, and they made the few of us who were left go down into the +cellars of those old houses down the road. They told us to stay there +three days, and if we went out before we'd get shot. We waited for two +whole days. The water they had given us was all gone, and then old +Granny Arnoux said she was all alone in the world, so it wouldn't make +any difference if she did get shot. She wanted to make sure that her +house was all right. You know what she thought of her house! So she came +up and we waited. And in half an hour we heard her crutches coming back +on the road, and she was shrieking out. We ran up to see. She had +fallen down in a heap. She hasn't known anything since; shakes all the +time as if she were in a chill. She was the first one; she was all +alone, when she saw what they had done ... and <i>you</i> know ..."</p> + +<p>Nidart turned very white, and stood up. "God! yes, I know! <i>I</i> was +alone!"</p> + +<p>"Since then, ten days ago, the French soldiers came through. We didn't +know them for sure, we were expecting to see the red trousers. I asked +everybody about you, but nobody knew. There are so <i>many</i> soldiers in an +army. Then Americans came in cars and brought us bread, and blankets and +some shoes, but they have leather soles and I make the children keep +them for best, they wear out so. And since then the Government has let +the camions that go through to the front, leave bread and meat and once +a bag of potatoes for us. The préfet came around and asked if we wanted +to be sent to a refugee home in Paris or stay here, and of course I said +stay here. The children and I have come every day to work. We've got the +plaster and bricks cleared out from the corner of the fireplace, and I +cook there, though there isn't any chimney of course, but I think the +tiles of the kitchen floor are mostly all there still. And oh, Pierre, +we have one corner of the garden almost cleared, <i>and the asparagus is +coming up</i>! Come and see! They cut down everything they could see, even +the lilac bushes, but what was in the ground, alive, they couldn't +kill."</p> + +<p>Nidart put the shovel in his wife's hand, and took up the pickax. "Time +spent in traveling isn't counted on furloughs," he said, "so we have +twenty-one days, counting to-day. The garden first, so's to get in the +seeds."</p> + +<p>They clambered over the infernal disorder of the ruins of the house, and +picked their way down and back into what had been the garden. A few +sections of the wall were still standing, its thick solidity resisting +even dynamite petards.</p> + +<p>"Oh, see, almost all of the pleached trees are saved!" cried Nidart, +astonished, "that part of the wall didn't fall."</p> + +<p>"I'm not sure I pruned those right," said his wife doubtfully, glancing +at them. "I couldn't remember whether you left two or four buds on the +peaches, and I just gave up on the big grapevine. It grew so, it got all +ahead of me!"</p> + +<p>"Did they bear well?" asked the man, looking across the trash heap at +the well-remembered trees and vines. "We'd better leave those till some +odd time, they won't need much care. I can do them between other things +some time when I'm too tired to do anything else. Here is where the big +job is." He looked the ground over with a calculating eye and announced +his plan of campaign.</p> + +<p>"We won't try to carry the rubbish out. It's too heavy for you, and my +time has got to go as far as it can for the important things. We'll just +pile it all up in a line along the line where the walls used to stand. +All of us know that line! I'll use the pickax, and Maman the shovel. +Jean-Pierre will throw the bigger pieces over on the line, and Berthe +will go after and pick up the littler ones."</p> + +<p>They set to work, silently, intensely. When they reached the +currant-bushes, all laid low, Pierre gave a growl of wrath and scorn, +but none of them slackened their efforts. About eleven the big convoy of +camions on the way to the front came through, lurching along the +improvised road laid out across the fields. The workers, lifting their +eyes for the first time from their labors, saw at a distance on the main +road the advance guard of the road-menders already there, elderly +soldiers, gray-haired territorials, with rakes and shovels, and back of +them, shuttle-like, the big trucks with road-metal coming and going.</p> + +<p>Reluctantly leaving her work, Paulette went to get the supplies for +dinner, and started an open-air fire in the cleared-out corner of the +chimney. Over this she hung a big pot, and leaving it to boil she +hurried back to her shovel. "The soup-kettle and the flat-irons," she +told her husband, "they were too hard to break and too heavy to carry +away, and they are about all that's left of what was in the house."</p> + +<p>"No, I found an iron fork," said Berthe, "but it was all twisted. +Jean-Pierre said he thought he could ..."</p> + +<p>"Don't talk," said their father firmly,—"you don't work so fast when +you talk."</p> + +<p>At noon they went back to the fire burning under the open sky, in the +blackened corner of the fireplace where it had cooked the food during +the years past. The man looked at it strangely, and turned his eyes +away.</p> + +<p>"Now where is your fork, little Berthe?" he said. "I'll straighten it +for you. With that and my kit ..."</p> + +<p>"I have my jackknife too," said Jean-Pierre.</p> + +<p>They ate thus, dipping up the stew in the soldier's <i>gamelle</i>, using his +knife and fork and spoon and the straightened iron fork. The baby was +fed on bread soaked in the gravy, and on bits of potato given him from +the end of a whittled stick. In the twenty minutes' rest which their +captain allowed the little force after the meal, he and Jean-Pierre +whittled out two wooden forks, two-tined, from willow twigs. "That's one +apiece now," said Nidart, "and the asparagus bed is all cleared off. We +have made a beginning."</p> + +<p>They went back to work, stooping, straining, heaving, blinded with the +flying plaster, wounded with the sharp edges of the shattered stones. +The sun shone down on them with heavenly friendliness, the light, +sparkling air lifted the hair from their hot foreheads. After a time, +Nidart, stopping for an instant to wipe away the sweat which ran down +into his eyes, said: "The air has a different feel to it here. And the +sun looks different. It <i>looks</i> like home."</p> + +<p>At four they stopped to munch the piece of bread which is the +supplementary meal of French working-people at that hour. Nidart +embellished it with a slice of cheese for each, which made the meal a +feast. They talked as they ate; they began to try to bridge over the +gap between them. But they lacked words to tell what lay back of them; +only the dry facts came out.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I've been wounded, there's a place on my thigh, here, put your +hand and feel, where there isn't any flesh over the bone, just skin. It +doesn't bother me much, except when I try to climb a ladder. Something +about that position I can't manage ... and for a mason ..."</p> + +<p>"I'll climb the ladders," said Jean-Pierre.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I was pretty sick. It got gangrene some. They thought I wouldn't +live. I was first in a big hospital near the front, and then in a +convalescent hospital in Paris. It was awfully dull when I got better. +They thought if I had made an application to be <i>réformé</i> and retired I +could be like Jacques Dupré with his wooden leg. But with you and the +children here ... what could I have done with myself? So I didn't say +anything, and when my time was up in the hospital I went back to the +trenches. That was a year ago last winter."</p> + +<p>"Berthe and Jean-Pierre had the mumps that winter," said their mother. +"The baby didn't get it. I kept him away from them. The Boches shut us +up as though we had the smallpox. They were terribly strict about any +sickness. The Boche regimental doctor came every day. He took very good +care of them."</p> + +<p>"He wanted to give me a doll because I didn't cry when he looked in my +throat," said Berthe.</p> + +<p>"Of course she didn't take it," said Jean-Pierre. "I told her I'd break +it all to pieces if she did."</p> + +<p>"But she cried afterwards."</p> + +<p>"Come," said the father, "we've finished our bread. Back to work."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>That night, after the children were asleep on straw in the cellar down +the road, their parents came back to wander about in the moonlight over +their ravaged little kingdom. The wife said little, drawing her breath +irregularly, keeping a strained grasp on her husband's arm. For the most +part he succeeded in speaking in a steady voice of material plans for +the future,—how he could get some galvanized roofing out of the nearest +trench <i>abri</i>; how he could use the trunks of the felled trees to +strengthen his hastily constructed brick walls, and for roof-beams; what +they could plant in the garden and the field—things which she and the +children could cultivate after he had gone back.</p> + +<p>At this reminder of the inevitable farewell again before them, the wife +broke out in loud wailings, shivering, clutching at him wildly. He drew +her down on a pile of rubbish, put his arms around her, and said in a +peremptory tone: "Paulette! Listen! <i>You are letting the Boches beat +you!</i>" He used to her the tone he used for his squad, his new soldier's +voice which the war had taught him, the tone which carried the laggards +up over the top. At the steel-like ring of it his wife was silent.</p> + +<p>He went on: "There's nothing any of us <i>can</i> do but to go on. The only +thing to do is to go on without making a fuss. That's the motto in the +army, you know. Don't make a fuss." He lifted his head and looked +around at his home dismantled, annihilated. "<i>Not to give up</i>,—that and +the flat-irons are about all the Boches have left us, don't you see?"</p> + +<p>He was silent a moment and went on with his constructive planning. +"Perhaps I can get enough lime sent on from Noyon to really rebuild the +chimney. With that, and a roof, and the garden, and the allocation from +the Government ..."</p> + +<p>"Yes, Pierre," said his wife in a trembling voice. She did not weep +again.</p> + +<p>He himself, however, was not always at this pitch of stoicism. There +were times when he looked up suddenly and felt, as though for the first +time, the downfall and destruction of all that had been his life. At +such moments the wind of madness blew near him. The night after they had +moved from the cellar into the half-roofed, half-walled hut, to sleep +there on the makeshift beds, he lay all night awake, crushed with the +immensity of the effort they would need to put forth and with the +insignificance of any progress made. There came before him the long +catalogue of what they had lost, the little decencies and comforts they +had earned and paid for and owned. He sickened at the squalid expedients +of their present life. They were living like savages; never again would +they attain the self-respecting order which had been ravished from them, +which the ravishers still enjoyed. With all his conscious self he longed +to give up he struggle, but something more than his conscious self was +at work. The tree had been cut down, but something was in the ground, +alive.</p> + +<p>At dawn he found himself getting out of bed, purposefully. To his wife's +question he answered: "I'm going to Noyon to buy the seed for the field. +We haven't half enough corn. And I can get young cabbage plants there, +too, they say. I can make it in six hours if I hurry."</p> + +<p>He was back by ten o'clock, exhausted, but aroused from his waking +nightmare—for that time! But it came again and again.</p> + +<p>On the day he began to spade up the field he noticed that two of his +murdered fruit-trees, attached by a rag of bark to the stumps, were +breaking out into leaf. The sight turned him sick with sorrow, as though +one of his children had smiled at him from her deathbed. He bent over +the tree, his eyes burning, and saw that all the buds were opening +trustfully. His heart was suffocating. He said to himself: "They have +been killed! They are dead! But they do not know they are dead, and they +try to go on living. <i>Are we like that?</i>"</p> + +<p>In an instant all his efforts to reanimate his assassinated life seemed +pitiful, childish, doomed to failure. He looked across the field at the +shapeless, roughly laid brick wall he had begun, and felt a shamed rage. +He was half-minded to rush and kick it down.</p> + +<p>"Papa, come! The peonies have begun to come up in the night. The whole +row of them, where we were raking yesterday."</p> + +<p>The man found his wife already there, bending over the sturdy, reddish, +rounded sprouts pushing strongly through the loosened earth. She looked +up at him with shining eyes. When they were betrothed lovers, they had +together planted those peonies, pieces of old roots from her mother's +garden. "You see," she said again; "I told you what was in the ground +alive they couldn't kill!"</p> + +<p>The man went back to his spading silently, and, as he labored there, a +breath of sovereign healing came up to him from that soil which was his. +The burning in his eyes, the taste of gall in his mouth, he had +forgotten when, two hours later, he called across to his wife that the +ground for the beans was all spaded and that she and Jean-Pierre could +come now with their rakes, while he went back to building the +house-wall.</p> + +<p>But that quick scorching passage through fire was nothing compared with +the hour which waited for him in his garden beside the wall on which the +branches of his pleached trees and vines still spread out their +carefully symmetrical patterns. He had put off caring for them till some +odd moment. He and his wife, glancing at them from time to time, had +made estimates of the amount of fruit they would yield, "and for us this +time—we haven't had a single peach or apple from them. The Boche +officers sent their soldiers to get them always."</p> + +<p>"Queer they should have left those unharmed," said his wife once, and he +had answered: "Perhaps the man they sent to kill them was a gardener +like us. I know I couldn't cut down a fruit-tree in full bearing, not if +it were in hell and belonged to the Kaiser. Anybody who's ever grown +things knows what it is!"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>One gray day of spring rains and pearly mists, the fire would not burn +in the only half-constructed chimney. Paulette crouched beside it, +blowing with all her might, and thinking of the big leathern bellows +which had been carried away to Germany with all the rest. Jean-Pierre +shaved off bits from a dry stick and Berthe fed them under the pot, but +the flame would not brighten. Pierre, coming down, cold and hungry, from +the top of the wall where he had been struggling with a section of roof, +felt physically incapable of going on with that work until he had eaten, +and decided to use the spare half-hour for pruning the pleached trees +and vines. Almost at the end of his strength after the long-continued +strained effort to accomplish the utmost in every moment and every hour, +he shivered from the cold of his wet garments as he stood for a moment, +fumbling to reach the pruning-shears. But he did not give himself the +time to warm his hands at the fire, setting out directly again into the +rain. He had been working at top speed ever since the breakfast, six +hours before, of black coffee and dry bread.</p> + +<p>Sodden with fatigue and a little light-headed from lack of food, he +walked along the wall and picked out the grapevine as the least tiring +to begin on. He knew it so well he could have pruned it in the dark. He +had planted it the year before his marriage, when he had been building +the house and beginning the garden. It had not been an especially fine +specimen, but something about the situation and the soil had exactly +suited it, and it had thriven miraculously. Every spring, with the first +approach of warm weather, he had walked out, in the evening after his +day's work, along the wall to catch the first red bud springing +amazingly to life out of the brown, woody stems which looked so dead. +During the summers as he had sprayed the leaves, and manured the soil +and watered the roots and lifted with an appraising hand the great +purple clusters, heavier day by day, he had come to know every turn of +every branch. In the trenches, during the long periods of silent +inaction, when the men stare before them at sights from their past +lives, sometimes Nidart had looked back at his wife and children, +sometimes at his garden on an early morning in June, sometimes at his +family about the dinner-table in the evening, and sometimes at his great +grapevine, breaking into bud in the spring, or, all luxuriant curving +lines, rich with leafage, green and purple in the splendor of its +September maturity.</p> + +<p>It was another home-coming to approach it now, and his sunken, bloodshot +eyes found rest and comfort in dwelling on its well-remembered +articulations. He noticed that the days of sunshine, and now the soft +spring rain, had started it into budding. He laid his hand on the tough, +knotted, fibrous brown stem.</p> + +<p>It stirred oddly, with a disquieting lightness in his hand. The +sensation was almost as though one of his own bones turned gratingly on +nothing. The sweat broke out on his forehead. He knelt down and took +hold of the stem lower down. The weight of his hand displaced it. It +swung free. It had been severed from the root by a fine saw. The sap was +oozing from the stump.</p> + +<p>The man knelt there in the rain, staring at this, as though he were +paralyzed. He did not know what he was looking at, for a moment, +conscious of nothing but a cold sickness. He got up heavily to his feet, +then, and made his way to the next vine. Its stem gave way also, +swinging loose with the horrible limpness of a broken limb.</p> + +<p>He went to the next, a peach-tree, and to the next, a fine pleached +pear. Everything, everything, peach-trees, apple-trees, grapevines, +everything had been neatly and dextrously murdered, and their corpses +left hanging on the wall as a practical joke.</p> + +<p>The man who had been sent to do that had been a gardener indeed, and had +known where to strike to reach the very heart of this other gardener who +now, his hands over his face, staggered forward and leaned his body +against the wall, against the dead vine which had been so harmless, so +alive. He felt something like an inward bleeding, as though that neat, +fine saw had severed an artery in his own body.</p> + +<p>His wife stepped out in the rain and called him. He heard nothing but +the fine, thin voice of a small saw, eating its way to the heart of +living wood.</p> + +<p>His wife seeing him stand so still, his face against the wall, came out +towards him with an anxious face. "Pierre, Pierre!" she said. She looked +down, saw the severed vine-stem and gave a cry of dismay. "Pierre, they +haven't ... they haven't...!"</p> + +<p>She ran along the wall, touching them one by one, all the well-known, +carefully tended stems. Her anger, her sorrow, her disgust burst from +her in a flood of out-cries, of storming, furious words.</p> + +<p>Her husband did not move. A deathlike cold crept over him. He heard +nothing but the venomous, fine voice of the saw, cutting one by one the +tissues which had taken so long to grow, which had needed so much sun +and rain and heat and cold, and twelve years out of a man's life. He was +sick, sick of it all, mourning not for the lost trees but for his lost +idea of life. That was what people were like, could be like, what one +man could do in cold blood to another—no heat of battle here, no +delirium of excitement, cold, calculated intention! He would give up the +effort to resist, to go on. The killing had been too thoroughly done.</p> + +<p>His wife fell silent, frightened by his stillness. She forgot her own +anger, her grief, she forgot the dead trees. They were as nothing. A +strong, valiant tenderness came into her haggard face. She went up to +him, close, stepping into his silent misery with the secure confidence +only a wife can have in a husband. "Come, Pierre," she said gently, +putting her red, work-scarred hand in his. She drew him away from the +wall, his arms hanging listlessly. She drew him into the sheltered +corner of the room he had half finished. She set hot food before him and +made him eat and drink.</p> + +<p>The rain poured down in a gray wall close before them. The heaped-up +ruins were all around them. Inside the shelter the children ate +greedily, heartily, talking, laughing, quarreling, playing. The fire, +now thoroughly ablaze, flamed brightly beside them. The kettle steamed.</p> + +<p>After a time Nidart's body began slowly to warm. He began to hear the +children's voices, to see his wife dimly. The horror was an hour behind +him. The blessed, blurring passage of the moments clouded thick between +him and the sound of that neat small saw, the sight of that deft-handed +man, coolly and smilingly murdering ...</p> + +<p>He looked at his wife attentively, as she tried to set in order their +little corner saved from chaos. She was putting back on the two shelves +he had made her the wooden forks and spoons which she had cleaned to a +scrupulous whiteness; she was arranging neatly the wretched outfit of +tin cans, receptacles, and formless paper packages which replaced the +shining completeness of her lost kitchen; she was smoothing out the +blankets on their rough camp-beds; she was washing the faces and hands +of the children, of their own children and the little foster-son, the +child of the woman who had given up, who had let herself be beaten, who +had let herself be killed, who had abandoned her baby to be cared for by +another, braver woman.</p> + +<p>A shamed courage began slowly to filter back into his drained and +emptied heart. With an immense effort he got up from the tree-stump +which served for chair and went towards his wife, who was kneeling +before the little child she had saved. He would begin again.</p> + +<p>"Paulette," he said heavily, "I believe that if we could get some +grafting wax at once, we might save those. Why couldn't we cover the +stumps with wax to keep the roots from bleeding to death, till the tops +make real buds, and then graft them on to the stumps? It's too late to +do it properly with dormant scions, but perhaps we might succeed. It +would be quicker than starting all over again. The roots are there, +still."</p> + +<p>He raged as he thought of this poor substitute for his splendid trees, +but he set his teeth. "I could go to Noyon. They must have wax and resin +there in the shops by this time, enough for those few stumps."</p> + +<p>The little boy presented himself imploringly. "Oh, let me go! I could do +it, all right. And you could get on faster with the roof. There aren't +but ten days left, now."</p> + +<p>He set off in the rain, a small brave spot of energy in the midst of +death. His father went back to his house-building.</p> + +<p>The roads were mended now, the convoys of camions rumbled along day +after day, raising clouds of dust; staff-cars flashed by; once in a +while a non-militarized automobile came through, sometimes with +officials of the Government on inspection tours, who distributed +miscellaneous lots of seeds, and once brought Paulette some lengths of +cotton stuff for sheets; sometimes with reporters from the Paris +newspapers; once with some American reporters who took photographs, and +gave some bars of chocolate to the children. Several times people +stopped, foreigners, Americans, English, sometimes women in uniforms, +who asked a great many questions and noted down the answers. Pierre +wondered why those able-bodied young men were not in some army. He had +thought all the able-bodied men in the world were in some army.</p> + +<p>For the most part he found all these people rather futile and +uninteresting, as he had always found city people, and paid little +attention to them, never interrupting his work to talk to them, his +work, his sacred work, for which there remained, only too well known, a +small and smaller number of hours. He took to laboring at night whenever +possible.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>The roof was all on the one tiny room before the date for his return. +The chimney was rebuilt, the garden spaded, raked, and planted. But the +field was not finished. It takes a long time to spade up a whole field. +Pierre worked on it late at night, the moonlight permitting. When his +wife came out to protest, he told her that it was no harder than to +march all night, with knapsack and blanket-roll and gun. She took up +the rake and began to work beside him. Under their tan they were both +very white and drawn, during these last days.</p> + +<p>The day before the last came, and they worked all day in the field, +never lifting their eyes from the soil. But their task was not finished +when night came. Pierre had never been so exacting about the condition +of the ground. It must be fine, fine, without a single clod left to +impede the growth of a single precious seed. This was not work which, +like spading, could be done at night in an uncertain light. When their +eyes, straining through the thickening twilight, could no longer +distinguish the lumps of earth, he gave it up, with a long breath, and, +his rake on his shoulder, little Berthe's hand in his, he crossed the +mended road to the uncomely little shelter which was home.</p> + +<p>Paulette was bending over the fire. She looked up, and he saw that she +had been crying. But she said nothing. Nor did he, going to lean his +rake against the reconstructed wall. He relinquished the implement +reluctantly, and all through the meal kept the feel of it in his hand.</p> + +<p>They were awake when the first glimmer of gray dawn shone through the +empty square which was their window. Pierre dressed hurriedly and taking +his rake went across the road to the field. Paulette blew alive the +coals of last night's fire, and made coffee and carried it across to her +husband with a lump of bread. He stopped work to drink and eat. It was +in the hour before the sunrise. A gray, thin mist clung to the earth. +Through it they looked at each other's pale faces, soberly.</p> + +<p>"You must get the seed in as soon as you can, after I'm gone," said the +husband.</p> + +<p>"Yes," she promised, "we won't lose a minute."</p> + +<p>"And I think you and Jean-Pierre can manage to nail in the window-frame +when it comes. I thought I'd be able to do that myself."</p> + +<p>"Yes, Jean-Pierre and I can do it."</p> + +<p>"You'd better get my kit and everything ready for me to leave," he said, +drinking the last of the coffee and setting his hand again to the rake.</p> + +<p>They had reckoned that he would need to leave the house at ten o'clock +if he were to make the long tramp to Noyon in time for the train. At a +quarter of ten he stopped, and, the rake still tightly held in his hand, +crossed the road. His knapsack, blanket-roll, all the various brown bags +and <i>musettes</i> were waiting for him on the bench hewn from a tree-trunk +before the door. He passed them, went around the little hut, and stepped +into the garden.</p> + +<p>Between the heaped-up lines of rubble, the big rectangle of well-tilled +earth lay clean and brown and level. And on it, up and down, were four, +long, straight lines of pale green. The peas were up. He was to see that +before he went back.</p> + +<p>He stooped over them. Some of them were still bowed double with the +effort of thrusting themselves up against the encumbering earth. He +felt their effort in the muscles of his own back. But others, only a few +hours older, were already straightening themselves blithely to reach up +to the sun and warmth. This also he felt—in his heart. Under the intent +gaze of the gardener, the vigorous little plants seemed to be vibrating +with life. His eyes were filled with it. He turned away and went back to +the open door of the hut. His wife, very pale, stood there, silent. He +heaved up his knapsack, adjusted his blanket-roll and <i>musettes</i>, and +drew a long breath.</p> + +<p>"Good-bye, Paulette," he said, kissing her on both cheeks, the dreadful +long kiss which may be the last.</p> + +<p>"I will—I will take care of things here," she said, her voice dying +away in her throat.</p> + +<p>He kissed his children, he stooped low to kiss the little foster-child. +He looked once more across at the field, not yet seeded. Then he started +back to the trenches.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>He had gone but a few steps when he stopped short and came back +hurriedly. The rake was still in his hand. He had forgotten his gun.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="VIGNETTES_FROM_LIFE_AT_THE_REAR" id="VIGNETTES_FROM_LIFE_AT_THE_REAR"></a>VIGNETTES FROM LIFE AT THE REAR</h2> + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>I was tucking the children into bed after their bath, my rosy, romping, +noisy children, when "le soldat Deschamps" was announced. Deschamps is +the man from the north of France, who had been a coal-miner before the +war, the man whose wife and little boy are still "up there," the man who +has not seen his family since he kissed them the fourth of August three +years ago.</p> + +<p>A veil seemed to drop between me and the faces of my rosy, romping, +noisy children....</p> + +<p>I went slowly along the hall to our living-room. Yes there he was, poor +Deschamps, the big, powerfully built fellow, a little thinner, a little +more gaunt, a little whiter than when I had seen him last, although that +was only a week ago. He rose up, very tall in his worn gray-blue +uniform, not so neatly brushed as it had been, and put out a flaccid +hand. "Bonsoir, madame ... excuse me for coming again so soon. I know I +ought not to take your time. But when we are allowed to go out ... where +shall I go? I know so few people in Paris" ... as though one would not +be willing to give time when there is so tragically nothing else to give +him!</p> + +<p>I say something cordial, take up my sewing, and settle myself for what I +know is coming. Poor Deschamps! He needs only a word or two of sympathy +when out he pours it all in a rush, the heartsick desolation of the +uprooted exile, the disintegrating misery of the home-loving man without +a home. Of late, alas! it does not come out very coherently. "You see, +madame, we were so well off there. What could a man ask for more? My day +in the mine began at four in the morning, but I was free at two in the +afternoon, and I am very strong, as you see, so that I could go on +working out of doors as long as the daylight lasted. We had our own +house paid for, our own! And a big, big garden. I earned ten francs a +day cash in the mines, and we almost lived out of our garden, so we were +saving all the time. Our boy was to have a good schooling. Perhaps, we +thought, he might be like Pasteur. You know his father was a simple +tanner. My wife never had to work for others, never! She could stay +there and have everything clean and pleasant and take care of the boy. +We were so happy and always well.... We both worked in the garden, and +people who garden are never sick. And always contented. And our +garden ... you ought to see it ... all the potatoes we could eat I raised +there, and early ones too! And all the cabbages and some to sell. The +coal company sold us cheap all the manure we wanted from their stables, +and I could make the land as rich, as rich! Such early vegetables! +Better than any you can buy in the towns. And the winter ones ... you +should see how we protect our cabbages in the winter...."</p> + +<p>The monologue has carried the big fellow out of his chair now. He is +grasping an imaginary spade, a heap of imaginary cabbages by his side. +"So ... we sprinkle sand first, and then cabbages all laid so ... you +understand...." The voice goes on and on, almost the voice of a person +hypnotized.</p> + +<p>I lose my perception of what he is saying as I gaze at his sunken eyes +fixed on homely, much-loved scenes I cannot see.</p> + +<p>"The best place for the carrots was the sloping bit of ground near the +big oak...." He sees it, his big oak, there before him. He makes me see +it, and what it meant to him. This was the man whom the twentieth +century forced to march away, to kill, and be killed.</p> + +<p>"... And little Raoul used to help; yes, with his little hands he would +pat down the sand and laugh to see his finger-marks."</p> + +<p>The voice stops abruptly. In the resultant silence I move uneasily.... I +find Deschamps' talk heartbreaking enough, but his silences terrify me. +I try to arouse him from his bleak brooding reverie....</p> + +<p>"You had hares too, didn't you, and hens, and a pig...? That must have +helped out with the living."</p> + +<p>He comes to himself with a start. "Oh, it was my wife who kept the +animals. She has such a hand for making them thrive. They were like her +other children. Those little chicks, they never died, always prospered, +grew so fat. We always had one or two to sell when she went to town to +market. Angèle used to dress them herself, so that we could have the +feathers. Then she put them in one of the neat baskets she made from the +willow sprouts on the side of our little stream, with a clean white +cloth over them, as clean as her neckerchief. Angèle is as neat as a +nun, always. Our house shone with cleanness ..." He breaks off abruptly. +"I have shown you the photograph of Angèle and Raoul, haven't I, +madame?"</p> + +<p>I hold out my hand and gaze again, as I have so many times before, into +the quiet eyes of the young peasant woman with the sturdy little boy at +her side. "She is very pretty, your wife," I say, "and your little boy +looks so strong and vigorous."</p> + +<p>"I hear," he said with a great heave of his broad chest, now so sunken, +"that the Boches have taken all the livestock away from the owners, all +the hens and pigs and hares, and sent them to Germany. Perhaps Raoul and +Angèle have not enough to eat ... perhaps there is even no house there +now ... a cousin of mine saw a refugee from his own region ... who had +seen the place where his house had been!... it had been shelled, there +was ..." His mouth sets hard in an angry line of horror.</p> + +<p>I bestir myself. This is the sort of talk Deschamps must not be allowed.</p> + +<p>"M. Deschamps," I say, "I shall be writing soon to that group of +American friends who gave the money for your articulated arm. Have you +any message to send them? I think they are planning to send some more +money to help you...."</p> + +<p>He waves it away with a great gesture. "Money can't do anything for me," +he says bitterly, adding quickly: "Not of course that I am not very, +very grateful for the so-costly artificial arm. It means I can earn +their living again, if ever Angèle...."</p> + +<p>I break in once more: "But I promised them a statement of all your case, +you know, the dates and places and everything. Could you just run over +them again...?"</p> + +<p>But I do not listen as he goes wearily over the old story as familiar to +me now as to him: mobilized the first day, was in the Battle of the +Marne, advanced to B——, was wounded there in the leg, taken to a +hospital in an American ambulance, cured, returned to the trenches; +wounded in the shoulder, taken to the hospital, cured, returned to the +trenches ... all this time with no news whatever from his family, +knowing that his region was occupied by the invaders, hearing stories of +how the women and children were treated.... Fought during the winter of +1914-15, wounded in three places in June, 1915, taken to the hospital +where his arm was amputated. While there, heard indirectly that his wife +and child were still alive. As soon as the articulated arm (paid for out +of my blessed fund of American money) allowed him to work, he had begun +to learn the tinner's trade, since a one-armed man could no longer be a +miner. Now he had passed his apprenticeship and could soon be ready to +earn his living.</p> + +<p>I knew all this laborious, heroic, commonplace story already, and looked +through it at the hospital pallor on the haggard face, at the dreadful +soft whiteness of the hands so obviously meant to be hard and brown, at +the slack looseness of the great frame, at a man on the point of losing +his desire to live....</p> + +<p>"What use is it to earn money when not a cent can I send to them up +there, when I can hear nothing from Angèle beyond that line on a +post-card once in three months? Madame, you have education, <i>why</i> will +they not allow a wife to write to her husband?"</p> + +<p>I have only the old answer to the old question: "We suppose they are +afraid of spies, of people sending information to France."</p> + +<p>"But why do they <i>keep</i> Angèle there? Why don't they let women go to +their husbands? What harm can that do? Why do they make it a hell on +earth for them and then refuse to let them go?"</p> + +<p>I had for this only the usual murmur: "A few <i>are</i> allowed to come +away."</p> + +<p>He struck his hands together. "So few! When they last said they would +allow some women and children to come to France, only a fifteenth part +of those who asked for leave were allowed to come. Why? Why? What has +Angèle to do with the war?"</p> + +<p>He gets up for the restless pacing about our little living-room which +always ends his visits. "I think I shall go mad, madame. I am there in +the hospital, two hundred of us in one great room ... oh, they are kind +enough to us, we have enough to eat. But we are not children. It is not +enough to have food and a roof. Two hundred men there ... what a +life ... for fourteen months! Nothing to work for, nothing to live for, +no home, no family, not even a chance to go back to the trenches. The +other men drink as much as they can get money for. I never drank in my +life. Madame, do you suppose it would make me sleep to drink?"</p> + +<p>"See here, M. Deschamps," I say, moving to my desk, "I will write again +to the Spanish Embassy. I will tell them again about Angèle and Raoul, +they will send the request to the German authorities in your town ... +perhaps <i>this</i> time ..." It is a perilous stimulant to administer to a +sick heart, but what other have I? So I sit, swallowing the lump in my +throat, and once more make out the application which never has any +result.</p> + +<p>"There," I say, putting it into an envelope with hands that are not very +steady—"there, my friend, you mail that. And now you must go, or the +night-nurse will scold you for being late."</p> + +<p>He reaches for his cap, his old shabby cap with the bullet hole through +it, and stands fumbling with it, his head hanging. He towers above me, +gaunt, powerful, as pitiably defenseless as any little child. I wink +back the tears which threaten to come, shake his hand hard, and tell him +to be sure to come again the next time he has the "<i>cafard</i>". He nods +absently and shuffles to the door. "You will pardon me, madame ... but +when I think that my little Raoul has perhaps not enough to eat, and I +am not ..."</p> + +<p>He has gone his lonely way to the hospital bed which is all he has for +home. I go back to the cool dark bedroom and look down at my sleeping +children.</p> + +<p>There is no reason for it ... why should I feel guilty to see them rosy +and safe?</p> + + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>When I come in from the street, very tired, after a talk with a +war-widow about ways and means for taking care of her children, I find +him in the living-room, the hearty, broad-faced fellow, smiling, giving +me his great, farm-laborer's hand, thanking me for the last package of +goodies ... as though he had not just come through the inferno of the +attack at M——. "The package never arrived at a better moment," he said +gaily. "We had been on awfully short rations for three days ... in a +shell-hole, you know." I know that I do not know it all, but it is +futile to try to draw fine distinctions with Groissard, cheeriest and +simplest of "permissionnaires," always the same, always open-faced and +clear-eyed, always emanating quiet confidence and always seeing it about +him. If there are any tired or disheartened or apprehensive or perplexed +soldiers in the army, they pass unperceived of Groissard's honest eyes. +His companions are all ... to hear him talk ... as brave, as untroubled, +as single-hearted as he. They never complain—that is, if Groissard's +account of them is accurate: they think as little as possible about +anything but food and packages from the rear and jokes. And when they do +think, it is always only to be sure that everybody must hold hard and +stick it out quite to the end. As long as "they" are on French soil, of +course there is nothing else for an honest Frenchman to do. And they are +all honest Frenchmen around Groissard.</p> + +<p>"Oh yes, madame," he says simply, balancing my little boy on his knee, +"the spirit of the army is excellent. Why shouldn't it be? We're going +to get them, you know. And you ought to see our regimental fireless +cookers now. They're great! The cooks fill them up at the kitchen at the +rear, quite out of range, you know, where there's no danger of a shell +upsetting the pots, and then the men bring the big fireless cookers up +on mitrailleuse carriages that can go anywhere. They worm their way +clear up to us in the first-line trenches, and our ragoût is piping hot. +It's like sitting down to the table at the farm at home. There's nothing +so good for the spirit of an army as hot <i>rasta</i>. And your packages, the +packages madame sends with the money from her American friends ... why, +the days when they come it's like being a kid again, and having a +birthday! And then we get two days out of five for rest at the rear, you +know, except when there is a <i>very</i> big attack going on. We're not so +badly off at all!"</p> + +<p>"During those big attacks aren't you sometimes cut off from food +supplies?" I ask.</p> + +<p>"Oh, not so often. The longest one was three days and four nights, and +we had our emergency rations for half that time." He tosses my fat +little son up in the air and catches him deftly in his great farm +laborer's hands, butcher's hands. The children adore Groissard, and his +furloughs are festivals for them. As for me, I have an endless curiosity +about him. I can never be done with questioning him, with trying to find +out what is underneath his good-natured acceptance of the present insane +scheme of the universe; I sometimes descend to banalities, the foolish +questions schoolgirls ask. I lower my voice: "Groissard, did you +ever—have you ever had to ... I don't mean firing off your rifle at a +distant crowd, I mean in close quarters...?"</p> + +<p>"Have I killed many Boches, you mean, madame?" he breaks through my +mincing, twentieth-century false-modesty about naming a fact I +accept ... since I accept Groissard! "Oh yes, a good many. We fought all +over Mort-Homme, you know; and we were in the last attack on Hill 304. +There was a good deal of hand-to-hand work there, of course." He turns +the delighted baby upside down and right-side up, and smiles sunnily at +the resultant shrieks of mirth.</p> + +<p>I try again: "Do you see many prisoners, Groissard?" He is always ready +to answer questions, although he cannot understand my interest in such +commonplace details.</p> + +<p>"Yes indeed, madame, ever so many. Just the day before this 'permission' +began, day before yesterday it was, we brought in a squad of twenty +from a short section of trench we had taken. I'm not likely to forget +them for <i>one</i> while! Our cook, who is from the South and loses his head +easily, went and cooked up for them at three o'clock in the afternoon +every last beefsteak we were going to have for dinner that night. We +didn't have a thing but beans left! But we didn't grumble very much, +either. They were the coldest, hungriest-looking lot you ever saw. It +did your heart good to see the way they got around those beefsteaks!"</p> + +<p>I gaze at him baffled. "But, Groissard, you kill them. You are there to +kill them! What can you care whether they have beefsteaks or not."</p> + +<p>He stops playing with the baby to look at me, round-eyed with +astonishment. "I'm not there to kill <i>prisoners</i>!" he says, with an +unanswerable simplicity. And I lose myself again in a maze of conjecture +and speculation.</p> + + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>"Oh, it's got to stop, that's all; it's too sickening, too imbecile, too +monstrous!"</p> + +<p>It is the <i>brancardier</i> talking, the one who had been a prosperous +sugar-broker before the war, and who has been a first-line +stretcher-carrier since the beginning of the war. If you think you have +any idea what it has meant to be first-line stretcher-carrier for three +years, you have only to hear Paul Arbagnan talk for five minutes to +guess at the extent of your ignorance. He is just back from the front, +on a twenty-four hours' furlough, granted after a terrible fortnight +under incessant fire. He sits in the midst of our family group, beside +his older brother, the despatch-carrier, also here "<i>en permission</i>." +The brother was before the war a professor of political economy. From +the worn blue uniforms of both brothers swings the <i>croix de guerre</i> +gloriously. The younger one's face is thin and very brown, his blue eyes +look out at us with an irritable flicker. The mud dried on his clumsy +boots crumbles off in great flakes on my polished floor. His hard, grimy +hand with broken nails (which had been so fine and well-kept before the +war) teases and pulls at his close-clipped hair, now as grizzled with +silver as that of a man twenty years his senior.</p> + +<p>A harmless elderly relative murmurs something sentimental about the mud +on the floor being sacred earth, like that the Crusaders brought back +from Jerusalem, and the inevitable explosion takes place. "Oh, you +people at the rear, your silly chatter about heroism and holy causes! +You don't know what you are talking about. There ought to be a law to +make all the civilian population keep silence about the war. You have no +idea, not the faintest glimmering of a notion of what life is at the +front! If you <i>had</i>...! My <i>croix de guerre</i>! Don't you suppose I would +give it back ten times over if I could forget what I feel deliberately +to leave a mortally wounded man to die because I have orders to select +(if my stretcher has not room enough for all) only those who may get +well enough to go back and fight again. Without having known what it is, +you've no right to say a word, to have an opinion or a thought about it, +you safe, clean, soft, gossiping people at the rear! The dirt ...! Why, +the bath I had this morning here in Paris was the first time I have +taken my clothes off, except to hunt for vermin, for twenty-two days. Do +you know what your body is like, what your clothes are like, what your +socks are like, when you have lived and cooked and sweat and slept and +bled in them for twenty-two days? Of course you don't. No civilized +being does. And until you do, less talk from you about the heroism of +the soldier! Filth, that's what war is, and dirty diseases lying in wait +for decent men. And cold, cold day and night, cold that brutalizes, that +degenerates you till you would sell your soul, your mother's soul to be +warm again. And mud, not clean country mud, but filth, and up to your +eyes and beyond, horrible infected mud splashing upon the emergency +bandage you are trying to put on a wound. And the wounded ... see here, +when the newspapers speak complacently of the superb artillery +preparation which after three days of cannon-duel silences the enemy's +batteries, do you know what that means to me? It means I am squatting +all day in an underground shelter, with twenty wounded, the German +shells falling one a minute over my head, my supplies of bandages gone, +my anæsthetics gone, no cotton, not even a cup of water left. To see +them die there, begging for help, calling for their mothers ... to +crouch there helpless, all day long, hearing the shells falling, and +wondering which one will come through the roof—oh, you have plenty of +time to think the whole proposition over, the business you're in. You +have time, let me tell you, to have your own opinion of the imbecility +of setting one highly civilized man down in filth and degradation to +shoot at others. When some idiot of a journalist, reporting the war, +speaks of the warlike ardor of the men, how it is difficult to restrain +them until the order to charge is given ... when we read such paragraphs +in the papers ... if you could hear the snarl that goes up! We 'charge' +when the word of command is given, yes, because we know nothing better +to do, but ..."</p> + +<p>The sentimental aunt breaks in resolutely: "Of course, it's very noble +of you, Paul; the fact is simply that you don't or won't recognize your +own courage."</p> + +<p>"Courage, nonsense! A rat in a hole, surrounded by other rats +putrefying ... that's what I am in my underground shelter! What else can +I do? What else can we any of us do? We can't get away! There wouldn't be +anywhere to go if we did! But when I think of the people at the rear, how +they don't know, will never know, the sickening hours the troops live +through. See here! No sensitive, civilized being can forget it if he has +only <i>once</i> been wholly filthy, wholly bestial ... and we have been +that, time without number. When I come back to Paris on furlough and +look at the crowds in the Paris streets, the old men with white collars, +and clean skins, the women with curled hair and silk stockings, I could +<i>kill</i> them, when I think that they will have a voice in the future, +will affect what will be done hereafter about war ..."</p> + +<p>"Time for your train, Paul," warns the elder brother soberly.</p> + +<p>The man who had been reviling the life of a soldier springs instantly to +his feet and looks anxiously at his watch. He claps on his blue steel +casque.</p> + +<p>We try to give a light touch to the last of his stay. "How medieval +those helmets make you look!"</p> + +<p>He is not to be distracted. "Put it further back, stone-age, +cannibalistic," he cries bitterly, marching out hurriedly so that he may +be promptly at his task.</p> + +<p>The elder brother comes back from the door, a dim, patient smile on his +lips. "Oh, Paul, poor boy! He takes it hard! He takes it hard!" he +murmurs. "Who would think to hear him that he is accounted the best +<i>brancardier</i> in his section? He is the one always sent out to do the +impossible, and he always goes, silently, and does it. After this last +engagement, he had shown such <i>bravoure</i>, they wanted to have him cited +again, to give him the palms to wear above his <i>croix</i>. But he said he +had had his share, that others had done as much as he, and he persuaded +them to give the <i>croix</i> to one of the other <i>brancardiers</i>, a stevedore +from Marseilles who can't read or write. You are perhaps not surprised +to know that he is adored by his comrades."</p> + +<p>"But is it <i>true</i> ... all he says?" I ask, shivering a little.</p> + +<p>"Oh yes, true enough, and more than he says or any one can ever say. +But, but ..." He searches for a metaphor and finds it with a smile. +"See, Paul is like a man with a fearful toothache! He can't think of +anything else. But that doesn't mean there isn't anything else."</p> + +<p>I ask him: "But you, who have been through all that Paul sees, what do +<i>you</i> find, besides?" He hesitates, smiling no longer, and finally +brings out in a low tone: "When a mother gives birth to a child, she +suffers, suffers horribly. Perhaps all the world is now trying to give +birth to a new idea, which we have talked of, but never <i>felt</i> before; +the idea that all of us, each of us, is responsible for what happens to +all, to each, that we must stick together for good...." He picks up his +steel helmet, and looks at us with his dim, patient, indomitable smile. +"It is like a little new baby in more ways than one, that new idea. It +has cost us such agony; and it is so small, so weak, so needing all our +protection ... and then also, because ..." his sunken eyes are +prophetic, "because it is <i>alive</i>, because it will grow!"</p> + + +<h3>IV</h3> + +<p>I glance at my calendar in dismay. Is it possible that three months have +gone, and that it is time for Amieux to have another "permission"? How +long the week of his furlough always seems, how the three months between +race away! Of course we have the greatest regard for Amieux. We feel +that his uniform alone (he is a <i>chasseur alpin</i> who has been a +first-line fighter since the Battle of the Marne) would entitle him to +our services, but more than that, his personality commands our respect, +sound, steady, quiet Amieux whose sturdy body is wounded in one place +after another, who is repaired hastily in the nearest hospital and +uncomplainingly goes back to the trenches, his sleeve decorated with +another one of the V-shaped marks which denote wounds. The only trouble +with Amieux as a household hero is a total dearth of subjects of +conversation. You see, he is a glass-blower by profession. We often feel +that if we were not as ignorant of glass-blowing as Amieux is of +everything else, we could get on famously with him. As it is ...</p> + +<p>"<i>Oh bon jour</i>, M. Amieux," I say, jumping to my feet, "welcome back to +the rear! All well?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, madame," he says with as ponderous an emphasis on the full-stop as +that of any taciturn New England farmer.</p> + +<p>"Well, has it been hard, the last three months?" I ask.</p> + +<p>"No, madame."</p> + +<p>I draw a long breath.</p> + +<p>"Do the packages we send, the chocolate, the cigarettes, the soap—do +they reach you promptly?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, madame. Thank you, madame."</p> + +<p>The full-stop is more overpowering with each answer.</p> + +<p>I resort to more chatter, anything to fill that resounding silence. +"Here we have been so busy! So many more American volunteers are coming +over for the Ambulance service, my husband has not a free moment. The +children never see him. My little daughter is doing well in school. She +begins to read French now. Of course the little son doesn't go to +school, but he is learning to speak French like a French baby. It has +been so cold here. There has been so little coal. You must have heard, +the long lines waiting to get coal ..." I stop with almost a shrug of +exasperation. As well talk to a basalt statue as to Amieux, impassive, +his rough red hands on his knees, his <i>musette</i> swollen with all the +miscellaneous junk the poilu stuffs into that nondescript receptacle, +his cap still firmly on his head ... formal manners are not specialties +of Amieux. And then I notice that one leg is thrust out, very stiff and +straight, and has a big bulbous swelling which speaks of a bandage under +the puttees.</p> + +<p>I glance at it. "Rheumatism? Too much water in the trenches?"</p> + +<p>He looks down at it without a flicker on his face. "No, madame, a +wound."</p> + +<p>"Really? How did it happen this time?"</p> + +<p>He looks faintly bored. They always hate to tell how they were wounded. +"Oh, no particular way. A shell had smashed up an <i>abri</i>, and while I +was trying to pull my captain out from under the timbers another shell +exploded near by."</p> + +<p>"Did you save the captain?"</p> + +<p>"Oh yes. He was banged up around the head. He's all right now."</p> + +<p>"Were you there with him? How did it happen you weren't buried under the +wreck too?"</p> + +<p>"I wasn't there. I was in a trench. But I saw. I knew he was there."</p> + +<p>I am so used to Amieux's conversational style that I manage even through +this arid narration to see what had happened. "Do you mean to say that +you left the trench and went out under shell-fire to rescue your +captain! And they didn't give you a decoration! It's outrageous not +recognizing such bravery!"</p> + +<p>He shuffles his feet and looks foolish. "The captain wanted to have me +cited all right. He's a <i>chic type</i>, but I said he'd better not."</p> + +<p>"Don't you want the <i>croix de guerre</i>?" I cry, astounded at such apathy +even from Amieux.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I wouldn't mind. It's my mother."</p> + +<p>"Don't you suppose your mother would <i>love</i> to have her son decorated?" +I feel there must be some absurd misunderstanding between us, the man +seems to be talking such nonsense.</p> + +<p>"Well, you see, my mother ... my only brother was killed last winter. +<i>Maman</i> worries a good deal about me, and I told her, just so she could +sleep quietly, you know, I have told her my company isn't near the front +at all. I said we were guarding a munitions depot at the rear."</p> + +<p>"Well ..." I am still at a loss.</p> + +<p>"Well, don't you see, if I get the <i>croix de guerre</i> for being under +fire, <i>maman</i> would get to worrying again. So I told my captain I'd +rather he'd give it to one of the other fellows."</p> + + +<h3>V</h3> + +<p>I had just come from several hours spent with one of the war-blind, one +of those among the educated, unresigned war-blind, who see too clearly +with the eyes of their intelligence what has happened to them. I had +been with him, looking into his sightless face, pitting my strength +against the bitterness of his voice; and I was tired, tired to the +marrow of my bones, to the tip of every nerve.</p> + +<p>But the children had not been out for their walk and the day was that +rare thing in a Paris March, a sunshiny one, not to be wasted. "Come, +dears," I told them as I entered the apartment, "get on your wraps. +We'll all go out for a play while the sun is still high."</p> + +<p>I walked along the street between them, my little daughter and my little +son, their warm soft hands in mine. The sparrows chattered in the bare +trees above us, the sparrows who even in this keen air felt the coming +of spring which was foretold by the greening of the grass in the public +squares. My children chattered incessantly, like the sparrows. Perhaps +they felt the spring too. <i>I</i> did not want to feel the spring. We turned +away from the Seine and walked on one side of the open square before +Notre Dame.</p> + +<p>"Mother, I caught my ball twenty-three times to-day without missing."</p> + +<p>"Muvver, I see a white horse, a <i>big</i> white horsie!"</p> + +<p>"Mother, do you like arithmetic as well as history? <i>I</i> don't."</p> + +<p>"Muvver, I have a little p'tend doggie here, trotting after me, a little +brown p'tend doggie."</p> + +<p>"Mother, O <i>mother</i>, let me tell you what happened at school to-day, +during recess!"</p> + +<p>Through the half-heard ripple of clear little voices, there came upon me +one of those thunder-claps of realization which, since the beginning of +the war, have brought wiser and stronger people than I to the brink of +insanity—realization for an instant (longer than an instant would carry +any one over the brink) that the war is really going on, realization of +what the war really means, one glimpse of the black abyss. I felt very +sick, and stood still for an instant, because my knees shook under +me....</p> + +<p>But those wiser and stronger ones had not little children of their own +to draw them away from that black gulf.... I was pulled at by impatient +little hands, lucid, ineffably pure eyes were turned up to mine, the +clear little voices grew louder, "Muvver, muvver, I'm losing my mitten!"</p> + +<p>"Mother, why are you standing still? <i>This</i> isn't a good place to play! +There! A little nearer the big church is some sand. And a bench for +you."</p> + +<p>How could I go on this everyday commonplace life, eating, drinking, +sleeping, caring for the children, cheering them ... in such a wicked +and imbecile world! I looked up and down the bare, sun-flooded square. +All about me were other women, caring for little children. And for the +most part, those other women were in mourning. But they were there under +that cruel, careless sunshine, caring for their children, cheering +them....</p> + +<p>I put the little mitten on; I walked forward to the bench, the little +singing voices died away to a ripple again. "Oh, this is fine! See, +little brother, here is a cave already. Let me have that stick!" "No, +me! <i>Me!</i>"</p> + +<p>That was what was sounding in my ears. But what I heard was a muffled +voice saying scornfully: "Re-education ... courage, taking up our lives +again ... oh yes, whatever you please to imagine to distract our +attention! But we are finished men, done for ... lost!"</p> + +<p>My children played before me in the sunshine, but what I saw were the +scarred, mutilated, sightless faces of young men in their prime, with +long lives of darkness before them. And as I sat there, then, that +instant, other young men in their prime were being blinded, were being +mutilated for life.</p> + +<p>My fatigue deepened till it was like lead upon me. Under it I was cold. +The sun did not warm me. It fell like a mockery upon a race gone mad, +upon a world bankrupt in hope. Yes, what we suffered was not the worst, +not even what <i>they</i> suffered, the men at the front; what was worst was +the fact that the meaning of it all was hopelessness, was the end, a +black end to all we had looked forward to, striven for ... paralysis, +death in life. And an indifferent sun shining down on it, as it had on +our illusions.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>After a time the children tired of sand. "Mother, mayn't we go in the +big church? You never have taken us inside. What does it look like?"</p> + +<p>Their restless upspringing life thrust my paralysis aside as an +upspringing young tree cleaves the boulder which would hamper it. We +pushed open the heavy leather door and stepped into the huge cavern, our +eyes so full of the glare of the sunshine that, as we walked forward up +the nave, we could see nothing but velvety darkness, faintly scented +with mold and incense.</p> + +<p>The silence was so intense that I could hear my sore, angry heart +beating furiously in my breast....</p> + +<p>Further along before us, where rich-colored patches lay, on the stone +pavement, there was the light from the great rose-windows.... We stood +there now, our eyes slowly clearing, the blackness slowly fading out +into twilight, to a sweet, clear translucent dimness which hid nothing.</p> + +<p>Silence, long, shadowy veiled aisles, hushed immensity ...</p> + +<p>A great calm hand seemed laid on my shoulder, so that my fever sank, my +pulses were quieted. I stood motionless, feeling slowly pulsating +through me a vaster rhythm than the throbbing irregularity of my own +doubting heart. A great soundless benediction was breathed upon me out +of the man-wrought beauty around and above me.</p> + +<p>Up, up, up, I raised my eyes, following the soaring of the many-columned +pillars, and something in my heart burst its leaden bonds and soared up +out of my breast....</p> + +<p>Yes, here was beauty, here was that beauty I had forgotten and +denied ... <i>and men had made it</i>! It had nothing to do with the glare +of the indifferent sun, with the callous face of our calamity. Men had +made this beauty, imperfect, warring, doubting, suffering, sinning men +had upreared this perfect creation. They had created this beauty out of +their faith in righteousness, and they would again create other beauty, +out of other manifestations of righteousness, long after this war was a +forgotten nightmare....</p> + +<p>"What is that shining on your face, mother?"</p> + +<p>I put my hand up. My cheeks are wet. "Tears, dear."</p> + +<p>"O mother, why do you cry?"</p> + +<p>"Because I am very happy, my darling."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="A_FAIR_EXCHANGE" id="A_FAIR_EXCHANGE"></a>A FAIR EXCHANGE</h2> + + +<p>The energetic, well-dressed man who walked so quickly in spite of his +gray hair was quite out of breath from the unusual experience of +mounting stairs on foot, when he stepped into the anteroom. There he +looked about him with a keenly observant eye. The room had obviously not +been intended as the entrance to modern offices. Its dingy, paneled +walls and darkened carved ceiling dated at least from the time when the +ancestors of the newcomer were hunting Indians in the untracked forests +of Massachusetts. It was a forlorn cheerless apology for a convenient, +well-equipped business waiting-room. And yet the intelligent, keen eyes +now looking at it saw in it ... what? Something he could not analyze, +something he tried to express. "What the devil is it about their little +old holes...?" he asked himself with the fresh vivid curiosity which was +his habit about phenomena new to him.</p> + +<p>A one-armed young soldier, in a worn blue uniform, with a patch over one +eye, rose up from the cane-bottomed chair, took from the white-pine +table a small pad of paper and held it out to the newcomer sketching a +bow. The older man looked the other way sedulously. He was a very +tender-hearted person (except of course for his business competitors) +and the constant sight of the maimed wreckage of young manhood made him +sick.</p> + +<p>On the pad of paper was printed "Nom du Visiteur," with a blank +following it, and, underneath, "Objet du la visite." Mr. Hale's French +was limited, but he made out that he was to write down who he was and +what his business was, and generously he admired the little detail of +office administration which he had never happened to see in an American +business office. "That beats sending in a message by the office-boy, all +right!" he thought to himself as he wrote. "They are funny people! Just +when you get absolute proof that they can't do business any more than a +sick cat, you run into something that makes you wonder."</p> + +<p>He had written on the pad "Randolph Metcalf Hale, President of the +Illinois Association of Druggists," and, underneath that, "On business +connected with closer commercial relations of France and the United +States." As he handed the slip of paper back to the young soldier he +thought, "I might about as well get a rubber stamp for that last, and +save writing it over so often."</p> + +<p>The uniformed messenger limped out of the room. "Oh Lord! and a wooden +leg, along with only one eye and one arm," thought Mr. Hale, wincing at +the too familiar sound of the halting gait. He thrust his hands deep +into his pockets and stood meditatively looking down at his own +vigorous, well-clad legs.</p> + +<p>The soldier came back and motioned the visitor to follow him. They went +along a narrow corridor with occasional steps up and other steps down, +with large old windows looking out through time-dimmed panes upon a +stone-paved court with an old gray stone fountain. The American shook +his head. "Never anything new! Always cutting their clothes out of their +grand-father's left-overs and sewing them up by hand; that's it, +everything hand-made!"</p> + +<p>He was ushered into an office where a man of about his own age, with a +black beard, streaked with white, rose up and came towards him with +outstretched hand.</p> + +<p>"Ninth to-day," noted the American mentally. He amused himself by +keeping statistics on the fabulous amount of handshaking accomplished in +French business life.</p> + +<p>Then he explained his presence. Partly because he accounted it a crime +to take longer than necessary to state your business, and partly because +he had stated it so many times, he packed a succinct account of himself +into comparatively few phrases.</p> + +<p>"Like almost everybody else in America, Monsieur Portier, I want to help +make up to France for the way she's been having the rough end of all +this war. But everybody does best at his own sort of help; and I didn't +come over for reconstructing villages or taking care of refugees. That +sort of work's got to be done, of course, but there are a lot of our own +folks at that already. Anyhow, not knowing your language, or your folks, +I'd make a poor job of trying to fix up their personal lives. That's not +my specialty. But I <i>have</i> a specialty, and that's the American toilet +preparations business. And it occurred to me out there in Evanston that +perhaps getting American business along my line joined up closer with +French business would be as good a turn as I could do for France. After +all, though it does give you the horrors to see the poor boys with their +legs and arms shot off, that doesn't last but one generation. But +<i>business</i> now ... all the future is there!" His eye kindled. He had +evidently pronounced his <i>credo</i>. The attentive Frenchman behind the +desk nodded, acquiescing in carefully accurate English: "Precisely, Mr. +Hale. You had the very same idea which induced my Government to organize +this committee of which I am secretary. I am more than at your +disposition."</p> + +<p>"I know it," said the American without further expression of gratitude +than this recognition, "and that's why I'm here. I've got to a place +where I need some help. It's this way. I've done a lot of straight +business, I mean paying business. And I've managed that all right. I've +got the rails laid for our sending over drug specialties you don't have +here and for shipping to the States the toilet preparations specialties +I find here. But now I'm here I want to do <i>more</i> than just regular +business. Now that I <i>see</i> your country and take in what the war's been, +and think what you've been up against ... well, Monsieur Portier, I tell +you I want to <i>do</i> something for France!"</p> + +<p>He said this with a simple, heartfelt sincerity which moved the +Frenchman to lean from his chair and give him a silent handshake of +appreciation. The American forgot to add this to his total for the day, +going on earnestly with his story: "And so, I keep my eyes open all the +time for little good turns I can do. I don't mean charity ... honestly, +I think that does about as much harm as good, though of course we have +to go through the motions in a time like this. I mean business good +turns, such as I'd like to have anybody do me, look at my concern with a +fresh eye and tell me how I could make it better, or else tell me where +I could find a bigger market. You understand? Like that. Now I've been +doing business with a big chemical factory out in the country near +Paris. The nearest place to it, for me, is Versailles ... maybe you +happen to know Versailles?"</p> + +<p>The Frenchman nodded gravely. Yes, he had a married sister living in +Versailles. "Well, there's a little drug-store out there, one of these +peaceful, sleepy-looking, home-and-mother French drug-stores, with a big +cat dozing in the window, and somebody in a white apron putting up pills +behind the counter, and so far as anybody from <i>my</i> part of the world +can see, not enough business doing from one week's end to another, to +buy a postage-stamp."</p> + +<p>The Frenchman laughed. "Oh, it's a very good business in France being a +<i>pharmacien</i>."</p> + +<p>"That's what everybody tells me, and that's what gets me. <i>One</i> of the +things that gets me! In <i>our</i> country when there is any business being +done you hear the wheels going 'round.' I can't get used to this smooth +European way of doing it and not letting on. Well, my main interest in +life being the toilet preparations business I hardly ever go by one +without stopping in. You never know when you're going to run onto +something worthwhile. Well, out there in Versailles, I certainly did. I +ran onto a genius. Yes, sir, that's not too much to say; a genius! Any +man who can make a cold cream like that ..."</p> + +<p>He interrupted himself to ask: "You don't happen to be up on cold cream? +No? It's a pity, because you can't appreciate what that man is doing. By +George, I never saw anything like it, and I've dealt in cold creams for +thirty years! It's got anything in America beaten a mile! The two great +faults of cold cream, you see, are being greasy and being crumbly. This +isn't either. And it keeps! He showed me some he'd had for four years in +a pot, with just a flat earthenware lid laid on top, and you wouldn't +believe it, Monsieur Portier, but it hadn't changed an atom, not an +<i>atom</i>! And the fineness of it! The least little pinch between your +fingers, and it just sinks right into your pores before your eyes! It's +<i>like</i> cream, thick, rich cream off a three-days-set pan of milk, and +yet it don't run! And the perfume! Monsieur Portier, I give you my word +for it, and I know what I'm talking about, the perfume that little old +druggist out in his dinky little old shop has got into his cold cream is +the only <i>refined</i> cold cream perfume I ever smelled! It makes all the +others smell like a third-rate actress. It's got a ... it's got a ..." +He hesitated, searching for exactly the right word and brought it out +with enthusiasm, "it's got a <i>clean</i> smell, if you get me, like a nice +girl after a bath! I've got daughters of my own," he added in whimsical +justification of his metaphor.</p> + +<p>The Frenchman had been watching him with appreciative eyes. "Mr. Hale, I +see that, like so many of your countrymen, you are a real artist in your +line, and you have the artist's flavor."</p> + +<p>The American was disconcerted by this characterization. "Who? Me? I know +a good thing when I see it, that's all, and that's <i>business</i>, that's +not art."</p> + +<p>The Frenchman smiled with the amused, respectful sympathy which men of +his race so often feel for their American contemporaries. "Well, and +what did you do when you discovered this miraculous cold cream?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Hale laughed, a young, vigorous laugh which made his gray hair seem +a paradox. "Well, you've guessed it. I threw a fit, first of all. I was +taken off my feet, and I wouldn't be surprised if I acted like a cat +over catnip. So I decided I'd better go away and cool off before I did +anything rash. I bought a couple of pots and went back to the hotel to +sleep on it. That's something I always try to do, Monsieur Portier, +before I let myself in for a <i>big</i> proposition; and I meant this to be +big, all right. I wanted to see if that cold cream seemed as good after +twenty-four hours as it did at first. Well, it did, and <i>then</i> some! So +I got the Swede porter at my hotel, who can talk some English, to go +back with me. And I started in to ask the old fellow all about it. +Right there I struck a difference. After the way I'd gone on, an +American, when I went back the next day, would have been wondering what +I was trying to take away from him; but my old friend was just as +pleased as a mother is when you tell her she's got a pretty baby. In +fact he reminded me of that, the way he talked. So glad to tell me all +about it. I got the impression before he got through that it was a +member of the family. I don't mean, of course, that he told me how he +made it. I wouldn't have let him if he'd started to. But he told me +everything else. To begin with, he told me that his folks have been +pharmacists right there for more than a hundred years! <i>A hundred years</i> +in that little shop in that little street in that little town! I tell +you, Monsieur Portier, I never can get used to the way your people stay +put."</p> + +<p>The Frenchman looked grave. "Perhaps too much so, Mr. Hale."</p> + +<p>"Anyhow, he said they had the recipe, the first recipe for that cold +cream in his great-grandfather's handwriting. He said there'd been some +talk always in the family about its having come from his +great-grandfather's father, who had sold toilet specialties to Marie +Antoinette, the queen, you know. He said he himself didn't take much +stock in that story because everybody in France, more or less, claimed +to have a great-grandfather who'd had dealings with Marie Antoinette, +but I just thought to myself what a good smart advertisement agency +could do with that item ... you could see it on every billboard between +New York and San Francisco ... 'Marie Antoinette's own cold cream, +rediscovered recipe.' If you've been in America, you can imagine."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said the Frenchman, "I can imagine."</p> + +<p>"He said, of course, they had not stuck absolutely to that recipe just +as it stood. His grandfather had made some changes, experimented with it +all his life, and his father had changed the proportions, just little +shadings, with years in between, to think them over and to be sure they +were right. But he himself had changed it the most, because modern +chemistry had let him substitute for one ingredient that had never been +just right, something else that exactly filled the bill. Do you know, +Monsieur Portier, as he stood there telling me how, for a hundred years, +three generations of his folks had concentrated on that, I said to +myself: 'By George, there's a <i>reason</i>! No wonder it's better than any +of our get-there-quick products. They've certainly got us beat.'"</p> + +<p>To this handsome tribute the Frenchman replied dubiously: "It is very +generous, Mr. Hale, to say such a thing. But since taking over the work +on this committee I have had periods of great depression when it has +seemed to me that no power on earth, not even American energy from which +I hope a great deal, could ever move our trades-people from their +century-old habits of business inertia and lack of enterprise."</p> + +<p>"Well, I understand that, too," agreed the American sympathetically; "I +certainly do, because that's just what I've come to see you about. We +went on with our confab, my old friend and I, and he showed me his books +to show how the sale of the cold cream had grown since they began on it. +It seems they've had quite a lot of their customers for sixty or seventy +years. Not Versailles people at all, you know, people from all over, +people who had tried it once and never would have another, and I don't +blame them. He's got quite a lot of aristocrats on his list. He showed +me names on his account book that made it look like a history of France. +Well, the sum-total of it came to this. His grandfather sold on an +average three hundred pots a year, which was good for those days; in his +father's time it went up, so he said, astonishingly, to fifteen hundred +pots a year; but he had done even better, and in his little +factory-laboratory that he'd had to enlarge, he made four thousand pots +a year and sold them all. 'More than <i>ten times</i> what his grandfather +had done.'"</p> + +<p>In repeating these statistics he reproduced with an ironical exactness +the tone of self-congratulation of the pharmacist. The man before him +fell into the little trap, remarking innocently: "That is indeed making +a remarkable enlargement."</p> + +<p>The American sat up straight in his chair so suddenly that he gave the +effect of having leaped to his feet. "<i>Remarkable!</i> Why, it was all I +could do to keep from sitting right down and crying. Remarkable! Why, +with the article he has there, the family ought to have been +millionaires a generation ago! Anybody with a particle of business +imagination would have put it on the bathroom shelf of every family in +Christendom." He went on, more quietly: "I said something of that to the +old fellow and I tried, through that hotel porter, to make him +understand what my proposition was, to take up his cold cream. To take +it up strong. I outlined my plan for the advertising campaign, I told +him some of the figures of our toilet preparations market, and I told +him I'd guarantee him in less than six months' time to have a demand for +fifteen hundred gross pots and by the end of the first year it would +pass the four thousand gross mark. I told him just how I could get him +credit on the easiest terms for the enlargement of his plant ... one of +our Merchants' Associations is prepared to give credit to French and +Belgian firms, and I was just starting in to explain how it wouldn't be +any risk for him at all, and absolute certain big profits for him and +his son ... he's got a son at the front now who's passed his +pharmacist's examination and is ready to go on with his father's +business...."</p> + +<p>He stopped short for a moment, staring into space as though recalling +the scene.</p> + +<p>"Well," prompted the French listener, "what did he say?"</p> + +<p>"He said, as near as I could make out from what the hotel porter told +me, he said <i>he didn't want to</i>," replied the American, in the carefully +restrained voice of one who recounts an enormity so patent that there is +no need for emphasis to bring out its monstrousness. "Yes, from what +the hotel porter said, I took it that he said he didn't want to! It +wasn't that he was afraid of losing money, or that he suspected a skin +deal ... at least that was what he <i>said</i> ... nor that he doubted a +single thing I said, it was just that he guessed he didn't feel like it +to-day, thank you."</p> + +<p>He reached for his hat and stood up. "There, Monsieur Portier, there's +where I am. I started to argue, of course. I tried to get at what in +hell was the matter anyhow. But I soon saw I was up against something +too big for that hotel porter to manage. So I came to see if you would +go back with me, or send somebody who's got good sense and business +experience, and help me make that proposition all over again. It must be +of course that that hotel porter got the thing all balled up, the way he +put it. I ought to have known better than to trust it to a Swede, +anyhow."</p> + +<p>Monsieur Portier looked at the calendar on his desk. "Yes, I shall be +glad to go out with you. Let me see, to-day is Monday, next Thursday +afternoon."</p> + +<p>The visitor's face dropped. "Not till <i>Thursday</i>!" he cried, as though +that date were in the next century. "I was hoping you could go right +back with me now. I've got a taxi waiting downstairs."</p> + +<p>The Frenchman's face wore for an instant a look of consternation which +changed into a rather curious, strained expression. Then he said with +the accent of heroism, laughing a little, "Yes, Mr. Hale, there is +really no valid reason for my not going with you now, <i>at this +instant</i>, and I will!" He seemed to regard the resolution as an +extraordinary one, adding whimsically, as he put on his overcoat, "Ah, +you can never, never understand, my dear Mr. Hale, the awful effort of +will it costs a European to do something the moment it is suggested +instead of putting it off till the next week."</p> + +<p>"No," said the American heartily, "that's something I never will +understand."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>As they approached the shining windows of the pharmacy, where as a +matter of fact a big, beautifully cared-for cat was sleeping in the sun, +the Frenchman exclaimed: "Oh, it's Monsieur Réquine's pharmacy! I've +known him for years, ever since my sister came to live in Versailles. I +didn't think it could be he because you spoke of him always as old."</p> + +<p>"Isn't he?" asked the American.</p> + +<p>"Fifty-two. Is that old? I hope not."</p> + +<p>"Fifty-two! I'm fifty-four myself! That's one on me!"</p> + +<p>"What made you think him old? His hair isn't white. He hasn't any +wrinkles. Really, I'm curious to know."</p> + +<p>The American stopped on the curbstone, pondering, his alert mind +interested by the little problem in self-analysis. "What <i>did</i> make me, +I wonder?" He glanced in through the open door and said: "Well, just +look at him as he stands there, his hands clasped over his stomach,—you +can see for yourself. It's a kind of settled-down-to-stay look that I'm +not used to seeing unless a man is so old that he can't move on any +more."</p> + +<p>The Frenchman looked at the druggist and then at the man beside him. +"Yes, I see what you mean," he admitted. He said it with a sigh.</p> + +<p>They entered the shop. The druggist came forward with a smile, and shook +hands heartily with them both. "Eleven," noted the American mentally.</p> + +<p>"Monsieur Réquine," said the French visitor, "can't we go through into +your salon, or perhaps out into your garden for a little talk?" Mr. +Réquine glowed with hospitality. "Yes, yes, delighted. I'll just ask my +wife to step here to mind the shop."</p> + +<p>"<i>His wife!</i>" asked the American, "to wait on customers?"</p> + +<p>A well-dressed, tall, full-bosomed woman of forty-odd, with elaborately +dressed black hair and a much powdered, intelligent face came in answer +to the call and installed herself back of the counter with her knitting.</p> + +<p>"Yes, and she knows as much about the business end as he does, you may +be sure," said the Frenchman as they went through a door at the back of +the shop, emerging, not, as the American expected, into a storeroom, but +into an attractive parlor. They passed through the salon, into an +exquisitely kept little dining-room and out into a walled garden which +made the American pass his hand over his eyes and look again. While +their host was installing them at the little round green iron table +under a trellis overgrown by a magnificent grapevine, Mr. Hale's eyes +traveled from one point to another of the small paradise before him. It +could not have been more than a hundred feet wide and three hundred +long, but like a fabled spot in the "Arabian Nights" it shone +resplendent with incredible riches. The stone walls, ten feet high, were +carpeted to the top with a mantle of glistening green leaves, among +which hung peaches and pears, glorious to the view, rank on rank, such +fruit as the American had never thought could exist. On each side of the +graveled path down the center were flowering plants, like great bouquets +each. Back of them were more fruit-trees, none more than eight feet +tall, bearing each a dozen or more amazing apples, as brightly colored +as the flowers. Around the trees were vegetables, carrots, salads, +cabbages, every specimen as floridly full-leafed and perfect as the +incredible pictures Mr. Hale had seen, and disbelieved in, on the front +of seed catalogues.</p> + +<p>From the other end of the garden, drenched in sunshine, came the humming +of bees. Above their heads a climbing rose covering the end of the house +sent down a clear, delicate perfume from its hundred flowers.</p> + +<p>The American's eyes came back from their inspection of all this and +rested with a new expression on his rather snuffy, rather stout and +undistinguished host. "Will you please tell Monsieur Réquine from me," +he said to his companion, "that I never saw such a garden in my life?"</p> + +<p>Monsieur Réquine waved the tribute away with sincere humility. "Oh, it's +nothing compared to those all about me. I can't give it the time I would +like to. Later on, when I am retired, and my son has the business ..." +his gesture seemed to indicate wider horizons of horticultural +excellence before which the American's imagination recoiled breathless.</p> + +<p>The straw-colored liqueur had been poured out into the glasses, +which were, so Mr. Hale noticed, of extremely fine and delicate +workmanship ... "and his wife tending shop!" The two Frenchmen drank +with ceremonious bowings and murmured salutations. Mr. Hale consumed his +fiery draught silently but with a not ungraceful self-possession. He was +at his ease with all kinds of ways of taking a drink.</p> + +<p>Then, drawing a long breath, taking off his hat and putting his elbows +on the table, he began to expound and the French official with him to +translate. The bees hummed a queer, unsuitable accompaniment to his +resonant, forceful staccato.</p> + +<p>He talked a long time. The patches of sunlight which fell through the +vines over their heads had shifted their places perceptibly when he +stopped, his head high, his gray eagle's eyes flashing.</p> + +<p>The elderly Frenchman opposite him had listened intently, his fat, +wrinkled hands crossed on his waistcoat, an expression of thoughtful +consideration on his broad face and in his small, very intelligent brown +eyes. When the American finished speaking, he bent his head courteously +and said: "Mr. Hale, you have spoken with great eloquence. But you have +forgotten to touch on one matter, and that is the reason for my doing +all that you outline so enthusiastically. Why <i>should</i> I?" It was +evidently a genuine and not a rhetorical question, for he paused for a +reply, awaiting it with sincere curiosity on his face. He received none, +however, the fluent American being totally at a loss. "Why <i>should</i> +you?" he said blankly. "I don't believe I understand you." The two +exchanged a long puzzled look across the little table, centuries and +worlds apart.</p> + +<p>"Why, I mean," Monsieur Réquine went on finally, "I don't see any +possible reason for embarking in such a terrifyingly vast enterprise as +you outline; no reason for, and many against. To speak of nothing else, +I am absolutely, morally certain that my cold cream" (he spoke of it +with respect and affection) "would immediately deteriorate if it were +manufactured on such an inhuman scale of immensity as you plan, with +factories here and factories there, run by mercenary superintendents who +had no personal interest in its excellence, with miscellaneous workmen +picked up out of the street haphazard. Why, Mr. Hale, you have no idea +of the difficulties I have, as it is, to get and train and keep serious, +conscientious work-people. I should be lost without the little nucleus +of old helpers who have been with our family for two generations and who +set the tone of our small factory. They have the reputation and fine +quality of our cold cream at heart as much as we of the family. They +help us in the selection of the newer, younger workers whom we need to +fill the ranks, they help us to train them in the traditions and methods +of our work, and with patience teach them, one by one, year by year, the +innumerable little fine secrets of manipulation which have been worked +out since my grandfather began the manufacture there in that room back +of you in 1836. Our recipe is much of course, it is all important; but +it is not all. Oh no, Mr. Hale, it is not all. We put into our cold +cream beside the recipe, patience, conscience, and pride, and that +deftness of hand that only comes after years of training. You cannot buy +those qualities on the market, not for any price. To think of my recipe +put into the hands of money-making factory superintendents and a rabble +horde of riffraff workmen!... Mr. Hale, you must excuse me for saying +that I am astonished at your proposing it, you who have shown by your +generous appreciation of its qualities that you are so worthy a member +of our guild."</p> + +<p>He paused, stirred from his usual equable calm and waited for an answer. +But he still received none. The American was staring at him across an +unfathomable chasm of differences.</p> + +<p>Monsieur Réquine continued: "And as for me personally, I am almost as +astonished that you propose it. For nothing in all the world would I +enter upon such a life as you depict, owing great sums of money to begin +with, for no matter how 'easy' your business credit may be made in the +modern world, the fact remains that I should lie down at night and rise +up in the morning conscious that thousands of men had intrusted their +money to me, that I might easily, by one false step or piece of bad +judgment, lose forever money which means life to poor women or old men. +Such a fiery trial would shrivel me up. It would be my death, I who have +never owed a penny in my life. And then what? Even with the utmost +success which you hold out, I should have a life which, compared with +what I now have, would be infernal; rushing to and fro over the face of +the earth, away from home, my wife, my children, homeless for half the +time, constantly employed in the most momentous and important decisions +where in order to succeed I must give all of myself, all, <i>all</i>, my +brain, my personality, my will power, my soul ... what would be left of +me for leisure moments? Nothing! I should be an empty husk, drained of +everything that makes me a living and a human being. But of course there +would not be any leisure moments.... I see from what you so eloquently +say that I would have become the slave and not the master of that +invention which has come down to me from my fathers; that instead of its +furnishing me and my work-people with a quiet, orderly, contented life, +I should only exist to furnish it means for a wild, fantastic growth, +like something in a nightmare, because a real growth is never like that, +never!</p> + +<p>"Mr. Hale, do you know what I do of an evening, in the summer? I leave +the shop at half-past five or six, and I step into my garden, where I +work till half-past seven, when I am most exquisitely hungry. We dine +here under this vine, my wife, my daughters, and my son (he who is now +at the front). Afterwards we sit and chat and exchange impressions of +the day, as the moon comes up or the stars come out. Perhaps some of the +young friends of the children drop in for a game of cards. My wife and I +sit down at the other end of the garden on the stone bench where we sat +when she came here as a bride, where my father and mother sat when they +were bride and groom. The stars come out. I smoke my pipe and watch +them. Mr. Hale, it is very surprising, the things which come into your +head, if you sit quietly and watch the stars come out. I would not miss +thinking them for anything in the world. We talk a little, my wife +knits. We meditate a great deal. We hear the gay voices of our children +coming to us mingled with the breath of the roses. We have finished +another day, and we are very glad to be there, alive, with each other, +in our garden. When we come in, my wife makes me a cup of tisane and +while I sip that I read, sometimes a little of Montaigne, sometimes a +little of Horace, sometimes something modern. And all that while, Mr. +Hale, there is in our home, in our hearts, the most precious +distillation of peace, the ..."</p> + +<p>For some moments the American had been surging inwardly, and he now +boiled over with a great wave of words. "Will you just let me tell you +what you've been describing to me, Monsieur Réquine? The life of an old, +old man ... and you're younger than I am! And will you let me tell you +what I'd call your 'peace'? I'd call it laziness! Why, that's the kind +of life that would suit an oyster right down to the ground! And, by +George, that's the kind of life that gave the Boches their strangle-hold +on French commerce before the war. They <i>weren't</i> afraid of good credit +when it was held out to them! They had it <i>too</i> easy, with nobody to +stand up against them but able-bodied men willing to sit down in their +gardens in the evenings and meditate on the stars, instead of thinking +how to enlarge their business! I'll bet they didn't read Horace instead +of a good technical magazine that would keep them up to date. Why, +Monsieur Réquine, I give you my word, I have never looked inside my +Horace since the day I took the final exam in it! I wouldn't <i>dream</i> of +doing it! What would business come to if everybody sagged back like +that? You don't seem to realize what business is, modern business. It's +not just soulless materialistic money-making, it's the great, big, wide +road that leads human beings to progress! It's what lets humanity get a +chance to satisfy its wants, and get more wants, and satisfy them, and +get more, and conquer the world from pole to pole. It's what gives men, +grown men, with big muscles, obstacles of their size to get through. It +gives them problems that take all their strength and brain power to +solve, that keeps them fit and pink and tiptoe with ambition and zip, +and prevents them from lying down and giving up when they see a hard +proposition coming their way, such as changing a small factory into a +big one and keeping the product up to standard. Business, modern +business keeps a man <i>alive</i> so that when he sees a problem like that he +doesn't give a groan and go and prune his roses, he just tears right in +and <i>does</i> it!"</p> + +<p>Monsieur Réquine listened to the translation of this impassioned <i>credo</i> +with the expression of judicial consideration which was evidently the +habitual one upon his face. At the end he stroked his beard meditatively +and looked into space for a time before answering. When he spoke, it was +with a mildness and quiet which made him indeed seem much the older of +the two, a certain patient good humor which would have been impossible +to the other man. "Mr. Hale, you say that my conception of life looks +like laziness to you. Do you know how yours looks to me? Like a circle +of frenzied worshipers around a fiery Moloch, into whose maw they cast +everything that makes life sweet and livable, leisure, love, affection, +appreciation of things rare and fine. My friend, humanity as a whole +will never be worth more than the lives of its individuals are worth, +and it takes many, many things to make individual lives worth while. It +takes a mixture, and it needs, among other elements, some quiet, some +peace, some leisure, some occupation with things of pure beauty like my +roses, some fellowship with great minds of the past...." His eyes took +on a dreamy deepening glow. "Sometimes as I dig the earth among my +fruit-trees, the old, old earth, a sentence from Epictetus, or from +Montaigne comes into my head, all at once luminous as I never saw it +before. I have a vision of things very wide, very free, very fine. +Almost, for a moment, Mr. Hale, almost for a moment I feel that I +understand life."</p> + +<p>The American stood up to go with a gesture of finality. He put his hat +firmly on his head and said in pitying valedictory: "Monsieur Réquine, +you're on the wrong track. Take it from me that nobody can understand +life. The best thing to do with life is to live it!"</p> + +<p>The Frenchman, still seated, still philosophic, made a humorous gesture. +"Ah, there are as many different opinions as there are men about what +that means, to 'live life'!"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>In the cab going back to Paris the American said little. Once he +remarked almost to himself, "The thing I can't get over is that his +damned cream <i>is</i> better than anything we make."</p> + +<p>The French official emerged from a thoughtful silence of his own to +comment: "Mr. Hale, the generosity of that remark is only equaled by its +perspicacity! It makes me more than ever concerned for the future of +French commerce."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>That evening Monsieur Réquine was stooping over a dwarf-apple tree, +string in one hand, pruning shears in the other. He was clipping away +all except one of the vigorous young shoots. That one he then laid along +a wire, strung about a foot from the ground and tied it fast at several +points so that in growing it would follow the exact line traced by the +horizontal wire. When he finished he gathered up all the clipped shoots, +put them under his arm, and stood looking at the severely disciplined +little tree, which did not look in the least like a tree any more. The +sight apparently suggested an analogy to his mind, for he said in the +tone of one who makes an admission: "It's true one does it for +apple-trees and vines." After considering this for a moment, he shook +his head with decision, "But not for human beings, no."</p> + +<p>And yet his brow was far from clear as he betook himself to the stone +bench at the end of the garden.</p> + +<p>When his wife went out later to join him, she missed the glow of his +pipe and inquired, a little troubled, "Why, René, you've forgotten to +light your pipe! what's the matter?"</p> + +<p>"Adèle, do you remember, just before the order for mobilization came, +how Robert wanted to travel a year in America to study American business +and to see something of other conditions? Perhaps I was wrong not to +consent. I've been sitting here thinking it over. Perhaps when he comes +back [they always forced themselves to say "when" and never "if"] +perhaps we would better let him go, before he settles down to take my +place." He took her hand and held it for a moment. "Do you know, Adèle, +after all, the world changes, perhaps more than we realize, here in +Versailles."</p> + +<p>That evening Mr. Hale sat in his hotel bedroom with all the electric +lights blazing, and filled sheet after sheet with elaborate +calculations. He was concerned with an important detail of transatlantic +transportation to which he did not believe half enough attention had +been paid: the question as to what form of carrier is the best for +certain breakable objects which he was arranging to send in large +quantities into the States. The quantities were so large that if he +could effect a small saving of space, with no increase of the breakage +per cent., the sum-total would be considerable.</p> + +<p>He figured out the relative cubic contents in boxes of a given dimension +and in barrels, having always had a leaning towards barrels himself. He +looked up technical tables as to the relative weight of sawdust, +powdered cork, and excelsior, together with the statistics as to the +relative amount of breakage with each sort of packing. His days were so +filled with "seeing people" that he often thought the evenings were the +only times he had to do "real work," the careful, minute, infinitely +patient, and long-headed calculations which had made him the wealthy man +he was.</p> + +<p>The room was very hot and close, with all its windows and shutters +closed and its curtains drawn to keep the light from showing in the +street, a recent air-raid having tightened up the regulations about +lights. The American's face was flushed, his eyes hot and smarting, his +collar first wilted, and then laid aside. But he was accustomed to pay +small heed to discomforts when there was work to be done, and continued +obstinately struggling with the problems of cubic feet contained in a +compartment of a ship's hold of given dimensions with given curves to +the sides. The curve of the sides gave him a great deal of trouble, as +he had quite forgotten the formulæ of abstract mathematics which would +have solved the question, never having concerned himself with abstract +mathematics since the day he had taken the final examination in that +subject.</p> + +<p>He sat up, wiping his forehead, rubbing his eyes. Behind the lids, for +an instant shut, there swam before his eyes the garden in which he had +sat that afternoon, green and hidden and golden. The perfume from the +roses floated again about him.</p> + +<p>He opened his eyes on the gaudy, banal hotel bedroom, cruelly lighted +with the hard gaze of the unveiled electric bulbs. He felt very tired.</p> + +<p>"I've half a notion to call that enough for to-night," he said to +himself, standing up from the table.</p> + +<p>He snapped off the electric lights and opened the shutters. A clear, +cool breath of outdoor air came in silently, filling the room and his +lungs. The moonlight lay in a wide pool at his feet and on the balcony +before his window. He hesitated a moment, glanced out at the sky, and +pulled an armchair out on the balcony.</p> + +<p>There was a long silence while he puffed at a cigar and while the moon +dropped lower. At first he went on thinking of cubic feet and relative +weights, but presently his cigar began to glow less redly. After a time +it went out unheeded. The hand which held it dropped on the arm of the +chair, loosely.</p> + +<p>The man stirred, relaxed all his muscles, and stretched himself out in +the chair, tipping his head back to see the stars.</p> + +<p>He sat thus for a long, long time, while the constellations wheeled +slowly over his head. Once he murmured meditatively, "Maybe we <i>do</i> hit +it up a little too fast."</p> + +<p>He continued looking up at the stars, and presently drew from the +contemplation of those vast spaces another remark. It was one which had +often casually passed his lips before, but never with the accent of +conviction. For never before had he believed it. He said it earnestly, +now, in the tone of one who states with respect a profound and pregnant +truth: "Well, it takes all kinds of people to make a world."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="THE_REFUGEE" id="THE_REFUGEE"></a>THE REFUGEE</h2> + + +<p>When we had seen her last, just before the war, she could have stood for +the very type and symbol of the intelligent, modern woman; an energetic +leader for good in her native town (a bustling industrial center in the +north of France); unsentimental, beneficent; looking at life with clear, +brightly observant, disillusioned eyes; rather quick to laugh at +old-fashioned narrowness; a little inclined to scoff at too fervently +expressed enthusiasms, such as patriotism; very broad in her sympathies, +very catholic in her tastes, tolerant as to the beliefs of others, +radical as to her own, above all, a thoroughgoing internationalist; +physically in the prime of her life, with a splendid, bold vigor in all +her movements.</p> + +<p>Now, after less than three years of separation, she sat before us, +white-haired, gaunt, shabby, her thin face of a curious grayish brown +which none of us had ever seen before, her thin hands tightly clasped, +her eyes burning and dry—the only dry eyes in the room as she talked.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Much of what she told us I may not repeat, for she said, with a quick +gesture of terror, dreadful to see in one who for forty years had faced +life so indomitably: "No, no, don't publish what I say—or at least be +very careful; choose only those things that can't hurt the people who +are up there, still in 'their' power."</p> + +<p>"Why not publish what you say?" I asked her, rather challengingly. "I +don't think people in general understand half enough what the life of +the invaded provinces is. One never sees any really detailed +descriptions of it."</p> + +<p>She answered bitterly, "Doesn't the reason for that silence occur to +you?"</p> + +<p>"No, it doesn't. I never have understood why so little is given to the +public about the sufferings of the invaded populations."</p> + +<p>She looked at me strangely, the half-exasperated, half-patient look one +gives to a child who asks a foolish, ignorant question, and explained +wearily: "If those who escape tell what they have seen up there, those +who are left suffer even worse torments. 'They' have spies everywhere, +you know; no, that's not melodramatic nonsense, as I would have thought +it three years ago, it's a literal fact. Very probably that little +messenger-boy who brought the letter in here a moment ago is one. Very +probably your baker is one. Anywhere in the world whatever is printed +about what 'they' do to our people in their power is instantly read by +some German eyes, and is instantly sent to German headquarters in the +invaded regions. And it's the same with our poor, little, persistent +attempts to express a little bit of what we feel for France. For +instance, one of my friends who escaped at the risk of her life told +about how we tried in our orphan asylum to keep the children mindful of +France, how after closing hours, when the doors were shut, we took out +the French flag from its hiding-place and told the children about France +and whatever news of the war we had managed to hear. That article +appeared, a half-column, in an obscure provincial newspaper with no +indication as to which town was meant. In less than two weeks, from +German headquarters in Brussels, went out a sweeping order to search to +the last corner of the cellar every orphan asylum in the invaded +regions. It was two o'clock in the morning when the searching squad in +our town knocked at the doors. The flag was found, and our little +collection of patriotic French recitations; and before dawn the +superintendent, a splendid woman of fifty-seven, the salt of the earth, +had disappeared. She was sent to a prison camp in Germany. Three months +later we heard she was dead. Do you understand now why you must not +repeat most of what I tell you, must give no clue as to how we hide our +letters, how we get news from France; above all, say nothing that could +give any idea of who I am? 'They' would do such dreadful things to +Marguerite and little Julien and old Uncle Henri if 'they' knew that I +have talked of the life there, of what 'they' have done to our people."</p> + +<p>No, until the world turns over and we have awakened from the hideous +nightmare no one may speak aloud of certain matters up there in Belgium +and in the invaded provinces of France. But there are some things she +told us which I may pass on to you, and I think you ought to know them. +I think we all ought to know more than we do of what life is to the +people who are awaiting deliverance at our hands. There are certain +portions of her narration, certain detached pictures, brief dialogues +and scenes, which may be set down in her own words. Your imagination +must fill in the gaps.</p> + +<p>"The first months were the worst—and the best. The worst because we +could not believe at first that war was there, the stupid, imbecile +anachronism we had thought buried with astrology and feudalism. For me +it was like an unimaginably huge roller advancing slowly, heavily, +steadily, to crush out our lives. During the day, as I worked with the +wounded, I threw all my will power into the effort to disbelieve in that +inexorable advance. I said to myself: 'No, it's not possible! They +<i>can't</i> have invaded Belgium after their promises! Modern peoples don't +do that sort of thing. No, it's not possible that Louvain is burned! +Wild rumors are always afloat in such times. I must keep my head and not +be credulous. The Germans are a highly civilized people who would not +dream of such infamies as those they are being accused of.' All that I +said to myself, naïvely, by day. At night, every hour, every half-hour, +I started up from sleep, drenched in cold sweat, dreaming that the +crushing roller was about to pass over us. Then it came, it passed, it +crushed.</p> + +<p>"But there were other, better things about those first months. For one +thing, we had hope still. We hoped constantly for deliverance. Every +morning I said to the girl who brought the milk, 'Are they here yet?' +'They' meant the French troops coming to deliver us. Yes, at first we +expected them from one day to the next. Then from one week to the next, +then from one month to the next. Finally, now, we have no strength left +for anything but silent endurance. Besides that hope, which kept us +alive those first months, we were not yet in that windowless prison +which 'they' have succeeded in making our own country to us. We had news +of France and of the outside world through the French and English +prisoners. They were brought into our improvised hospital to have their +wounds dressed before they were put on the train to be sent forward to +their German prisons. As we cared for them we could get news of the +battles; sometimes we heard through them of the men of our families; +always they were a link with the world outside. We did not know what a +priceless boon that was.</p> + +<p>"But even this slight contact was soon forbidden us. We showed too +openly the comfort it brought us. Free people, as we had always been, we +were not then trained, as tyranny since has trained us, to the wretched +arts of secrecy. We did too much for those prisoners. The people in the +streets crowded about them too eagerly, showed them too many kindnesses. +'They' decided that our one link with the outside world must be broken. +Fewer and fewer prisoners were sent; finally we saw none—for weeks and +weeks none at all. We knew nothing but what 'they' told us, saw no other +world, were hypnotized almost into believing that no other world +existed.</p> + +<p>"The last ones who came through—that is one of my memories. We never +knew by what chance they were sent through our town. One day we looked, +and there in our street were half a dozen French soldiers, with bloody +heads and arms, limping along between Boche guards on their way to the +hospital. All our people rose like a great wave and swept towards them. +The guards reversed their rifles and began clubbing with their butt +ends—clubbing the old women who tried to toss food to the prisoners, +clubbing the little children who stretched out handfuls of chocolate, +clubbing the white-haired men who thrust cigarettes into the pockets of +the torn, stained French uniforms.</p> + +<p>"We were beginning to practise some of the humiliating arts of a captive +people then; we remembered that shouting in the streets is not allowed, +that no French voice must be heard in that French town, and in all that +straining, pressing, yearning crowd there was not a sound, not even a +murmur of joy, when the Boche guards occasionally relaxed their +vigilance for a moment and some of our presents reached the prisoners.</p> + +<p>"Then they came to the hospital—it was a great mansion before the +war—and went limping painfully through the broad doors and up the long +stone staircase. Outside the doors stood the military car which was to +take them to the station—stood the Boche guards—and the crowd, silent, +motionless, waiting for the moment when those soldiers who stood for +France should reappear. All demonstrations of feeling were forbidden by +the invaders, yes, but there was no demonstration—only a great silent +crowd waiting. The Boche guards looked about them uneasily, but there +was no violation of any order to report. Every one waited silently. +Twilight fell, darkness fell, the crowd grew larger and larger, filled +the street, but gave no further sign of life. Not one of 'their' rules +was broken, but as far as we could see there were upturned faces, white +in the dusk. An hour passed, two hours passed, and then the moment was +there. The lights flared up in the great hall of the hospital—all the +lights at once, as if to do justice to a grand fête, an occasion of +supreme honor. At the top of the stairway, very pale in that great +light, with bandaged heads and arms, appeared those soldiers who stood +for France.</p> + +<p>"From all that silent, rigidly self-controlled crowd went up a sigh like +a great stir of the ocean. The prisoners came limping down the stairway. +France was passing there before our eyes, perhaps for the last time. +A thousand handkerchiefs fluttered as silent salute to France, a +thousand heads were bared to her. The weary soldiers stood very erect +and returned a silent military salute. In their prison car they passed +slowly along between the dense ranks of their fellow-countrymen, looking +deeply, as though they too thought it might be for the last time, into +those French eyes. Then they were gone. We had not broken one of 'their' +rules—not one. But 'they' never allowed another French soldier to pass +through our town.</p> + +<p>"Once after that we had a passing glimpse of English soldiers, a group +of wretchedly ill men, with their wounds uncared for, stumbling along to +the station. They were not taken to the hospital to be cared for; 'they' +are always much harder on the English prisoners than on any others. +Those were the days early in the war, when there were still things to +buy in the shops, when we still had money to spend. How we all rushed to +buy good chocolate, cigarettes! How desperately we tried to throw them +to the prisoners! But there was no relaxation, that time, of the guard. +Not once did we succeed. There was a double line of guards that day, and +they held us far, far at a distance with their rifle butts. It was +horrible—the silence of the crowd, rigorously observing the rule +against demonstrations of any sort; not a sound except the thud of rifle +butts on human flesh. Old M. B—— had his arm broken that day.</p> + +<p>"With my hands full of cigarettes and chocolate, I followed them all the +way to the station, my heart burning with pity for the poor men who +looked at us with such sick, tired, despairing, hungry eyes. We threw +them what we dared. Nothing reached them—nothing. At the station they +waited, fainting with fatigue, with loss of blood, with hunger, with +thirst, ringed around with soldiers, bayonets fixed. There we stood, we +women and children and old men, our hands full of food and comforts—no, +you never know how sickeningly your heart can throb and still go on +beating. I had never thought I could hate as I did in that hour, a +helpless spectator of that unnecessary cruelty. Since then I have had +many lessons in how deeply even a modern woman can be forced to hate.</p> + +<p>"The train came, the wounded men were driven aboard their cattle car. +The train disappeared. They were gone. I walked home smiling—we never +let 'them' see how 'their' tortures make us suffer. Later Julien, my +little Julien—he was twelve then—found me still weeping furiously. He +bent over me, his little body all tense and fierce. 'Don't cry so, +auntie! Don't cry so! It won't last. It will soon be over.'</p> + +<p>"That was two years ago.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>"None of us Frenchwomen were allowed to stay long in hospital work. For +one reason or another, we were all forbidden to go on caring for the +wounded. I had the honor of being the very first to be put out of the +door.</p> + +<p>"One of the officers in charge said to me one day, some four or five +months after the beginning, 'Ah, madame, we shall soon be good friends +now.'</p> + +<p>"The idea made me fall a step backward. 'What, monsieur? What do you +mean?'</p> + +<p>"'Yes, France and Germany will soon be friends. I know with absolute +certainty that Germany has offered a third of Belgium to France and that +France is more than satisfied to accept and end the war.'</p> + +<p>"That is always one of the horrors up there. 'They' can tell you any +news they please as 'absolute certainties.' Since we know nothing of +what is going on except what they choose to tell us, we have no proofs +to fling back at them; no proofs but moral ones, and 'they' find moral +proofs ridiculous, of course.</p> + +<p>"I stiffened and said, 'No, monsieur. No; France will never do that, +never! You cannot understand why France will never do it, nor why I am +sure that she never will. But it is true.'</p> + +<p>"He laughed a little, as you would laugh at a child's impractical +notions, and said: 'Oh, but France <i>has</i> done it, madame! You will see +the announcement in a few days.'</p> + +<p>"That cool assumption, my helplessness to refute him with facts, made me +for an instant beside myself. I said, very hotly: 'Monsieur, if France +ever does that, I will renounce my French blood. I will make myself an +American.' He was still smiling indulgently at my heat. 'Oh, why, +madame? Why?'</p> + +<p>"'Because if France should do that, it would be as much a disgrace for +an honest person to be French as now to be German.'</p> + +<p>"He all but struck me with his whip.</p> + +<p>"And five minutes later, still in my nurse's uniform, I was standing in +the street, with the door of the hospital closed behind me. I can't say +I was particularly regretful, either."</p> + +<p>She looked down at her skirt of threadbare, coarse black stuff. "Do you +know where I got this skirt? After a year of war I had nothing, nothing +left in my wardrobe. We gave away to the poorer ones every garment we +could possibly spare. And there was nothing, nothing left in any of the +shops to buy. And I had no money to buy if there had been. How was I +going to get an overcoat for Julien and a skirt for myself? The +scrubwoman in Uncle Henri's office noticed the patches and darns on my +last skirt, and said the American Committee had some clothes to +distribute. I went there—yes, I—holding out my hand like any beggar. +Bless Americans! There is no shame in being helped by them! They gave me +there an overcoat that I made over for Julien and enough of this cloth +for a skirt. It is the only one I have had for two years. Do you know +what I saw all the time I sat sewing on that charity garment, come from +so far? Across the street from our house is the great warehouse where +the cloth from the——woolen mills was stored. All day long German +automobile trucks stood in front of that building, while from the +windows German soldiers threw down bale after bale of cloth. As soon as +a truck was full it would start forward on its journey to the station, +where the cloth was loaded on trains and sent to Germany. An empty one +immediately took its place. Heavy woolens, light woolens, blankets, +cashmeres, flannels, serges, twill, black, brown, blue, white, +figured—hundreds and hundreds of bales. I never knew there were so many +kinds of woolen cloth. I never had seen so much all together in my life +as I saw tossed down from the windows of that four-story building during +those three days. For it took three days of incessant work to steal all +that cloth—three long days—just the time it took me to prepare those +two charity garments sent from America."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>She held up a thick, square, brownish cracker, and said: "Look well at +that. You have never seen anything more important to human lives. That +is the free American biscuit. It is distributed at ten every morning to +every school-child, to every teacher, in the region under German rule. +None have had enough to eat. There are no biscuits distributed on +Sundays and vacation days. Those are hard days for the children to live +through. They beg desperately to go to school, even when they are sick, +so they may not miss their biscuit. It is by far the best thing they +have to eat all day, the most palatable, the only complete food. The +change in the school-children since they have had this added to their +diet—it is miraculous! The experts say the biscuits are a carefully +compounded product of many grains, which make it a complete aliment. We +know better than that. It is manna from heaven.</p> + +<p>"And here," she held up a red woolen knitted cap, such as American +school-children wear in small towns during the winter. "Somehow the +American Committees managed so that there was such a cap for every one +of us. They have become the national head-dress. Hundreds and hundreds +of them—and every one knit in America and sent to us. Bless America!</p> + +<p>"Our lights? There was soon, of course, no kerosene for us, no fats to +make candles. And you know the long, long, dark winters in the north of +France? Do you know what we did, praying that the American Committee +would forgive us and realize that blackness is too dreadful to people +whose nerves are almost worn through? We set aside a part of the lard +and bacon the Committee provided for us; we melted it, put home-made +cotton wicks in it, and—there we had a light, a little glimmering +taper, but enough to save our reason in the long evenings. Bless +America!</p> + +<p>"The schools have kept on, you know; every teacher at her post, not a +day missed (even when the town was bombarded). Every year the +examinations have been set—they use old examination papers sent from +Paris before the war—and diplomas have been given. And besides that, at +home we have tried our best to keep the life of our children what the +life of French children ought to be. I remember last year, during the +summer, Aunt Louise taught a group of children in our part of the town +to sing the 'Marseillaise.' The studio of my cousin Jean is at the back +of the house and high up, so that she thought the children's voices +could not be heard from the street. The Mayor heard of what she was +doing, and sent word that he would like to hear them sing. The news +spread around rapidly. When he arrived with the city council, coming in +one by one, as though merely to make a call, they found the big studio +full to overflowing with their fellow-citizens—the old men and women +who are all the fellow-citizens left there. There must have been two or +three hundred of them, the most representative people of the town, all +in black, all so silent, so old and sad. The children were quite abashed +by such an audience, and filed up on the little platform shyly—our +poor, thin, shabby, white-faced children, fifty or sixty of them.</p> + +<p>"There was a pause, the children half afraid to begin, the rest of us +thinking uneasily that we were running a great risk. Suppose the +children's voices should be heard in the street, after all. Suppose the +German police should enter and find us assembled thus. It would mean +horrors and miseries for every family represented. The Mayor stood near +the children to give them the signal to begin—and dared not. We were +silent, our hearts beating fast.</p> + +<p>"Then all at once the littlest ones began in their high, sweet treble +those words that mean France, that mean liberty, that mean life itself +to us:</p> + +<p>"'<i>Allons, enfants de la Patrie!</i>' they sang, tilting their heads back +like little birds; and all the other children followed:</p> + +<p>"'Against us floats the red flag of tyranny!'</p> + +<p>"We were on our feet in an instant. It was the first time any of us had +heard it sung since—since our men marched away.</p> + +<p>"I began to tremble all over, so that I could hardly stand. Every one +there stared up at the children; every one's face was deadly white to +his lips.</p> + +<p>"The children sang on—sang the chorus, sang the second stanza.</p> + +<p>"When they began the third, 'Sacred love of our fatherland, sustain our +avenging arms!' the Mayor's old face grew livid. He whirled about to the +audience, his white hair like a lion's mane, and with a gesture swept us +all into the song.</p> + +<p>"'Liberty, our adored liberty, fight for thy defenders!' There were +three hundred voices shouting it out, the tears streaming down our +cheeks. If a regiment of German guards had marched into the room, we +would not have turned our heads. Nothing could have stopped us then. We +were only a crowd of old men and defenseless women and children, but we +were all that was left of France in our French town.</p> + +<p>"Letters? You know 'their' rule is that none are allowed, that we may +neither write nor receive news from our dear ones. But that rule, like +all their rules, is broken as often as we can. There are numbers of +secret letter-carriers, who risk their lives to bring and take news. But +it is horribly risky. If a letter is found on you, you are liable to a +crushing fine, or, worse yet, to imprisonment, and, if you have children +or old people dependent on you, you dare not risk leaving them. You +might as well cut their throats at once and spare them the long +suffering. Even if the letter is not found on you, there is risk if you +try to send or receive one. They are not, of course, addressed, so that +if the letter-carrier is discovered all those to whom he is bringing +mail may not be incriminated. But if he is caught 'they' always +threaten him with atrocious punishments which will be remitted if he +will disclose the names of those who have employed him. Generally the +poor letter-carriers are loyal even to death, suffering everything +rather than betray their trust. But some of them are only young boys, +physically undermined by hardship and insufficient food, like all our +people, and they have not the physical strength to hold out against days +of starvation, or floggings, or exposure—naked—to intense cold. They +give way, reveal the names of the people who are receiving letters—and +then there are a dozen more homes desolate, a dozen more mothers +imprisoned, a dozen more groups of children left.</p> + +<p>"And yet we all used to get letters before the rules became so terribly +strict as at present. I have had six in the three years—just six. They +were from my mother—I could not live without knowing whether my old +<i>maman</i> was alive or not. Curious, isn't it, to think that I would have +been imprisoned at hard labor if any one had known that I had received a +letter from my old mother?</p> + +<p>"Of course you must never carry them on you, if out of doors, for there +is always a chance that you may be searched. On the trolley line between +our town and the suburb, ——, which I used to take once a week to go to +see Pauline when she was so ill, it often happened. The car would stop +at a sudden cry of '<i>Halte!</i>' and soldiers with bayonets would herd us +into a nearby house. Women—German women, brought from Germany +especially for such work—were waiting for us women passengers. We were +forced to undress entirely, not a garment left on our poor humiliated +old bodies, and everything was searched, our purses opened, our shoes +examined, our stockings turned inside out. If anything which seemed +remotely incriminating was found—an old clipping from a French +newspaper, a poem which might be considered patriotic—a scrap of a +letter, we were taken away to prison; if not, we were allowed to dress +and go on our way."</p> + +<p>We gazed at her, pale with incredulity. It was as though Americans had +heard that such treatment had been accorded Jane Addams or Margaret +Deland. "Were <i>you</i> ever searched in that way?" we faltered.</p> + +<p>She had an instant of burning impatience with our ignorance. "Good +Heavens, yes; many and many times! How absolutely little idea you have +of what is going on up there under their rule! That was nothing compared +to many, many things they do—their domiciliary visits, for instance. At +any hour of the day or night a squad of soldiers knock at your door +suddenly, with no warning. They search your house from top to bottom, +often spending three hours over the undertaking. They look into every +drawer, take down all the clothes from the hooks in the closets, look +under the carpets, behind the bookcases, shake out all the soiled +clothes in the laundry bag, pull out everything from under the kitchen +sink, read every scrap of paper in your drawer and in your waste-paper +basket—it's incredible. You watch them, with perfect stupefaction at +the energy and ingenuity they put into their shameful business. And what +they find as 'evidence' against you! It is as stupefying. They always +read every page of the children's school copy-books, for instance, and +if they find a 'composition' on patriotism, even expressed in the most +general terms, they tear out those pages and take them away to be filed +as 'evidence.'</p> + +<p>"You must know that they can and do often enter for these searching +visits at night when every one is in bed; perhaps you can guess how +tensely the mothers of young girls endeavor not to offend against the +least of 'their' innumerable rules, lest they be sent away into exile +and leave their children defenseless. But it is almost impossible to +avoid offending against some rule or other. Anything serves as ground +for accusation—a liberal book, a harmless pamphlet found in the +bookcase, the possession of a copper object forgotten after the summons +to give up all copper has gone out, a piece of red, white, and blue +ribbon, a copy of the 'Marseillaise,' a book of patriotic poems; but, +above all, the possession of anything that serves to point to +communication, ever so remote, with the outside world. That is the +supreme crime in their eyes. A page of a French or English newspaper is +as dangerous to have in the house as a stick of dynamite.</p> + +<p>"Many men, women, and young girls are now in a German prison somewhere +for the crime of having circulated little pamphlets intended to keep up +the courage of the inhabitants. These little sheets no longer exist, but +what exists in spite of all these repressive measures is the unshaken +faith in our future, the most utter confidence that the Allies will +rescue us out of the hand of our enemies."</p> + +<p>What she told us about the deportations I may not repeat for fear of +bringing down worse horrors on the heads of those she left behind. You +may be thankful that you have not to read that story.</p> + +<p>Only two incidents am I permitted to transcribe for you—two incidents +which, perhaps, sum up the whole vast and unimaginable tragedy.</p> + +<p>"We have tried, you know, to keep the children as busy as possible with +their studies, so that they would not have leisure to brood over what +they see and hear every day. I've had little Marguerite go on with her +English lessons steadily and read as much English as possible. One of +the books her teacher gave her was 'Uncle Tom's Cabin.' She looked up +from it one day, with a pale face, and said, in a sad, wondering voice: +'Why, auntie, this might have been written about us, mightn't it? It +tells about things that happen to us all the time—that we have seen. +The men who are flogged and starved and killed, the mothers trying in +vain to follow their daughters into captivity, the young girls dragged +out of their fathers' arms—it's all just like what the Germans do to +us, isn't it?'"</p> + +<p>And the other is that last hour at the railway station, when she stood +beside the railway tracks, with her little Julien beside her (he was +fourteen then), and told him in a fierce, choked voice, "Look, Julien! +Look, remember! Never forget what you are seeing to-day," as they +watched the soldiers drive into the cattle cars the old men, women, and +adolescents torn from their homes in such haste that they had no change +of clothing, no food, often not even their hats and wraps. "We stood +there, those who were not 'taken,' the great helpless crowd of women and +children, agonizing in that dreadful silence which is the last refuge of +our poor battered human dignity up there. I was suffocating, literally +unable to breathe. You do not know what hate and pity and horror you can +feel and still live!</p> + +<p>"The wheels of the train began grindingly to turn, the train +advanced—it could not have been more unendurable to us if it had gone +over our own bodies.</p> + +<p>"And then some miraculous wind of high-hearted courage swept through +that train-load of weak, doomed, and defenseless human beings. From +every crevice, from every crack, waved a hand, fluttered a handkerchief, +and from the train with one voice, the 'Marseillaise' went up in an +indomitable shout.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"'<i>Allons, enfants de la Patrie.</i>'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"The sound of the singing and the sound of the train died away in the +distance.</p> + +<p>"We did not weep—no, we have never shown them how they can torture us. +Not a tear was shed.</p> + +<p>"But the next day our insane asylum at L—— was filled to overflowing +with new cases of madness."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="A_LITTLE_KANSAS_LEAVEN" id="A_LITTLE_KANSAS_LEAVEN"></a>A LITTLE KANSAS LEAVEN</h2> + + +<p>Between 1620 and 1630 Giles Boardman, an honest, sober, well-to-do +English master-builder found himself hindered in the exercise of his +religion. He prayed a great deal and groaned a great deal more (which +was perhaps the Puritan equivalent of swearing), but in the end he left +his old home and his prosperous business and took his wife and young +children the long, difficult, dangerous ocean voyage to the New World. +There, to the end of his homesick days, he fought a hand-to-hand battle +with wild nature to wring a living from the soil. He died at fifty-four, +an exhausted old man, but his last words were, "Praise God that I was +allowed to escape out of the pit digged for me."</p> + +<p>His family and descendants, condemned irrevocably to an obscure struggle +for existence, did little more than keep themselves alive for about a +hundred and thirty years, during which time Giles' spirit slept.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>In 1775 one of his great-great-grandsons, Elmer Boardman by name, +learned that the British soldiers were coming to take by force a stock +of gunpowder concealed in a barn for the use of the barely beginning +American army. He went very white, but he kissed his wife and little boy +good-bye, took down from its pegs his musket, and went out to join his +neighbors in repelling the well-disciplined English forces. He lost a +leg that day and clumped about on a wooden substitute all his +hard-working life; but, although he was never anything more than a poor +farmer, he always stood very straight with a smile on his plain face +whenever the new flag of the new country was carried past him on the +Fourth of July. He died, and his spirit slept.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>In 1854 one of his grandsons, Peter Boardman, had managed to pull +himself up from the family tradition of hard-working poverty, and was a +prosperous grocer in Lawrence, Massachusetts. The struggle for the +possession of Kansas between the Slave States and the North announced +itself. It became known in Massachusetts that sufficiently numerous +settlements of Northerners voting for a Free State would carry the day +against slavery in the new Territory. For about a month Peter Boardman +looked very sick and yellow, had repeated violent attacks of +indigestion, and lost more than fifteen pounds. At the end of that time +he sold out his grocery (at the usual loss when a business is sold out) +and took his family by the slow, laborious caravan route out to the +little new, raw settlement on the banks of the Kaw, which was called +Lawrence for the city in the East which so many of its inhabitants had +left. Here he recovered his health rapidly, and the look of distress +left his face; indeed, he had a singular expression of secret happiness. +He was caught by the Quantrell raid and was one of those hiding in the +cornfield when Quantrell's men rode in and cut them down like rabbits. +He died there of his wounds. And his spirit slept.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>His granddaughter, Ellen, plain, rather sallow, very serious, was a sort +of office manager in the firm of Walker and Pennypacker, the big +wholesale hardware merchants of Marshallton, Kansas. She had passed +through the public schools, had graduated from the High School, and had +planned to go to the State University; but the death of the uncle who +had brought her up after the death of her parents made that plan +impossible. She learned as quickly as possible the trade which would +bring in the most money immediately, became a good stenographer, though +never a rapid one, and at eighteen entered the employ of the hardware +firm.</p> + +<p>She was still there at twenty-seven, on the day in August, 1914, when +she opened the paper and saw that Belgium had been invaded by the +Germans. She read with attention what was printed about the treaty +obligation involved, although she found it hard to understand. At noon +she stopped before the desk of Mr. Pennypacker, the senior member of the +firm, for whom she had a great respect, and asked him if she had made +out correctly the import of the editorial. "<i>Had</i> the Germans promised +they wouldn't ever go into Belgium in war?"</p> + +<p>"Looks that way," said Mr. Pennypacker, nodding, and searching for a +lost paper. The moment after, he had forgotten the question and the +questioner.</p> + +<p>Ellen had always rather regretted not having been able to "go on with +her education," and this gave her certain little habits of mind which +differentiated her somewhat from the other stenographers and typewriters +in the office with her, and from her cousin, with whom she shared the +small bedroom in Mrs. Wilson's boarding-house. For instance, she looked +up words in the dictionary when she did not understand them, and she had +kept all her old schoolbooks on the shelf of the boarding-house bedroom. +Finding that she had only a dim recollection of where Belgium was, she +took down her old geography and located it. This was in the wait for +lunch, which meal was always late at Mrs. Wilson's. The relation between +the size of the little country and the bulk of Germany made an +impression on her. "My! it looks as though they could just make one +mouthful of it," she remarked. "It's <i>awfully</i> little."</p> + +<p>"Who?" asked Maggie. "What?"</p> + +<p>"Belgium and Germany."</p> + +<p>Maggie was blank for a moment. Then she remembered. "Oh, the war. Yes, I +know. Mr. Wentworth's fine sermon was about it yesterday. War is the +wickedest thing in the world. Anything is better than to go killing each +other. They ought to settle it by arbitration. Mr. Wentworth said so."</p> + +<p>"They oughtn't to have done it if they'd promised not to," said Ellen. +The bell rang for the belated lunch and she went down to the dining-room +even more serious than was her habit.</p> + +<p>She read the paper very closely for the next few days, and one morning +surprised Maggie by the loudness of her exclamation as she glanced at +the headlines.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter?" asked her cousin. "Have they found the man who +killed that old woman?" She herself was deeply interested in a murder +case in Chicago.</p> + +<p>Ellen did not hear her. "Well, thank <i>goodness</i>!" she exclaimed. +"England is going to help France and Belgium!"</p> + +<p>Maggie looked over her shoulder disapprovingly. "Oh, I think it's awful! +Another country going to war! England a Christian nation, too! I don't +see how Christians <i>can</i> go to war. And I don't see what call the +Belgians had, anyhow, to fight Germany. They might have known they +couldn't stand up against such a big country. All the Germans wanted to +do was just to walk along the roads. They wouldn't have done any harm. +Mr. Schnitzler was explaining it to me down at the office."</p> + +<p>"They'd promised they wouldn't," repeated Ellen. "And the Belgians had +promised everybody that they wouldn't let anybody go across their land +to pick on France that way. They kept their promise and the Germans +didn't. It makes me <i>mad</i>! I wish to goodness our country would help +them!"</p> + +<p>Maggie was horrified. "<i>Ellen Boardman</i>, would you want <i>Americans</i> to +commit murder? You'd better go to church with me next Sunday and hear +Mr. Wentworth preach one of his fine sermons."</p> + +<p>Ellen did this, and heard a sermon on passive resistance as the best +answer to violence. She was accustomed to accepting without question any +statement she found in a printed book, or what any speaker said in any +lecture. Also her mind, having been uniquely devoted for many years to +the problems of office administration, moved with more readiness among +letter-files and card-catalogues of customers than among the abstract +ideas where now, rather to her dismay, she began to find her thoughts +centering. More than a week passed after hearing that sermon before she +said, one night as she was brushing her hair: "About the Belgians—if a +robber wanted us to let him go through this room so he could get into +Mrs. Wilson's room and take all her money and maybe kill her, would you +feel all right just to snuggle down in bed and let him? Especially if +you had told Mrs. Wilson that she needn't ever lock the door that leads +into our room, because you'd see to it that nobody came through?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, but," said Maggie, "Mr. Wentworth says it is only the German +<i>Government</i> that wanted to invade Belgium, that the German soldiers +just hated to do it. If you could fight the German Kaiser, it'd be all +right."</p> + +<p>Ellen jumped at this admission. "Oh, Mr. Wentworth does think there are +<i>some</i> cases where it isn't enough just to stand by, and say you don't +like it?"</p> + +<p>Maggie ignored this. "He says the people who really get killed are only +the poor soldiers that aren't to blame."</p> + +<p>Ellen stood for a moment by the gas, her hair up in curl-papers, the +light full on her plain, serious face, sallow above the crude white of +her straight, unornamented nightgown. She said, and to her own surprise +her voice shook as she spoke: "Well, suppose the real robber stayed down +in the street and only sent up here to rob and kill Mrs. Wilson some men +who just hated to do it, but were too afraid of him not to. Would you +think it was all right for us to open our door and let them go through +without trying to stop them?"</p> + +<p>Maggie did not follow this reasoning, but she received a disagreeable, +rather daunting impression from the eyes which looked at her so hard, +from the stern, quivering voice. She flounced back on her pillow, saying +impatiently: "I don't know what's got into you, Ellen Boardman. You look +actually <i>queer</i>, these days! What do <i>you</i> care so much about the +Belgians for? You never heard of them before all this began! And +everybody knows how immoral French people are."</p> + +<p>Ellen turned out the gas and got into bed silently.</p> + +<p>Maggie felt uncomfortable and aggrieved. The next time she saw Mr. +Wentworth she repeated the conversation to him. She hoped and expected +that the young minister would immediately furnish her with a crushing +argument to lay Ellen low, but instead he was silent for a moment, and +then said: "That's rather an interesting illustration, about the +burglars going through your room. Where does she get such ideas?"</p> + +<p>Maggie disavowed with some heat any knowledge of the source of her +cousin's eccentricities. "I don't <i>know</i> where! She's a stenographer +downtown."</p> + +<p>Mr. Wentworth looked thoughtful and walked away, evidently having +forgotten Maggie.</p> + +<p>In the days which followed, the office-manager of the wholesale hardware +house more and more justified the accusation of looking "queer." It came +to be so noticeable that one day her employer, Mr. Pennypacker, asked +her if she didn't feel well. "You've been looking sort of under the +weather," he said.</p> + +<p>She answered, "I'm just <i>sick</i> because the United States won't do +anything to help Belgium and France."</p> + +<p>Mr. Pennypacker had never received a more violent shock of pure +astonishment. "Great Scotland!" he ejaculated, "what's that to <i>you</i>?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I live in the United States," she advanced, as though it were an +argument.</p> + +<p>Mr. Pennypacker looked at her hard. It was the same plain, serious, +rather sallow face he had seen for years bent over his typewriter and +his letter-files. But the eyes were different—anxious, troubled.</p> + +<p>"It makes me sick," she repeated, "to see a great big nation picking on +a little one that was only keeping its promise."</p> + +<p>Her employer cast about for a conceivable reason for the aberration. +"Any of your folks come here from there?" he ventured.</p> + +<p>"Gracious, <i>no</i>!" cried Ellen, almost as much shocked as Maggie would +have been at the idea that there might be "foreigners" in her family. +She added: "But you don't have to be related to a little boy, do you, to +get mad at a man that's beating him up, especially if the boy hasn't +done anything he oughtn't to?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Pennypacker stared. "I don't know that I ever looked at it that +way." He added: "I've been so taken up with that lost shipment of nails, +to tell the truth, that I haven't read much about the war. There's +always <i>some</i> sort of a war going on over there in Europe, seems to me." +He stared for a moment into space, and came back with a jerk to the +letter he was dictating.</p> + +<p>That evening, over the supper-table, he repeated to his wife what his +stenographer had said. His wife asked, "That little sallow Miss Boardman +that never has a word to say for herself?" and upon being told that it +was the same, said wonderingly, "Well, what ever started <i>her</i> up, I +wonder?" After a time she said: "<i>Is</i> Germany so much bigger than +Belgium as all that? Pete, go get your geography." She and her husband +and their High School son gazed at the map. "It looks that way," said +the father. "Gee! They must have had their nerve with them! Gimme the +paper." He read with care the war-news and the editorial which he had +skipped in the morning, and as he read he looked very grave, and rather +cross. When he laid the paper down he said, impatiently: "Oh, damn the +war! Damn Europe, anyhow!" His wife took the paper out of his hand and +read in her turn the news of the advance into Northern France.</p> + +<p>Just before they fell asleep his wife remarked out of the darkness, "Mr. +Scheidemann, down at the grocery, said to-day the war was because the +other nations were jealous of Germany."</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't know," said Mr. Pennypacker heavily, "that I'd have any +call to take an ax to a man because I thought he was jealous of me."</p> + +<p>"That's so," admitted his wife.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>During that autumn Ellen read the papers, and from time to time broke +her silence and unburdened her mind to the people in the boarding-house. +They considered her unbalanced on the subject. The young reporter on the +Marshallton <i>Herald</i> liked to lead her on to "get her going," as he +said—but the others dodged whenever the war was mentioned and looked +apprehensively in her direction.</p> + +<p>The law of association of ideas works, naturally enough, in Marshallton, +Kansas, quite as much at its ease as in any psychological laboratory. In +fact Marshallton was a psychological laboratory with Ellen Boardman, an +undefined element of transmutation. Without knowing why, scarcely +realizing that the little drab figure had crossed his field of vision, +Mr. Pennypacker found the war recurring to his thoughts every time he +saw her. He did not at all enjoy this, and each time that it happened he +thrust the disagreeable subject out of his mind with impatience. The +constant recurrence of the necessity for this effort brought upon his +usually alert, good-humored face an occasional clouded expression like +that which darkened his stenographer's eyes. When Ellen came into the +dining-room of the boarding-house, even though she did not say a word, +every one there was aware of an unpleasant interruption to the habitual, +pleasant current of their thoughts directed upon their own affairs. In +self-defense some of the women took to knitting polo-caps for Belgian +children. With those in their hands they could listen, with more +reassuring certainty that she was "queer," to Miss Boardman's comments +on what she read in the newspaper. Every time Mr. Wentworth, preaching +one of his excellent, civic-minded sermons on caring for the babies of +the poor, or organizing a playground for the children of the factory +workers, or extending the work of the Ladies' Guild to neighborhood +visits, caught sight of that plain, very serious face looking up at him +searchingly, expectantly, he wondered if he had been right in announcing +that he would not speak on the war because it would certainly cause +dissension among his congregation.</p> + +<p>One day, in the middle of winter, he found Miss Boardman waiting for him +in the church vestibule after every one else had gone. She said, with +her usual directness: "Mr. Wentworth, do you think the French ought to +have just let the Germans walk right in and take Paris? Would you let +them walk right in and take Washington?"</p> + +<p>The minister was a young man, with a good deal of natural heat in his +composition, and he found himself answering this bald question with a +simplicity as bald: "No, I wouldn't."</p> + +<p>"Well, if they did right, why don't we help them?" Ellen's homely, +monosyllabic words had a ring of despairing sincerity.</p> + +<p>Mr. Wentworth dodged them hastily. "We <i>are</i> helping them. The +charitable effort of the United States in the war is something +astounding. The statistics show that we have helped...." He was going on +to repeat some statistics of American war-relief just then current, when +Mr. Scheidemann, the prosperous German grocer, a most influential member +of the First Congregational Church, came back into the vestibule to look +for his umbrella, which he had forgotten after the service. By a reflex +action beyond his control, the minister stopped talking about the war. +He and Miss Boardman had, for just long enough so that he realized it, +the appearance of people "caught" discussing something they ought not to +mention. The instant after, when Ellen had turned away, he felt the +liveliest astonishment and annoyance at having done this. He feared that +Miss Boardman might have the preposterous notion that he was <i>afraid</i> to +talk about the war before a German. This idea nettled him intolerably. +Just before he fell asleep that night he had a most disagreeable moment, +half awake, half asleep, when he himself entertained the preposterous +idea which he had attributed to Miss Boardman. It woke him up, broad +awake, and very much vexed. The little wound he had inflicted on his +own vanity smarted. Thereafter at any mention of the war he +straightened his back to a conscious stiffness, and raised his voice if +a German were within hearing. And every time he saw that plain, dull +face of the stenographer, he winced.</p> + +<p>On the 8th of May, 1915, when Ellen went down to breakfast, the +boarding-house dining-room was excited. Ellen heard the sinking of the +<i>Lusitania</i> read out aloud by the young reporter. To every one's +surprise, she added nothing to the exclamations of horror with which the +others greeted the news. She looked very white and left the room without +touching her breakfast. She went directly down to the office and when +Mr. Pennypacker came in at nine o'clock she asked him for a leave of +absence, "maybe three months, maybe more," depending on how long her +money held out. She explained that she had in the savings-bank five +hundred dollars, the entire savings of a lifetime, which she intended to +use now.</p> + +<p>It was the first time in eleven years that she had ever asked for more +than her regular yearly fortnight, but Mr. Pennypacker was not +surprised. "You've been looking awfully run-down lately. It'll do you +good to get a real rest. But it won't cost you all <i>that</i>! Where are you +going? To Battle Creek?"</p> + +<p>"I'm not going to rest," said Miss Boardman, in a queer voice. "I'm +going to work, in France."</p> + +<p>The first among the clashing and violent ideas which this announcement +aroused in Mr. Pennypacker's mind was the instant certainty that she +could not have seen the morning paper. "Great Scotland—not much you're +not! This is no time to be taking ocean trips. The submarines have just +got one of the big ocean ships, hundreds of women and children drowned."</p> + +<p>"I heard about that," she said, looking at him very earnestly, with a +dumb emotion struggling in her eyes. "That's why I'm going."</p> + +<p>Something about the look in her eyes silenced the business man for a +moment. He thought uneasily that she had certainly gone a little dippy +over the war. Then he drew a long breath and started in confidently to +dissuade her.</p> + +<p>At ten o'clock, informed that if she went she need not expect to come +back, she went out to the savings-bank, drew out her five hundred +dollars, went down to the station and bought a ticket to Washington, one +of Mr. Pennypacker's arguments having been the great difficulty of +getting a passport.</p> + +<p>Then she went back to the boarding-house and began to pack two-thirds of +her things into her trunk, and put the other third into her satchel, all +she intended to take with her.</p> + +<p>At noon Maggie came back from her work, found her thus, and burst into +shocked and horrified tears. At two o'clock Maggie went to find the +young reporter, and, her eyes swollen, her face between anger and alarm, +she begged him to come and "talk to Ellen. She's gone off her head."</p> + +<p>The reporter asked what form her mania took.</p> + +<p>"She's going to France to work for the French and Belgians as long as +her money holds out ... all the money she's saved in all her life!"</p> + +<p>The first among the clashing ideas which this awakened in the reporter's +mind was the most heartfelt and gorgeous amusement. The idea of that +dumb, back-woods, pie-faced stenographer carrying her valuable services +to the war in Europe seemed to him the richest thing that had happened +in years! He burst into laughter. "Yes, sure I'll come and talk to her," +he agreed. He found her lifting a tray into her trunk. "See here, Miss +Boardman," he remarked reasonably, "do you know what you need? You need +a sense of humor! You take things too much in dead earnest. The sense of +humor keeps you from doing ridiculous things, don't you know it does?"</p> + +<p>Ellen faced him, seriously considering this. "Do you think all +ridiculous things are bad?" she asked him, not as an argument, but as a +genuine question.</p> + +<p>He evaded this and went on. "Just look at yourself now ... just look at +what you're planning to do. Here is the biggest war in the history of +the world; all the great nations involved; millions and millions of +dollars being poured out; the United States sending hundreds and +thousands of packages and hospital supplies by the million; and nurses +and doctors and Lord knows how many trained people ... and, look! who +comes here?—a stenographer from Walker and Pennypacker's, in +Marshallton, Kansas, setting out to the war!"</p> + +<p>Ellen looked long at this picture of herself, and while she considered +it the young man looked long at her. As he looked, he stopped laughing. +She said finally, very simply, in a declarative sentence devoid of any +but its obvious meaning, "No, I can't see that that is so very funny."</p> + +<p>At six o'clock that evening she was boarding the train for Washington, +her cousin Maggie weeping by her side, Mrs. Wilson herself escorting +her, very much excited by the momentousness of the event taking place +under her roof, her satchel carried by none other than the young +reporter, who, oddly enough, was not laughing at all. He bought her a +box of chocolates and a magazine, and shook hands with her vigorously as +the train started to pull out of the station. He heard himself saying, +"Say, Miss Boardman, if you see anything for me to do over there, you +might let me know," and found that he must run to get himself off the +train before it carried him away from Marshallton altogether.</p> + +<p>A fortnight from that day (passports were not so difficult to get in +those distant days when war-relief work was the eccentricity of only an +occasional individual) she was lying in her second-class cabin, as the +steamer rolled in the Atlantic swells beyond Sandy Hook. She was +horribly seasick, but her plans were all quite clear. Of course she +belonged to the Young Women's Christian Association in Marshallton, so +she knew all about it. At Washington she had found shelter at the +Y.W.C.A. quarters. In New York she had done the same thing, and when she +arrived in Paris (if she ever did) she could of course go there to stay. +Her roommate, a very sophisticated, much-traveled art student, was +immensely amused by the artlessness of this plan. "I've got the <i>dernier +cri</i> in greenhorns in my cabin," she told her group on deck. "She's +expecting to find a Y.W.C.A. in <i>Paris</i>!"</p> + +<p>But the wisdom of the simple was justified once more. There was a +Y.W.C.A. in Paris, run by an energetic, well-informed American spinster. +Ellen crawled into the rather hard bed in the very small room (the +cheapest offered her) and slept twelve hours at a stretch, utterly worn +out with the devastating excitement of her first travels in a foreign +land. Then she rose up, comparatively refreshed, and with her foolish, +ignorant simplicity inquired where in Paris her services could be of +use. The energetic woman managing the Y.W.C.A. looked at her very +dubiously.</p> + +<p>"Well, there might be something for you over on the rue Pharaon, number +27. I hear there's a bunch of society dames trying to get up a +<i>vestiaire</i> for refugees, there."</p> + +<p>As Ellen noted down the address she said warningly, her eyes running +over Ellen's worn blue serge suit: "They don't pay anything. It's work +for volunteers, you know."</p> + +<p>Ellen was astonished that any one should think of getting pay for work +done in France. "Oh, gracious, no!" she said, turning away.</p> + +<p>The directress of the Y.W.C.A. murmured to herself: "Well, you certainly +never can tell by <i>looks</i>!"</p> + +<p>At the rue Pharaon, number 27, Ellen was motioned across a stony gray +courtyard littered with wooden packing-cases, into an immense, draughty +dark room, that looked as though it might have been originally the coach +and harness-room of a big stable. This also was strewed and heaped with +packing-cases in indescribable confusion, some opened and disgorging +innumerable garments of all colors and materials, others still tightly +nailed up. A couple of elderly workmen in blouses were opening one of +these. Before others knelt or stood distracted-looking, elegantly +dressed women, their arms full of parti-colored bundles, their eyes full +of confusion. In one corner, on a bench, sat a row of wretchedly poor +women and white-faced, silent children, the latter shod more miserably +than the poorest negro child in Marshallton. Against a packing-case near +the entrance leaned a beautifully dressed, handsome, middle-aged woman, +a hammer in one hand. Before her at ease stood a pretty girl, the +fineness of whose tightly drawn silk stockings, the perfection of whose +gleaming coiffure, the exquisite hang and fit of whose silken dress +filled Ellen Boardman with awe. In an instant her own stout cotton hose +hung wrinkled about her ankles, she felt on her neck every stringy wisp +of her badly dressed hair, the dip of her skirt at the back was a +physical discomfort. The older woman was speaking. Ellen could not help +overhearing. She said forcibly: "No, Miss Parton, you will not come in +contact with a single heroic poilu here. We have nothing to offer you +but hard, uninteresting work for the benefit of ungrateful, +uninteresting refugee women, many of whom will try to cheat and get +double their share. You will not lay your hand on a single fevered +masculine brow...." She broke off, made an effort for self-control and +went on with a resolutely reasonable air: "You'd better go out to the +hospital at Neuilly. You can wear a uniform there from the first day, +and be in contact with the men. I wouldn't have bothered you to come +here, except that you wrote from Detroit that you would be willing to do +<i>any</i>thing, scrub floors or wash dishes."</p> + +<p>The other received all this with the indestructible good humor of a girl +who knows herself very pretty and as well dressed as any one in the +world. "I know I did, Mrs. Putnam," she said, amused at her own +absurdity. "But now I'm here I'd be <i>too</i> disappointed to go back if I +hadn't been working for the soldiers. All the girls expect me to have +stories about the work, you know. And I can't stay very long, only four +months, because my coming-out party is in October. I guess I <i>will</i> go +to Neuilly. They take you for three months there, you know." She smiled +pleasantly, turned with athletic grace and picked her way among the +packing-cases back to the door.</p> + +<p>Ellen advanced in her turn.</p> + +<p>"Well?" said the middle-aged woman, rather grimly. Her intelligent eyes +took in relentlessly every detail of Ellen's costume and Ellen felt them +at their work.</p> + +<p>"I came to see if I couldn't help," said Ellen.</p> + +<p>"Don't you want direct contact with the wounded soldiers?" asked the +older woman ironically.</p> + +<p>"No," said Ellen with her habitual simplicity. "I wouldn't know how to +do anything for them. I'm not a nurse."</p> + +<p>"You don't suppose <i>that's</i> any obstacle!" ejaculated the other woman.</p> + +<p>"But I never had <i>any</i>thing to do with sick people," said Ellen. "I'm +the office-manager of a big hardware firm in Kansas."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Putnam gasped like a drowning person coming to the surface. "You +<i>are</i>!" she cried. "You don't happen to know short-hand, do you?"</p> + +<p>"Gracious! of course I know short-hand!" cried Ellen, her astonishment +proving her competence.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Putnam laid down her hammer and drew another long breath. "How much +time can you give us?" she asked. "Two afternoons a week? Three?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, <i>my</i>!" said Ellen, "I can give you all my time, from eight in the +morning till six at night. That's what I came for."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Putnam looked at her a moment as though to assure herself that she +was not dreaming, and then, seizing her by the arm, she propelled her +rapidly towards the back of the room, and through a small door into a +dingy little room with two desks in it. Among the heaped-up papers on +one of these a blond young woman with inky fingers sought wildly +something which she did not find. She said without looking up: "Oh, Aunt +Maria, I've just discovered that that shipment of clothes from +Louisville got acknowledged to the people in Seattle! And I can't find +that letter from the woman in Indianapolis who offered to send +children's shirts from her husband's factory. You said you laid it on +your desk, last night, but I <i>cannot</i> find it. And do you remember what +you wrote Mrs. Worthington? Did you say anything about the shoes?"</p> + +<p>Ellen heard this but dimly, her gaze fixed on the confusion of the desks +which made her physically dizzy to contemplate. Never had she dreamed +that papers, sacred records of fact, could be so maltreated. In a reflex +response to the last question of the lovely, distressed young lady she +said: "Why don't you look at the carbon copy of the letter to Mrs. +Worthington?"</p> + +<p>"<i>Copy!</i>" cried the young lady, aghast. "Why, we don't begin to have +time to write the letters <i>once</i>, let alone <i>copy</i> them!"</p> + +<p>Ellen gazed horrified into an abyss of ignorance which went beyond her +utmost imaginings. She said feebly, "If you kept your letters in a +letter-file, you wouldn't ever lose them."</p> + +<p>"There," said Mrs. Putnam, in the tone of one unexpectedly upheld in a +rather bizarre opinion, "I've been saying all the time we ought to have +a letter-file. But do you suppose you could <i>buy</i> one in Paris?" She +spoke dubiously from the point of view of one who had bought nothing but +gloves and laces and old prints in Paris.</p> + +<p>Ellen answered with the certainty of one who had found the Y.W.C.A. in +Paris: "I'm sure you can. Why, they could not do business a <i>minute</i> +without letter-files."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Putnam sank into a chair with a sigh of bewilderment and fatigue, +and showed herself to be as truly a superior person as she looked by +making the following speech to the newcomer: "The truth is, Miss ..."</p> + +<p>"Boardman," supplied Ellen.</p> + +<p>"Miss Boardman, the fact is that we are trying to do something which is +beyond us, something we ought never to have undertaken. But we didn't +know we were undertaking it, you see. And now that it is begun, it must +not fail. All the wonderful American good-will which has materialized in +that room full of packing-cases must not be wasted, must get to the +people who need it so direly. It began this way. We had no notion that +we would have so great an affair to direct. My niece and I were living +here when the war broke out. Of course we gave all our own clothes we +could spare and all the money we could for the refugees. Then we wrote +home to our American friends. One of my letters was published by chance +in a New York paper and copied in a number of others. Everybody who +happened to know my name"—(Ellen heard afterwards that she was of the +holy of holies of New England families)—"began sending me money and +boxes of clothing. It all arrived so suddenly, so unexpectedly. We had +to rent this place to put the things in. The refugees came in swarms. We +found ourselves overwhelmed. It is impossible to find a single +English-speaking stenographer who is not already more than overworked. +The only help we get is from volunteers, a good many of them American +society girls like that one you ..." she paused to invent a sufficiently +savage characterization and hesitated to pronounce it. "Well, most of +them are not quite so absurd as that. But none of them know any more +than we do about keeping accounts, letters ..."</p> + +<p>Ellen broke in: "How do you keep your accounts, anyhow? Bound ledger, or +the loose-leaf system?"</p> + +<p>They stared. "I have been careful to set down everything I could +<i>remember</i> in a little note-book," said Mrs. Putnam.</p> + +<p>Ellen looked about for a chair and sat down on it hastily. When she +could speak again, after a moment of silent collecting of her forces she +said: "Well, I guess the first thing to do is to get a letter-file. I +don't know any French, so I probably couldn't get it. If one of you +could go ..."</p> + +<p>The pretty young lady sprang for her hat. "I'll go! I'll go, Auntie."</p> + +<p>"And," continued Ellen, "you can't do anything till you keep copies of +your letters and you can't make copies unless you have a typewriter. +Don't you suppose you could rent one?"</p> + +<p>"I'll rent one before I come back," said Eleanor, who evidently lacked +neither energy nor good-will. She said to Mrs. Putnam: "I'm going, +instead of you, so that you can superintend opening those boxes. They +are making a most horrible mess of it, I know."</p> + +<p>"Before a single one is opened, you ought to take down the name and +address of the sender, and then note the contents," said Ellen, speaking +with authority. "A card-catalogue would be a good system for keeping +that record, I should think, with dates of the arrival of the cases. And +why couldn't you keep track of your refugees that way, too? A card for +each family, with a record on it of the number in the family and of +everything given. You could refer to it in a moment, and carry it out to +the room where the refugees are received."</p> + +<p>They gazed at her plain, sallow countenance in rapt admiration.</p> + +<p>"Eleanor," said Mrs. Putnam, "bring back cards for a card-catalogue, +hundreds of cards, thousands of cards." She addressed Ellen with a +respect which did honor to her native intelligence. "Miss Boardman, +wouldn't you better take off your hat? Couldn't you work more at your +ease? You could hang your things here." With one sweep of her white, +well-cared-for hand she snatched her own Parisian habiliments from the +hanger and hook, and installed there the Marshallton wraps of Ellen +Boardman. She set her down in front of the desk; she put in her hands +the ridiculous little Russia leather-covered note-book of the +"accounts"; she opened drawer after drawer crammed with letters; and +with a happy sigh she went out to the room of the packing-cases, closing +the door gently behind her, that she might not disturb the +high-priestess of business-management who already bent over those +abominably mis-used records, her eyes gleaming with the sacred fire of +system.</p> + +<p>There is practically nothing more to record about the four months spent +by Ellen Boardman as far as her work at the <i>vestiaire</i> was concerned. +Every day she arrived at number 27 rue Pharaon at eight o'clock and put +in a good hour of quiet work before any of the more or less irregular +volunteer ladies appeared. She worked there till noon, returned to the +Y.W.C.A., lunched, was in the office again by one o'clock, had another +hour of forceful concentration before any of the cosmopolitan great +ladies finished their lengthy <i>déjeuners</i>, and she stayed there until +six in the evening, when every one else had gone. She realized that her +effort must be not only to create a rational system of records and +accounts and correspondence which she herself could manage, but a +fool-proof one which could be left in the hands of the elegant ladies +who would remain in Paris after she had returned to Kansas.</p> + +<p>And yet, not so fool-proof as she had thought at first. She was +agreeably surprised to find both Mrs. Putnam and her pretty niece +perfectly capable of understanding a system once it was invented, set in +working order, and explained to them. She came to understand that what, +on her first encounter with them, she had naturally enough taken for +congenital imbecility, was merely the result of an ignorance and an +inexperience which remained to the end astounding to her. Their +good-will was as great as their native capacity. Eleanor set herself +resolutely, if very awkwardly, to learn the use of the typewriter. Mrs. +Putnam even developed the greatest interest in the ingenious methods of +corraling and marshaling information and facts which were second nature +to the business-woman. "I never saw anything more fascinating!" she +cried the day when Ellen explained to her the workings of a system for +cross-indexing the card-catalogues of refugees already aided. "How <i>do</i> +you think of such things?"</p> + +<p>Ellen did not explain that she generally thought of them in the two or +three extra hours of work she put in every day, while Mrs. Putnam ate +elaborate food.</p> + +<p>It soon became apparent that there had been much "repeating" among the +refugees. The number possible to clothe grew rapidly, far beyond what +the "office force" could manage to investigate. Ellen set her face +against miscellaneous giving without knowledge of conditions. She +devised a system of visiting inspectors which kept track of all the +families in their rapidly growing list. She even made out a sort of +time-card for the visiting ladies which enabled the office to keep some +track of what they did, and yet did not ruffle their leisure-class +dignity ... and this was really an achievement. She suggested, made out, +and had printed an orderly report of what they had done, what money had +come in, how it had been spent, what clothes had been given and how +distributed, the number of people aided, the most pressing needs. This +she had put in every letter sent to America. The result was enough to +justify Mrs. Putnam's naïve astonishment and admiration of her brilliant +idea. Packing-cases and checks flowed in by every American steamer.</p> + +<p>Ellen's various accounting systems and card-catalogues responded with +elastic ease to the increased volume of facts, as she of course expected +them to; but Mrs. Putnam could never be done marveling at the cool +certainty with which all this immense increase was handled. She had a +shudder as she thought of what would have happened if Miss Boardman had +not dropped down from heaven upon them. Dining out, of an evening, she +spent much time expatiating on the astonishing virtues of one of her +volunteers.</p> + +<p>Ellen conceived a considerable regard for Mrs. Putnam, but she did not +talk of her in dining out, because she never dined anywhere. She left +the "office" at six o'clock and proceeded to a nearby bakery where she +bought four sizable rolls. An apple cart supplied a couple of apples, +and even her ignorance of French was not too great an obstacle to the +purchase of some cakes of sweet chocolate. With these decently hidden in +a small black hand-bag, she proceeded to the waiting-room of the Gare de +l'Est where, like any traveler waiting for his train she ate her frugal +meal; ate as much of it, that is, as a painful tightness in her throat +would let her. For the Gare de l'Est was where the majority of French +soldiers took their trains to go back to the front after their +occasional week's furlough with their families.</p> + +<p>No words of mine can convey any impression of what she saw there. No one +who has not seen the Gare de l'Est night after night can ever imagine +the sum of stifled human sorrow which filled it thickly, like a dreadful +incense of pain going up before some cruel god. It was there that the +mothers, the wives, the sweethearts, the sisters, the children brought +their priceless all and once more laid it on the altar. It was there +that those horrible silent farewells were said, the more unendurable +because they were repeated and repeated till human nature reeled under +the burden laid on it by the will. The great court outside, the noisy +echoing waiting-room, the inner platform which was the uttermost limit +for those accompanying the soldiers returning to hell,—they were not +only always filled with living hearts broken on the wheel, but they were +thronged with ghosts, ghosts of those whose farewell kiss had really +been the last, with ghosts of those who had watched the dear face out of +sight and who were never to see it again. Those last straining, wordless +embraces, those last, hot, silent kisses, the last touch of the little +child's hand on the father's cheek which it was never to touch again ... +the nightmare place reeked of them!</p> + +<p>The stenographer from Kansas had found it as simply as she had done +everything else. "Which station do the families go to say good-bye to +their soldiers?" she had asked, explaining apologetically that she +thought maybe if she went there too she could help sometimes; there +might be a heavy baby to carry, or somebody who had lost his ticket, or +somebody who hadn't any lunch for the train.</p> + +<p>After the first evening spent there, she had shivered and wept all night +in her bed; but she had gone back the next evening, with the money she +saved by eating bread and apples for her dinner; for of course the sweet +chocolate was for the soldiers. She sat there, armed with nothing but +her immense ignorance, her immense sympathy. On that second evening she +summoned enough courage to give some chocolate to an elderly shabby +soldier, taking the train sadly, quite alone; and again to a white-faced +young lad accompanied by his bent, poorly dressed grandmother. What +happened in both those cases sent her back to the Y.W.C.A. to make up +laboriously from her little pocket French dictionary and to learn by +heart this sentence: "I am sorry that I cannot understand French. I am +an American." Thereafter the surprised and extremely articulate Gallic +gratitude which greeted her timid overtures, did not leave her so +helplessly swamped in confusion. She stammered out her little phrase +with a shy, embarrassed smile and withdrew as soon as possible from the +hearty handshake which was nearly always the substitute offered for the +unintelligible thanks. How many such handshakes she had! Sometimes as +she watched her right hand, tapping on the typewriter, she thought: +"Those hands which it has touched, they may be dead now. They were +heroes' hands." She looked at her own with awe, because it had touched +them.</p> + +<p>Once her little phrase brought out an unexpected response from a +rough-looking man who sat beside her on the bench waiting for his train, +his eyes fixed gloomily on his great soldier's shoes. She offered him, +shame-facedly, a little sewing-kit which she herself had manufactured, a +pad of writing-paper and some envelopes. He started, came out of his +bitter brooding, looked at her astonished, and, as they all did without +exception, read in her plain, earnest face what she was. He touched his +battered trench helmet in a sketched salute and thanked her. She +answered as usual that she was sorry she could not understand French, +being an American. To her amazement he answered in fluent English, with +an unmistakable New York twang: "Oh, you are, are you? Well, so'm I. +Brought up there from the time I was a kid. But all my folks are French +and my wife's French and I couldn't give the old country the go-by when +trouble came."</p> + +<p>In the conversation which followed Ellen learned that his wife was +expecting their first child in a few weeks ... "that's why she didn't +come to see me off. She said it would just about kill her to watch me +getting on the train ... and anyhow she's not fit to walk. Maybe you +think it's easy to leave her all alone ... the poor kid!" The tears +rose frankly to his eyes. He blew his nose.</p> + +<p>"Maybe I could do something for her," suggested Ellen, her heart beating +fast at the idea.</p> + +<p>"Gee! Yes! If you'd go to see her! She talks a little English!" he +cried. He gave her the name and address, and when that poilu went back +to the front it was Ellen Boardman from Marshallton, Kansas, who walked +with him to the gate, who shook hands with him, who waved him a last +salute as he boarded his train.</p> + +<p>The next night she did not go to the station. She went to see the wife. +The night after that she was sewing on a baby's wrapper as she sat in +the Gare de l'Est, turning her eyes away in shame from the intolerable +sorrow of those with families, watching for those occasional solitary or +very poor ones whom alone she ventured to approach with her timidly +proffered tokens of sympathy.</p> + +<p>At the Y.W.C.A. opinions varied about her. She was patently to every eye +respectable to her last drop of pale blood. And yet <i>was</i> it quite +respectable to go offering chocolate and writing-paper to soldiers you'd +never seen before? Everybody knew what soldiers were! Some one finally +decided smartly that her hat was a sufficient protection. It is true +that her hat was not becoming, but I do not think it was what saved her +from misunderstanding.</p> + +<p>She did not always go to the Gare de l'Est every evening now. Sometimes +she spent them in the little dormer-windowed room where the wife of the +New York poilu waited for her baby. Several evenings she spent chasing +elusive information from the American Ambulance Corps as to exactly the +conditions in which a young man without money could come to drive an +ambulance in France ... the young man without money being of course the +reporter on the Marshallton <i>Herald</i>.</p> + +<p>It chanced to be on one of the evenings when she was with the young wife +that the need came, that she went flying to get the mid-wife. She sat on +the stairs outside, after this, till nearly morning, shaken to her soul +by the cries within. When it was quiet, when the mid-wife let her in to +see the baby, she took the little new citizen of the Republic in her +arms, tears of mingled thanksgiving and dreadful fear raining down her +face, because another man-child had been born into the world. Would <i>he</i> +grow up only to say farewell at the Gare de l'Est? Oh, she was not sorry +that she had come to France to help in that war. She understood now, she +understood.</p> + +<p>It was Ellen who wrote to the father the letter announcing the birth of +a child which gave him the right to another precious short furlough. It +was Ellen who went down to the Gare de l'Est, this time to the joyful +wait on the muddy street outside the side door from which the returning +<i>permissionnaires</i> issued forth, caked with mud to their eyes. It was +Ellen who had never before "been kissed by a man" who was caught in a +pair of dingy, horizon-blue arms and soundly saluted on each sallow +cheek by the exultant father. It was Ellen who was made as much of a +godmother as her Protestant affiliations permitted ... and oh, it was +Ellen who made the fourth at the end of the furlough when (the first +time the new mother had left her room) they went back to the Gare de +l'Est. At the last it was Ellen who held the sleeping baby when the +husband took his wife in that long, bitter embrace; it was Ellen who was +not surprised or hurt that he turned away without a word to her ... she +understood that ... it was Ellen whose arm was around the trembling +young wife as they stood, their faces pressed against the barrier to see +him for the last time; it was Ellen who went back with her to the silent +desolation of the little room, who put the baby into the slackly hanging +arms, and watched, her eyes burning with unshed tears, those arms close +about the little new inheritor of humanity's woes....</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Four months from the time she landed in Paris her money was almost gone +and she was quitting the city with barely enough in her pocket to take +her back to Marshallton. As simply as she had come to Paris, she now +went home. She <i>belonged</i> to Marshallton. It was a very good thing for +Marshallton that she did.</p> + +<p>She gave fifty dollars to the mother of baby Jacques (that was why she +had so very little left) and she promised to send her ten dollars every +month as soon as she herself should be again a wage-earner. Mrs. Putnam +and her niece, inconsolable at her loss, went down to the Gare du Quai +d'Orsay to see her off, looking more in keeping with the elegant +travelers starting for the Midi, than Ellen did. Her place, after all, +had been at the Gare de l'Est. As they shook hands warmly with her, they +gave her a beautiful bouquet, the evident cost of which stabbed her to +the heart. What she could have done with that money!</p> + +<p>"You have simply transformed the <i>vestiaire</i>, Miss Boardman," said Mrs. +Putnam with generous but by no means exaggerating ardor. "It would +certainly have sunk under the waves if you hadn't come to the rescue. I +wish you <i>could</i> have stayed, but thanks to your teaching we'll be able +to manage anything now."</p> + +<p>After the train had moved off, Mrs. Putnam said to her niece in a +shocked voice: "Third class! That long trip to Bordeaux! She'll die of +fatigue. You don't suppose she is going back because she didn't have +<i>money</i> enough to stay! Why, I would have paid anything to keep her." +The belated nature of this reflection shows that Ellen's teachings had +never gone more than skin deep and that there was still something +lacking in Mrs. Putnam's grasp on the realities of contemporary life.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Ellen was again too horribly seasick to suffer much apprehension about +submarines. This time she had as cabin-mate in the unventilated +second-class cabin the "companion" of a great lady traveling of course +in a suite in first-class. This great personage, when informed by her +satellites' nimble and malicious tongues of Ellen's personality and +recent errand in France, remarked with authority to the group of people +about her at dinner, embarking upon the game which was the seventh +course of the meal: "I disapprove wholly of these foolish American +volunteers ... ignorant, awkward, provincial boors, for the most part, +knowing nothing of all the exquisite old traditions of France, who +thrust themselves forward. They make America a laughing-stock."</p> + +<p>Luckily, Ellen, pecking feebly at the chilly boiled potato brought her +by an impatient stewardess, could not know this characterization.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>She arrived in Marshallton, and was astonished to find herself a +personage. Her departure had made her much more a figure in the town +life than she had ever been when she was still walking its streets. The +day after her departure the young reporter had written her up in the +<i>Herald</i> in a lengthy paragraph, and not a humorous one either. The +Sunday which she passed on the ocean after she left New York Mr. +Wentworth in one of his prayers implored the Divine blessing on "one of +our number who has left home and safety to fulfil a high moral +obligation and who even now is risking death in the pursuance of her +duty as she conceives it." Every one knew that he meant Ellen Boardman, +about whom they had all read in the <i>Herald</i>. Mr. Pennypacker took, then +and there, a decision which inexplicably lightened his heart. Being a +good business-man, he did not keep it to himself, but allowed it to leak +out the next time the reporter from the <i>Herald</i> dropped around for +chance items of news. The reporter made the most of it, and Marshallton, +already spending much of its time in discussing Ellen, read that "Mr. +John S. Pennypacker, in view of the high humanitarian principles +animating Miss Boardman in quitting his employ, has decided not to fill +her position but to keep it open for her on her return from her errand +of mercy to those in foreign parts stricken by the awful war now +devastating Europe."</p> + +<p>Then Ellen's letters began to arrive, mostly to Maggie, who read them +aloud to the deeply interested boarding-house circle. The members of +this, basking in reflected importance, repeated their contents to every +one who would listen. In addition the young reporter published extracts +from them in the <i>Herald</i>, editing them artfully, choosing the rare +plums of anecdote or description in Ellen's arid epistolary style. When +her letter to him came, he was plunged into despair because she had +learned that he would have to pay part of his expenses if he drove an +ambulance on the French front. By that time his sense of humor was in +such total eclipse that he saw nothing ridiculous in the fact that he +could not breathe freely another hour in the easy good-cheer of his +carefree life. He revolved one scheme after another for getting money; +and in the meantime let no week go by without giving some news from +their "heroic fellow-townswoman in France." Highland Springs, the +traditional rival and enemy of Marshallton, felt outraged by the tone of +proprietorship with which Marshallton people bragged of their delegate +in France.</p> + +<p>So it happened that when Ellen, fearfully tired, fearfully dusty after +the long ride in the day-coach, and fearfully shabby in exactly the same +clothes she had worn away, stepped wearily off the train at the +well-remembered little wooden station, she found not only Maggie, to +whom she had telegraphed from New York, but a large group of other +people advancing upon her with outstretched hands, crowding around her +with more respectful consideration than she had ever dreamed of seeing +addressed to her obscure person. She was too tired, too deeply moved to +find herself at home again, too confused, to recognize them all. Indeed +a number of them knew her only by her fame since her departure. Ellen +made out Maggie, who embraced her, weeping as loudly as when she had +gone away; she saw Mrs. Wilson who kissed her very hard and said she was +proud to know her; she saw with astonishment that Mr. Pennypacker +himself had left business in office hours! He shook her hand with energy +and said: "Well, Miss Boardman, very glad to see you safe back. We'll be +expecting you back at the old stand just as soon as you've rested up +from the trip." The intention of the poilu who had taken her in his arms +and kissed her, had not been more cordial. Ellen knew this and was +touched to tears.</p> + +<p>There was the reporter from the <i>Herald</i>, too, she saw him dimly through +the mist before her eyes, as he carried the satchel, the same he had +carried five months before with the same things in it. And as they put +her in the "hack" (she had never ridden in the hack before) there was +Mr. Wentworth, the young minister, who leaned through the window and +said earnestly: "I am counting on you to speak to our people in the +church parlors. You must tell us about things over there."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Well, she did speak to them! She was not the same person, you see, she +had been before she had spent those evenings in the Gare de l'Est. She +wanted them to know about what she had seen, and because there was no +one else to tell them, she rose up in her shabby suit and told them +herself. The first thing that came into her mind as she stood before +them, her heart suffocating her, her knees shaking under her, was the +strangeness of seeing so many able-bodied men not in uniform, and so +many women not in mourning. She told them this as a beginning and got +their startled attention at once, the men vaguely uneasy, the women +divining with frightened sympathy what it meant to see all women in +black.</p> + +<p>Then she went on to tell them about the work for the refugees ... not +for nothing had she made out the card-catalogue accounts of those +life-histories. "There was one old woman we helped ... she looked some +like Mrs. Wilson's mother. She had lost three sons and two sons-in-law +in the war. Both of her daughters, widows, had been sent off into +Germany to do forced labor. One of them had been a music-teacher and the +other a dressmaker. She had three of the grandchildren with her. Two of +them had disappeared ... just lost somewhere. She didn't have a cent +left, the Germans had taken everything. She was sixty-seven years old +and she was earning the children's living by doing scrub-woman's work in +a slaughter-house. She had been a school-teacher when she was young.</p> + +<p>"There were five little children in one family. The mother was sort of +out of her mind, though the doctors said maybe she would get over it. +They had been under shell-fire for five days, and she had seen three +members of her family die there. After that they wandered around in the +woods for ten days, living on grass and roots. The youngest child died +then. The oldest girl was only ten years old, but she took care of them +all somehow and used to get up nights when her mother got crazy thinking +the shells were falling again."</p> + +<p>Ellen spoke badly, awkwardly, haltingly. She told nothing which they +might not have read, perhaps had read in some American magazine. But it +was a different matter to hear such stories from the lips of Ellen +Boardman, born and brought up among them. Ellen Boardman had <i>seen</i> +those people, and through her eyes Marshallton looked aghast and for the +first time believed that what it saw was real, that such things were +happening to real men and women like themselves.</p> + +<p>When she began to tell them about the Gare de l'Est she began helplessly +to cry, but she would not stop for that. She smeared away the tears with +her handkerchief wadded into a ball, she was obliged to stop frequently +to blow her nose and catch her breath, but she had so much to say that +she struggled on, saying it in a shaking, uncertain voice, quite out of +her control. Standing there before those well-fed, well-meaning, +prosperous, <i>safe</i> countrymen of hers, it all rose before her with +burning vividness, and burningly she strove to set it before them. It +had all been said far better than she said it, eloquently described in +many highly paid newspaper articles, but it had never before been said +so that Marshallton understood it. Ellen Boardman, graceless, +stammering, inarticulate, yet spoke to them with the tongues of men and +angels because she spoke their own language. In the very real, very +literal and wholly miraculous sense of the words, she brought the +war—<i>home</i>—to them.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>When she sat down no one applauded. The women were pale. Some of them +had been crying. The men's faces were set and inexpressive. Mr. +Wentworth stood up and cleared his throat. He said that a young citizen +of their town (he named him, the young reporter) desired greatly to go +to the French front as an ambulance driver, but being obliged to earn +his living, he could not go unless helped out on his expenses. Miss +Boardman had been able to get exact information about that. Four hundred +dollars would keep him at the front for a year. He proposed that a +contribution should be taken up to that end.</p> + +<p>He himself went among them, gathering the contributions which were given +in silence. While he counted them afterwards, the young reporter, +waiting with an anxious face, swallowed repeatedly and crossed and +uncrossed his legs a great many times. Before he had finished counting +the minister stopped, reached over and gave the other young man a +handclasp. "I envy you," he said.</p> + +<p>He turned to the audience and announced that he had counted almost +enough for their purpose when he had come upon a note from Mr. +Pennypacker saying that he would make up any deficit. Hence they could +consider the matter settled. "Very soon, therefore, our town will again +be represented on the French front."</p> + +<p>The audience stirred, drew a long breath, and broke into applause.</p> + +<p>Whatever the rest of the Union might decide to do, Marshallton, Kansas, +had come into the war.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="EYES_FOR_THE_BLIND" id="EYES_FOR_THE_BLIND"></a>EYES FOR THE BLIND</h2> + + +<p>She woke in the morning to the sound of her alarm clock, an instrument +of torture which, before the war, she had never heard. At once there +descended upon her two overpowering sensations, one an intense desire to +stay in bed and rest, the other the realization that she had no time to +lose if she was to be at her office on time. She was up at once, and +began making a hasty toilet with cold water. It was so hasty that she +had no time to think, even in passing, of the old days when waking up +meant ringing for some one to open shutters, close windows and bring hot +water, breakfast, and the mails. By the time she had finished her +Spartan toilet, her <i>concierge</i>, very sleepy-eyed and frowsy, rang at +the door and handed in a bowl of <i>café au lait</i> and a piece of bread, +with the morning paper folded across the tray. The Directrice sat down +in her cheerless dining-room and ate her breakfast, reading, eagerly at +first, and then grimly, the communiqué of the day. "No advance anywhere +along the lines; a few <i>coups-de-main</i> here and there—indecisive +results." Another day like all the others had begun, a day when hope was +forbidden, when the only thing left was to endure and do the task at +hand. For her, personally, there was nothing to fear in the lists of +the dead, because she had found there, two long years before, the name +which alone gave meaning to her life.</p> + +<p>She put on her hat without looking in the mirror. This is a strange +action in a Frenchwoman, but the Directrice was already preoccupied by +the work awaiting her in her office. As she walked rapidly along through +the rain, she was turning over in her mind the possibilities for one of +her charges, Philippe, the childlike one who was perfectly willing to +sit down there in the comfortable home provided for him and allow +himself to be forever supported. It was not, Heaven knows, that our +Directrice would not have liked forever and ever to have him supported +and cared for like any child. But she had the instinctive grasp on the +exigencies of human nature which is characteristic of her nation, and +she knew that if he were to be again a normal human being, he must be +roused to a sense of responsibility for his own life, in spite of the +dreadful calamity which war had brought him. But how could he <i>be</i> +aroused? He had shown no interest in learning how to be a professional +knitter; he had only dabbled in clay-modeling; his typewriting continued +indifferent—what could there be which she had not yet tried?</p> + +<p>Never before, until the war took away not only the meaning of her life +but all her goods, had she known what it was to walk at that dismally +early hour in the morning through a dismally rainy street. But now she +was so absorbed with the needs of another that she did not at all feel +the rain in her face or see the mud on her shoes, and had not even the +most passing pang of pity for herself, losing her youth from one day to +another, with very little to hope for and,—alas!—nothing left to fear.</p> + +<p>As she turned into the door of her institution, she had an inspiration. +The only thing to do for Philippe was to turn to account the inimitable +charm of his personality, since that was about all the equipment he +seemed to have. Why could not he be a traveling salesman? But how +<i>could</i> a blind man be a traveling salesman? Ah, that was the thing for +the Directrice to contrive! That was why she was there!</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>She was, as usual, the first person to arrive at her office, although +the blind men, just coming out from breakfast, were already standing +idling about the hall before going to their classes, lighting cigarettes +and chatting. They recognized her quick, light, steady step, and all +their blind and mutilated faces lit up with welcome. Hers also. Although +they could not see it, she gave to every one the smile, the animated +look, the pretty, sideways toss of her head, the coquettish poise of her +upright little figure, which she would have given to him seeing. It was +strange to see her there, all those blind faces turned towards her, and +hers irradiating a light and warmth—Well, perhaps, they saw it, after +all.... Then she dismissed them to their work, with peremptory +affection. "Off with you now, boys; don't stand fooling around here. +There isn't a minute to lose, with all you have to do." They nodded, +saluted, and dispersed like obedient children.</p> + +<p>She went into her office to begin the day's work. The light which had +transformed her face died out into fatigue, as she sat opening one after +another of the innumerable letters which lay on her desk, most of them +pitiful, some of them very foolish, all from people who were clamoring +for help. The stenographers came in; the professors began to arrive; the +telephone bell rang tyrannically over and over; one of the men came +groping his way back from his class to complain fretfully that his +teacher had treated him with insufficient respect; another arrived, his +cane tapping in front of him, beaming with pride, and held out a +perfectly typewritten page to show his progress; a third one limped to +the door to say he had a sore throat, and please would the Directrice +take care of it herself and not turn him over to the nurse, who did not +understand him? The minutes passed,—an hour, a precious hour was gone, +and nothing yet accomplished!</p> + +<p>The telephone rang again, the Directrice was called and received over +the wire a communication from a lady who announced herself as the +Marquise de Rabat-Sigur, <i>née</i> Elizabeth Watkins. That considerable +personage said she would like to do something for the war-blind +("everybody in my set has an <i>aveugle de guerre</i>") and on being +questioned as to her competence, stated squarely that all she could do +was to take them out for walks, and please, if she did, she would like a +good-looking one, not one of those with the dreadfully mutilated faces. +The Directrice turned away from the telephone, a hard line of scorn at +the corner of her lips, her eyes very tired and old. She had not as yet +been able to attend to any of her letters.</p> + +<p>She now began dictating rapidly the answer to one of them when the +bare-kneed boy-scout page came hurriedly to say that Pigier, the one who +had the bad face-wounds, was worse, was in one of his "spells," and the +nurse could do nothing with him. Blindness always comes of course from +head-wounds, and head-wounds mean the disorganization of all the nervous +centers. The Directrice left her work and went upstairs into the sick +man's room and sat down by his bed. The great-shouldered, massively +muscled fellow clutched at her like a scared child, and began in a +rapid, hysteric whisper to tell her of the awful things he saw in his +eternity of blackness. For he was not really blind, he told her, he saw, +yes he saw, but only not what was really there ... dreadful things, +horrible things, dead men in the trenches after an attack, corpses +rotting in the rain, artillery wagons driving headlong over men only +half-dead—he told all these visions to her, all, and as he spoke he +felt them grow faded, harmless, unreal. But she grew pale as she +listened, and turned rather sick.</p> + +<p>When he had poured out all his terrors and she had assured him—as she +had forty times before—that they were all imaginary, just the result of +his nerves not being settled yet; that as soon as he got back his +appetite and could take more exercise out of doors, and learn to roller +skate in the gymnasium, he would find they would all disappear. Having +transferred to her all his horrors, he felt himself immensely lightened +and comforted. He promised her that if she went with him to the +gymnasium, he would get up and dress and see if he could learn to stand +up on the roller skates. She left him, her imagination full of new +nightmare images to beset her next sleepless night, and hurried down to +her office again, making a hopeful calculation that while he was +dressing—this is a lengthy process with a newly blinded man—she could +certainly have time to answer some letters.</p> + +<p>As she entered her office, a pretty young girl, richly dressed, with a +sweet, child's face, flushed with emotion, sprang up, grasped her arm +and said, in a trembling voice of nervous determination: "Madame, you do +not know me, but I have come to you at a critical moment in my life. I +have decided that I will either go into a convent, or marry a blind man. +I have plenty of money, I can support a blind man." At the expression +which came into the face of the Directrice, her voice rose hysterically. +"Don't laugh at me! Don't try to dissuade me. I detest the life at home. +My family do not understand me. I have run away from home this morning +to tell you this. My decision is irrevocable."</p> + +<p>The Directrice, feeling herself a thousand years old in worldly wisdom, +summoned all her patience and sat down to tell her what she had told all +the other pretty, child-faced young ladies who had come with such fixed +determination. She said clearly and firmly that it was not to be +thought of; that her visitor was far too young to make any such +decision; that it would be unfair to any blind man to put him in a +position where he would certainly soon feel himself a terrible drag on a +young life; that she would not go into a convent, either, but would stay +at home with her parents, like a sensible girl, until she married a man +like herself. These were the words she pronounced, very simple, +common-sense, conversational words, which would have had no effect in +any one's else mouth. But what she was spoke more loudly than what she +said. The Directrice did not wear the black and penitential garb of a +Mother Superior, but she had acquired, through intensive experience, all +of a Mother Superior's firm, penetrating authority and calm manner. Not +a trace of the amused scorn she felt for the silly child penetrated to +the surface of her quiet manner. In ten minutes, the girl was crying, +quite relieved that her visit had come to nothing, and the Directrice +was calling for a cab to take her home. She herself put the weeping +child into the carriage, and stood looking after it with a tolerant +smile on her firm lips. "Was I ever as young as that?" she asked herself +as she went back to her office.</p> + +<p>As she turned again to the letter from the important members of the +American colony who wanted to be put on the Governing Committee of the +institution because of the other distinguished names there, her blind +man, the one who had had the horrors, appeared at the door, dressed, +still animated with the new energy given him by his Directrice, and held +out his hand to her. She jumped up laughing—how could she manage that +laugh!—and told him he looked as though he were leading her out to +dance. By this device she managed so that, while in reality leading him, +he seemed to be leading her down the steps and across the courtyard, to +the gymnasium.</p> + +<p>While the instructor put on his roller skates and he started on his +first round, she stayed, her face all a-sparkle with fun and interest, +calling out joking encouragements to him, and making such merry fun of +his awkwardness that he laughed back at her. One quite forgot for the +moment that he had not only no eyes, but very little face left.</p> + +<p>Then, seeing him well started, already taking an interest in the new +sport, she turned back across the courtyard. Now that it was no longer +needed, the sparkle and animation had all gone from her face again. She +looked very old and tired, and cross and severe; and one of the +volunteer teachers (a wealthy woman, coming in to give a half-hour of +English in the intervals of her shopping and dressmaking expeditions) +thought what a disagreeable-looking woman the Directrice was.</p> + +<p>Then, for half an hour, she was, by some extraordinary chance, left +uninterrupted in her office, and dictated rapidly the answers to her +morning mail. In order to accomplish as much as possible in this +unheard-of period of quiet, she became a sort of living flame of +attention. The real meaning of each letter was sucked out of it by a +moment's intense scrutiny. She had but a moment, in each case, to make +the decision, sometimes a very important one. The wealthy American lady +who wanted to be on the Committee was referred vaguely to some +far-distant authority, who would in turn refer her to some one else, and +so put her off without offending her; because if it is possible, wealthy +people, no matter how preposterous or self-seeking, must not be +offended. The money which Providence has so curiously placed in their +hands means too much to the needy charges in the care of the Directrice. +She who, before the earthquake changes in her life, had been so scornful +of self-seeking and pretentiousness, had now learnt a hundred adroit +ways of setting those evil forces to turn the wheels of her mill. This +was the part of her work she hated the most....</p> + +<p>Another letter was from a blinded soldier in one of the hospitals, sent +by one of his friends, since the authorities of the hospital would not +permit him to write. He wanted to come to the Directrice's institution, +and a clique in the hospital, who were jealous of it, were combining in +a thousand subterranean ways to prevent his going there. It is very easy +for two or three seeing people to circumvent a blind man. The Directrice +did not answer this letter—she put it aside with a bright light of +battle in her eyes and a slightly distended nostril.</p> + +<p>Four begging letters from people who had no claim on her or the +institution; two from inventors—one of whom had quite simply discovered +the secret of perpetual motion, which, he thought, would be of especial +benefit to blind people,—the other had invented a typewriter +wonderfully adapted for the blind, a detailed description of which he +forwarded. In her lightning survey the Directrice perceived that the +machine weighed seventy pounds, threw the letter violently in the +waste-paper basket, and turned to the next. Over this one she lingered a +moment, her face softening again. It was from one of her graduates, who +had come into the institution with the horrors, who had clung to her +like a dead weight for the first month of his stay, but who, before the +end of his six months' sojourn there, had become perfect master of the +knitting machine. Just before leaving, he had married the nurse who had +taken care of him in the hospital, the Directrice being, of course, +chief witness at the wedding. And now, after a year, he wrote her to +make a report. They earned their living well, he and his wife, he had +bought three other knitting machines and had a little workroom in his +house, where he, his wife and two employees carried on a lucrative +business; that is, his wife did until the arrival of a baby—such a +healthy, hearty little boy whom they had called Victor, because the +Directrice's name is Victorine; and please, will she be his +godmother?... Yes, there are good moments in the life of the Directrice, +moments when there is no mask on her face, either of courageous smiling +or of bitter fatigue; when she is, for just a moment, a very happy +woman, happy in a curious, impersonal way which was as little within her +capacities before the war as all the rest of her laborious, surcharged +life.</p> + +<p>And then, somehow, it was lunch time. Where had the morning gone? She +must needs go in now and sit down at one of the long tables, looking up +and down the line of blind faces, watching the fumbling hands trying so +hard to learn the lesson of self-reliance in the new blackness. She had +acquired an almost automatic dexterity in turning a cup so that the +handle will be in the right place for the groping hand, in cutting up a +morsel of meat on the plate of the man beside her, while engaging him in +lively conversation so that he shall not notice it, in slipping the +glass under the water carafe which is being awkwardly tilted by one of +those dreadful searching hands. Through some last prodigy of dexterity +she ate her own lunch while she did this. There were four of the long +tables, and every day she must sit at a different one, or the others +will be jealous.</p> + +<p>After lunch she stood for a few minutes in the big hall, laughing and +talking with the men, helping them light their cigarettes, listening to +their complaints or their accounts of the triumphs of the morning. As +she went back into her office, she saw that one of them was following +her, and her experienced eye saw by his shambling gait, by the listless +way in which he handled his little bamboo cane, by every slack line of +his body, what the trouble was. He had the "<i>cafard</i>"—the blues—and +nobody could do anything for him but the Directrice. She was very tired +herself, and for just a moment she reflected that if she had an +instant's time, she would probably have the worst fit of "<i>cafard</i>" ever +known to man. But she had <i>not</i> an instant's time, so, without seeming +to note the cloud on his face, she pulled open the drawer where she +always kept some device against these evil hours. This time it was a new +invention for writing Braille by hand. She told her "pensionnaire" that +she was so glad he happened to come, because she had been wanting his +opinion on the advisability of this. "See, it is intended to be used +thus,"—she put it in his hands,—"and the little bar is made of such +and such an alloy instead of the aluminum that is usually used, with +such and such claimed benefits." Did he think, now, that it would be +better than the standard one they were using, and what did he think +about the advisability of giving the inventor a chance to make a few +samples? With that she was launched upon a history of the inventor's +life, what a hard time he had had, how eager he was to do something for +the blind, and she wondered if perhaps her blind men there would be +willing to give him an interview. The inventor would consider it such an +honor. But in the meantime, of course, let him look carefully at the +little invention, so that he can have the best judgment possible to give +the inventor. The west wind of this new interest in another's life, this +new importance for himself, blew away visibly before her eyes the black +clouds of disheartenment. Her blind man was only a boy, after all. He +took the little Braille plaque under his arm and, tapping briskly before +him, felt his way to the door, saying, over his shoulder importantly, +that he would try to find half an hour's time to give the inventor, +although his days were really very much occupied. The Directrice looked +after him with speculative eyes. "Now I have used up that device, what +shall I do for the next one?"</p> + +<p>Suddenly she realized that this was the visiting hour for the hospital +where the blind man was being held in durance by the little plot against +him. The fighting light came into her eyes again, she clapped on her +hat—you will note it is the second time this day she has put on her hat +without looking at herself in the glass—and swept out to do combat, all +her firm, small, erect person animated by the same joy in battle which +had sent her crusading forefathers into the fight singing and tossing +their swords up into the air. She was gone an hour and a half, and when +she came back, although she looked several degrees more tired even than +before, a grim satisfaction sat upon her hard, small mouth. She had won +her point. The blind man was to be allowed to come.</p> + +<p>But there was Philippe, the man with whom she had begun the day. By +looking out of the window, she could see him idling, as usual, in the +garden, ostensibly taking a lesson in English from a volunteer +professor, and in reality doing his best mildly to flirt with her. The +Directrice frowned and smiled at the same time. What an absurd, lovable +fellow he was! Thank Heaven, there was one of her "pensionnaires" whom +it was impossible to take tragically. She gave a few orders for the +disposition of the office work, wondered when she would ever have time +really to go over her accounts thoroughly, and went out again to +interview the head of a big wholesale groceries firm. In the old days, +when she and hers lived in a château, they bought <i>en gros</i> their +supplies from this firm, and the head of it still had a respectful +attention for any one of her name. This time she looked at herself when +she put on her hat, looked very intently, rearranged her hair, noticed +with impatience, quite impersonally, that the gray was beginning to show +more every day, put on a little touch of powder and bit her lips to make +them red. Then she took a fresh pair of gloves and put on a crisp veil. +Thus accoutered, looking inimitably chic, the grande dame entirely in +spite of her few inches, she went forth to triumph. After a long +conversation with the big grocer, she extracted from him a promise to +try Philippe as a traveling salesman. She felt very young and almost +gay, as she brought back this news. "If Philippe cannot sell anything to +anybody, whether he wants it or not, I am much mistaken," she thought, +watching him out of the window, wheedle a would-be stern professor of +typewriting into lounging there instead of going back for the lesson. +Somehow, in the intervals of this day, which you will see to have been +reasonably full, she had worked out all the details with what device in +Braille Philippe could take down his orders, what kind of a typewriter +he could carry about him to copy them, how he could be met at the +station by such a volunteer to settle him in his hotel, and at the other +station by another—our Directrice had a network of acquaintances all +over France. Philippe came strolling into the room, very handsome, +showing only by the unmoving brightness of his clear dark eyes that he +was blind. "See here, Philippe," she said, pulling him into a chair +beside her as though he were a child.</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes." Philippe agreed to the new plan. "<i>There</i> is something +really sensible! That's a life that amounts to something! That is +something that a man can do and take an interest in! Thank Heaven, I +never need to take another English lesson as long as I live. I will go +at once and work hard at my typewriter! How soon before I can begin? You +know that I am engaged. I must earn enough to be married as soon as +possible." Yes, she knew, although she knew also that it was the third +time that Philippe had been engaged to be married since he was blinded! +She reflected how curiously little a temperament like his is changed by +any outward event.</p> + +<p>Just at this moment of amused relaxation, when the Directrice was +looking young and carefree, she glanced out of her window and saw a very +handsomely dressed, tall woman descend from a very handsome limousine +and make ready to enter. Have I said that our Directrice can look very +cross and tired? She can also look terrifying, in spite of her small +stature.</p> + +<p>She went rapidly down the steps and across the courtyard, giving the +impression of a very much determined mother-hen bristling in every +feather to defend her brood. On her side, the woman who came to meet her +gave the impression of a hawk, with a thin, white face, whitened to +pallor by powder, and with shallow, black eyes.</p> + +<p>"Madame," said the Directrice, "you are not to enter here to-day, nor +any other day."</p> + +<p>"You have no right to keep me out," said the other.</p> + +<p>The Directrice did not deny this; but she repeated sternly: "You are not +to enter here, nor to see Auguste Leveau anywhere at all. He has a wife +and two children. He is not only blind, but as weak as water. But I am +not. You are not to enter."</p> + +<p>The woman in the sables broke out into a storm of vulgar language, at +which the Directrice advanced upon her with so threatening an air that +she literally turned tail and ran back to her car, although she was +shouting over her shoulder as she fled. The small, erect figure stood +tense and straight like a sentry on guard until the car moved away, the +occupant shouting out of the window the direst threats of revenge.</p> + +<p>A gleaming car came up from another direction, and another handsomely +dressed woman descended, greeting the Directrice in an affectionate, +confidential manner. She said: "Oh, my dear, I am so glad to find you +here. I always come to you, you know, when I am in difficulties! What +would happen to me without your good advice! A friend of mine from the +provinces, an engineer by profession, wants so much to come and see your +weaving workroom, because he is interested in machinery and thinks +perhaps he may do something for the blind in that part of France—not +<i>here</i>, you know, not the slightest idea of stealing your ideas and +duplicating your work here. When will you allow us to come, when he can +really look at the machinery without bothering the men?" That was what +she said, but this was what the Directrice understood very distinctly: +"My search for the Légion d'Honneur is getting on famously. If I can +only just add a weaving-room to my outfit before the Minister of the +Interior comes for his visit, I am sure I'll get the red ribbon, and +then I won't have to bother any more about these tiresome war-blind."</p> + +<p>The Directrice answered guardedly: "Why, yes; come into my office, and I +will see what will be the best time."</p> + +<p>As she walked across the courtyard with her visitor, chatting about the +difficulties of war-time housekeeping in Paris, she was thinking: "Yes, +she only wants it to make a temporary show in order to get the Légion of +Honor. But what of that! Let her have it. But if she opens a +weaving-room, she must have blind there to operate the looms, and if she +takes them up only to drop them, what will become of them? Let me see +what I can do about that. Perhaps this is the way to get her to pay for +the installation of a new weaving-room. As soon as she gets what she +wants out of it, we could perhaps take it over and add the men to the +number we care for here. I wonder if the American Committee would be +willing to send more money for that. Yes, it's worth taking the risk."</p> + +<p>But nothing of this elaborate calculation appeared in her smooth, +affable manner as, having come to her decision, she announced, after +gravely looking through a card catalogue, that Thursday afternoon at a +certain hour would be the best time to see the looms. "And if you don't +mind, Mrs. Wangton," she said, "I am just going to treat you like an old +friend of the institution and let you and your engineer wander about at +your pleasure, without anybody bothering to escort you." That was what +she said. What she thought was: "There, that will give them a chance to +steal the names of the makers and the dimensions of the looms as much as +they please."</p> + +<p>Her visitor confounded herself in effusive expressions of gratitude and +friendliness, which the Directrice received with a smile. She went away, +sweeping her velvet gown over the stone steps and looking down with +anticipatory eyes on that spot of her well-filled bosom where she hoped +to pin the coveted red ribbon. The Directrice let her go with almost an +audible sniff of contempt, and turned again to work.</p> + +<p>This time it was a plan to be worked out whereby the blind could learn +certain phases of the pottery trade at Sèvres. It involved a number of +formalities and administrative difficulties which only one who has been +in contact with French bureaucratic methods can faintly imagine. Our +Directrice plunged into it headlong, and did not stir from her desk +until she saw with a start that it was dinner time. And she had not yet +looked over her accounts, the complicated accounts of a big, expensive, +many-arteried institution. However, long ago, all her friends had +stopped asking her to go to dinner or to go to hear music. They had +learned that she rarely spent the evening in any other way than +finishing up what work she had not found time to do during the day. She +was assured of several hours more of quiet.</p> + +<p>She went out to dinner (one meal a day in the company of many mutilated +and blinded men is as much as one woman can stand) and had a solitary +meal in a quiet restaurant, turning her glass about meditatively between +the courses and wondering if she dared ask enough from the philanthropic +American manufacturer to settle Benoit in the country. With his tendency +to tuberculosis, that was the only safe life for him and his family. She +made a mental calculation of what his pension would come to, and how +much he could earn by his trade. Then, if he kept chickens, and a +garden, and rabbits, and if he could get a house for six thousand +francs ... by the time she had finished her dinner she had thought out a +plan and a definite and businesslike proposition to put to the +well-disposed American. Out of the depth of her experience with +philanthropic people, she said to herself as she walked out: "I think +I'd better tell him that we will put a bronze plaque on the house +announcing that it is his gift to one of the war-blind. <i>That</i> ought to +settle him."</p> + +<p>At her office the evening passed very rapidly, between her account books +and the sauntering in and out of one and another of the blind men. At +ten o'clock, tired to the marrow of her bones, she stood up, dreading +the effort to get home and get to bed, and yet looking forward to sleep +as the one certain blessing of life. As she went out of the door she saw +two shadowy forms standing in the summer starlight, and recognized two +of her charges. "Come, come, children," she said; "it is bedtime. You +must get to bed and sleep and get back your strength."</p> + +<p>"But we <i>can't</i> sleep," one of them told her. "We go to bed and lie +awake and get the '<i>cafard</i>' worse and worse." The other one suggested +timidly: "We thought that perhaps, before you went home, you might take +us for a little turn about the lake in the park?" Our Directrice +accomplished the last violent action of her violent day. There was not +an instant's hesitation before she said cordially: "That's an excellent +idea! Just what I would like to do myself. One always sleeps so much +better for a bit of a walk in the fresh air."</p> + +<p>Taking one on one arm and the other on the other, she set off, the two +men towering above her little upright figure. At first they talked as +they strolled beside the little lake. Then, as the Directrice had hoped, +the enchantment of the hot, still night fell on them all. The men walked +silently, breathing in the good smell of the stirred earth and watered +paths. Their blind eyes looked steadily into the blackness, no blacker +than their every day; their scarred, disfigured faces were hidden by the +darkness.</p> + +<p>The Directrice looked up at the stars, and, for the first time in all +that long day, thought for an instant of herself. The night brought to +her a sudden stabbing recollection of another night, before the war, +before the end of the world, when the starlight had fallen white on the +clear road leading her straight and sure to her heart's desire. The +road before her feet now seemed as black as that before her blind men. +But she stepped out bravely and held her head high.</p> + +<p>The blind men leaned on her more and more. She could feel by the touch +of their hands on her arms, that they were relaxing, that the softness +of the night air had undone the bitter tension of their nerves. Now was +the time to take them back. Now they would sleep well.</p> + +<p>"Come, my friends," she said, and led them back to their door, through +which, the next morning, she would enter early to another such day as +the one she had just passed. And after that another, and then +another....</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>In her bed, that hot night, in the stuffy little Paris bedroom, she was +quite too tired to sleep, and so, knitting her forehead in the +blackness, she wondered how she could best place Brousseau, he who had a +weak heart, and three little children dependent on him.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="THE_FIRST_TIME_AFTER" id="THE_FIRST_TIME_AFTER"></a>THE FIRST TIME AFTER</h2> + + +<p>The little newspaper in his home town put the matter thus: "Our young +fellow-citizen Louis Vassard has returned from the hospital to his home. +He received a bad head-wound in the battle of Verdun and unfortunately +has lost his eyesight."</p> + +<p>Of course the family meant to keep from him this casual method of +announcing the end of his world, as they meant to keep everything from +the newly blinded man, but he overheard the item being read aloud in the +kitchen, and took a savage pleasure in its curt brevity. He liked it +better, he told himself disdainfully, than the "sympathy" which had +surrounded him since his return home. He cast about for an adjective +hateful enough, and found it: "snivelling sympathy"—that was the word. +He rejoiced in its ugliness, all his old sensitive responsiveness +curdled into rage.</p> + +<p>The hospital had been hell, nothing less, intolerable physical agony +constantly renewed; and of course home, where he was petted and made +much of and treated like a sick child, home was not hell; but sickened +and embittered, resenting with a silent ferocity the commiserations of +those about him, he felt sometimes that hell was the better place of the +two.</p> + +<p>The most galling of all his new humiliations was that he was never +allowed to be alone. His ears, sharpened like all his other senses by +the loss of his sight, heard the silly whispering voices at the door. "I +can't stay any longer," whispered his aunt, who for an hour had been +stupefying him with her dreary gabble; "come, it's your turn," and he +heard the dragging step of his old cousin advancing with a stifled sigh +to do his duty by their martyred hero. Or it was the light irregular +step of his little sister, irritated at being forced to do what would +have been a pleasure if she had been left free.</p> + +<p>He dared not protest against this as hotly as he felt, because, his +self-control hanging by a thread, he knew that if he let himself go at +any point he would be lost, would be raving and shrieking to be killed +like the man in the bed next him at the hospital. He swallowed down his +rage and his humiliation and only said coldly: "You don't need to mount +guard on me like that, all the time. I'm blind, I know, but I'm not an +imbecile ... yet!" He shocked them by his brutal, outspoken use of the +word, and they drove him frantic by beating about the bush to avoid it, +always saying to others that he "had had a bad head-wound and his eyes +were affected." He said once sternly: "Why should you think I'm ashamed +to hear the word? You don't suppose it's any doings of mine, being +blind!"</p> + +<p>But no matter how brusquely or roughly he spoke he could never anger +them. He felt often and often that if only he could hurt them, startle +them into irritability, he would be relieved. But they never varied from +the condescending amiability one shows to children and sick people. He +sickened and shivered at the thought of the glances of pitying +comprehension with which they probably accompanied those never-varying +soft answers.</p> + +<p>And always they stayed with him! Even when for a few moments they +pretended to go away and leave him, he heard the breathing and the +imperceptible stirrings of some one left on guard. Or he imagined that +he heard them, and scorned to grope his way to see. Instead he sat +motionless, his mask of pride grimmer and harder than ever.</p> + +<p>Next after their always being there, he hated their efforts to cheer him +up. That had been the phrase of the doctor at the hospital, when they +went there to take him away: "Now he must be cheered up. He mustn't be +left to brood. He needs cheerful company about him." Of course there was +his mother ... and he was so young that only a few years of intense +growth separated him from the time when he ran to his mother for +consolation. Certainly his mother could not be accused of attempting too +much to cheer him up, the poor mother who, try as she might, had not yet +mastered herself so that she could command her voice when she looked +into the tragic sightless face of her son. Himself poised on the brink +of hysteria, he dreaded more than anything in the world the sound of +that break in his mother's voice. Oh yes, he realized it perfectly, it +was not their fault, it was not that they did the wrong things, it was +only that he hated everything they did, if they spoke cheerfully or +wept, were silent or laughed. He was like a man all one raw sore, to +whom every touch is torture.</p> + +<p>He often woke up in the morning feeling that he could not go on another +day, that he <i>could</i> not.... Every one about him commented on his +remarkable quiet. "He never complains, he talks about all kinds of +things, he has the newspaper read to him every morning," they reported +to visitors. They did not see the sweat on his forehead as he listened.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>One day they had taken him out of doors, on the bench at the end of the +garden. It was his little sister's turn to "be with poor Louis," the +little sister who would have been so unconsciously droll and diverting +if she could have been natural. He said to her: "Oh, go and play, Celia! +Why don't you bring your hoop out here? Or your jumping-rope?" But the +conscientious, sensitive child, drugged by the thick fumes of +self-sacrifice which filled the house, was incapable of being herself. +She sat on the bench beside her big brother, holding his hand, talking +affectedly, with an artificial vivacity, in as close an imitation as +possible of her elders. The man to whom she chattered, winced, shrugged +his shoulders, and fell into a morose silence.</p> + +<p>But Celia, after all, was only eight years old, and at that age honest +human nature is hard to stifle. Over across the road in the meadow was +Jacques with his new net, hunting butterflies. And ... she stood on +tiptoe to see ... yes, he seemed to have caught ... oh, could it be +that blue and black variety they hadn't yet found? She darted away, ran +back, caught her brother's hand: "Louis, just a minute! I won't be gone +but just a moment!" she cried, and was off, her little feet pattering +down the path to the road.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Why, he was alone! It was the very first time since ... he did not +finish the sentence, shrinking away in terror from the word, now that +there was no need for bravado.</p> + +<p>He stood up wildly. He must get away at once, to find some hidden spot, +to be more and yet more alone. He knew that from the house they could +not see the bench ... oh, he knew every inch of the ground around the +house from having played all over it from his childhood. He knew too +that on the other side of the hedge there was an open field with a big +clump of chestnut-trees, further along, opposite the hole in the hedge +where you could scramble through.</p> + +<p>He started down the path. It was the first time he had taken a step +without having some one rush to lead him. His heart beat fast.</p> + +<p>He followed the path, feeling his way with his cane. There was the hole +in the hedge. Somehow, he was through, and walking on sod, soft, soft, +under his feet; no, something round and hard was there. He fumbled, +picked it up; a chestnut. He must be near the clump of trees. Alone he +had found the way!</p> + +<p>He turned to the left. In the old days there was a little hollow where +the brook ran, a little hollow all thickly overgrown with ferns just +large enough to hide a boy who was playing robbers. If he could only +find that place and lie down in the ferns again! Scorning to put out his +hands to grope, he stepped forward slowly into the black infinity about +him. After a few steps, something brushed lightly against his hanging +hand. He stooped and felt in his fingers the lace-like grace of a +fern-stalk. The sensation brought back to him with shocking vividness +all his boyhood, sun-flooded, gone forever.</p> + +<p>He flung himself down in the midst of the ferns, the breaking-point come +at last, beating his forehead on the ground.... It was the first time +that he could throw aside the racking burden of his stoicism. At last he +was alone, entirely alone in the abyss where henceforth he was to pass +his days and nights. Dreadful tears ran down from his blind eyes upon +the ferns. He was alone at last, he could weep. At last this was not +rage, this was black, black sorrow.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Now they were shed, the tears, the great scalding flood of them had +fallen. The man lay on his face in the ferns like a dead body on a +battlefield, broken, drained dry of everything, of strength, of +stoicism, of suffering, even of bitterness. For the moment there was +nothing left ... nothing but the consciousness of being alone, empty and +alone in the blackness.</p> + +<p>And yet was he alone, quite alone? Something in the black gulf stirred +and made a rustle of leaves high over his head. The little sound came +clear to his ears. Then three clear whistling notes dropped down to him, +a thrush trying his voice wistfully, dreaming of the summer past. The +angel-pure perfection of those notes sounded across the black gulf with +ineffable radiance. The prostrate man at the foot of the tree heard them +ringing out in the echoing, empty rooms of his heart. They seemed the +first sounds he had ever heard, the presage of something new, of +everything new. He did not stir, but he held his breath to listen.</p> + +<p>The bird did not sing again. And yet there was no silence as he had +thought. Listening for the bird's note, he heard the delicate murmur of +the leaves, light arpeggios accompanying the singing voice of the little +brook, now suddenly quite loud in his ears. He felt the fern-stalks +stirring against his cheek and divined their supple submission to the +wind. The chestnut was still in his hand, unimaginably smooth, polished, +flawless. The breeze lifted his hair in a movement gentler than anything +human ... his blackened house was no longer empty of all things.</p> + +<p>Presently his young body wearied of immobility. He found himself on his +back, stretched out on the good earth, his arms crossed under his head, +his eyes turned toward the sky he would never see again. His muscles +were all relaxed as they had not been for months, every taut nerve was +loosened. The wind blew softly among the leaves, across his forehead. +On a sudden caprice, the thrush again sent down its three perfect notes, +like an enchanted flute....</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>They ushered him into the moment he had inexpressibly longed for, +inexpressibly feared, the moment when he must stop hating and raging, +must stop pretending to be hard, when he must at last be honest with +himself, must face what there was to face, must say out the word he had +never dared to say in his heart, although his proud lips had brought it +out so many times, when he must announce to his terrified heart: "I am a +blind man. What does it mean to be blind?"</p> + +<p>Above his body, infinitely tired, infinitely reposed by his paroxysm of +sorrow, his mind soared, imperious, eagle-like, searching. What was the +meaning of it? He looked squarely at it like a brave man, and knew that +he had the courage to look at it. With an effort of all his being, he +began to think; with all his force, with all his will, with all his +energy, to think. With the action he felt a stirring of life in all +those empty chambers of his being.</p> + +<p>The moments passed. The thrush sang once, stirred in the trees, flew to +another, sang again, and was not heard. The blind eyes staring up at the +sky saw nothing material, and yet began to see. A dim ray glowed in the +blackness.</p> + +<p>After a time he said hurriedly to himself, nervously anxious lest he +should let the clue out of his hand: "Our senses are not ourselves; we +are not our senses. No; they are the instruments of our understanding. +To be blind means that I have one less instrument than other men. But a +man with a telescope has one more than other men, and is life worthless +to them because of that?"</p> + +<p>He paused breathless with the effort of the first thought of his own +since, since.... "And our senses, even the best of them are like an +earthworm's vague intuitions beside scientific instruments, a +thermometer, a microscope, a photographic plate. And yet with what they +give us, poor, imperfect as it is, we make our life, we make our life."</p> + +<p>He took one more poor stumbling step along the path he divined open to +him: "A man with understanding, without a telescope, without a +microscope can see more than a fool with both instruments." Aloud he +said gravely, as though it were a statement of great value: "The use one +makes of what one has, that is the formula. That is my formula."</p> + +<p>There was a pause, for him luminous. He told himself quietly, without +despair: "And as for understanding, for really seeing what is, aren't we +all groping our way in the dark? Am I blinder than before?" It seemed to +him that something within him righted itself, balanced, poised. His +sickness left him. He knew an instant's certainty ... of what? Of +himself? Of life? If so it was the first he had ever known in all his +life. Strange that it should come new, when....</p> + +<p>Then all this fell away from him. He thought no more. He lay on the +earth now, not like a dead man on a battlefield, but like a child on its +mother's knees. He felt the earth take him in her arms, and he closed +his eyes, abandoning himself to her embrace.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>The sound of distant voices roused him from his dreaming doze. He turned +on his elbow to listen. The old aunt, the old cousin were talking +together: "Oh, the naughty little girl, off there in the meadow chasing +butterflies! How heartless children are! To leave her poor brother all +alone, when he needs so to be cheered!"</p> + +<p>The blind man lying in the ferns broke out into a laugh, a ringing young +laugh, without irony, without bitterness.</p> + +<p>It was the first time he had laughed since ... since his blindness.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="HATS" id="HATS"></a>HATS</h2> + + +<p>My attention was first attracted to him by the ring of his voice as he +answered the question a woman near me put to him, amiably trying to +start a conversation: "And may I ask, Mr. Williams, what are you in +France for, Red Cross, or Y.M.C.A., or perhaps reconstruction work? I'm +refugees, myself. It's always interesting to know other people's +specialties. You often have so much in common. The only branches I +<i>don't</i> know anything about are orphans and the blind."</p> + +<p>To this the distinguished-looking, gray-haired man responded gravely, +"Madame, I am in France for hats."</p> + +<p>"<i>Hats!</i>" exclaimed the war-worker.</p> + +<p>"Hats," he reaffirmed quietly.</p> + +<p>She looked at him wildly and moved to another part of the room towards a +recognizably tagged young woman in a gray uniform.</p> + +<p>The timbre of his voice struck curiously on my ear. I cannot express its +quality other than to say it made the voices of the rest of us sound +like those of college professors and school-teachers; and I don't +pretend to know exactly what I mean by that.</p> + +<p>He aroused my curiosity. I wanted to investigate, so I began looking +vague, letting my eyes wander, and answering at random. Presently the +earnest talker holding forth to me grew indignant at my lack of +attention, broke off abruptly, and went away. I turned to the man with +the different voice and asked, "What in the world makes you come to +France for hats, <i>just now</i> in the midst of the war?"</p> + +<p>He answered with instant decision, "Because the only hats worth buying +are made in Paris."</p> + +<p>"<i>Now?</i> with France bleeding to death, how <i>can</i> they make hats, invent +new fashions!"</p> + +<p>His eye kindled. "Madame, a good French modiste on her deathbed could +make a better hat than any one in New York ever could."</p> + +<p>I pondered this. His accent was indubitably American, not to say New +York. But there are cases of French people who have spent part of their +childhood in the States who speak perfectly. "You must be at least +partly of French extraction to be able so to understand and admire +France," I ventured.</p> + +<p>He opposed a rather startled and very emphatic negative. "Me? Not much! +I'm as American as they make 'em. Born on lower Broadway and brought up +in the New York public schools. I don't know anything about France, +except that we have to come here to get the right styles in hats. I +don't even speak any French except to say '<i>combien</i>' and enough to +count."</p> + +<p>I was put off the scent entirely. "Oh, I thought from the way you spoke +that you knew France well. This is your first visit, then?"</p> + +<p>He was silent a moment, making a mental calculation.</p> + +<p>Then he said: "This is my fifty-first visit to Paris. I have come twice +a year for a little more than twenty-five years."</p> + +<p>"Always for hats?" I queried, my imagination reeling at this vista.</p> + +<p>"Always for hats," he said seriously.</p> + +<p>I tried to be facetious. "Dear me! You must know all there is to know +about hats."</p> + +<p>He shook his head. "Nobody knows anything about hats." He added, very +much in earnest, "Style is one of the great obscure mysteries of life."</p> + +<p>This had always been one of my observations, but one I have petulantly +and impatiently deplored. I had never thought to hear it expressed with +such heartfelt gravity and weight by a man of such evident vigor of +personality.</p> + +<p>I said, laughing uneasily, "It makes one very self-conscious about one's +own hat, to know oneself in the presence of such a connoisseur."</p> + +<p>He reassured me: "Oh, I never look at hats except in the way of +business." In his turn he looked vague, and let his eyes wander, +evidently much bored with my remarks. In another moment he would have +turned away, but just then an acquaintance came up to me, addressing me +by name, and my new interlocutor broke in with a quite human eagerness, +"Oh, are you Mr. John P. Hulme's niece?"</p> + +<p>"Why, do you know my Uncle John?" I cried astonished.</p> + +<p>"He's one of the best business friends I have," he assured me, "and I +have often seen the picture of you and the children he has on his desk. +You must let me go to see them. I've got grown-up children of my own. It +will be a real treat to me to know some American children here."</p> + +<p>In this casual manner, slipping in on the good graces of my little son +and daughter, I entered a world the very existence of which I had never +suspected, long and frequent as had been my sojourns in Paris; the world +of hat-buyers. And I had for guide the very dean and master of the +guild, to whom the younger aspirants looked up, whose sure, trained +instinct was their despair and inspiration.</p> + +<p>It was perhaps his influence, dominating that circle, which made them +all so serious and intent on mastering their profession, so respectful +of their chosen occupation, so willing to give it the very best of their +judgment and taste. This was the more remarkable as, with the exception +of my new friend, they were quite the opposite of serious-minded men and +women, and, in the intervals of the exercise of their profession, +enjoyed rather more than was good for their health, morals, and +pocketbooks, the multiple occasions offered by a great city to damage +those possessions. I was not at all in sympathy with what seemed to me +the indifference of their relaxations in a country so stricken as +France; but I could not withhold my astonished admiration for the +excellent seriousness with which they approached their business. I +would have blushed to disclose to them the light shallow femininity of +my careless, rather slighting attitude towards "la mode." Also I was +amazed at the prodigious financial importance of their operations. The +sums which, without a blink, they paid out for hats, and the number of +hats they thus secured and the further sums which they looked forward to +paying into the coffers of the United States Customs, sounded to me as +unbelievable as those nightmare calculations as to the distance of the +stars from the earth or how much it has cost to build the Panama Canal.</p> + +<p>"All that for <i>hats</i>!" I cried, "and every year, twice a year!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, this is only the smallest part of what goes into hats," the expert +assured me. "What I'm buying now are only single models, you understand; +the successful ones, the well-chosen ones, will be copied by the hundred +dozen in the States and in Canada. That chenille toque you saw me buy +the other day..."</p> + +<p>"That little, plain, ugly scrap of a thing you paid a hundred dollars +for?" I asked, giddy again with the remembered shock of that price.</p> + +<p>"Yes. Well, probably that will be very widely copied, at first in New +York and then everywhere. It's a fair guess to say, that being a model +that's sure to be popular, there will be at least twenty thousand toques +like it sold in different places in the States for five dollars apiece."</p> + +<p>I was staggered. "A hundred thousand dollars spent in <i>one</i> season, +just for <i>one</i> out of all the different models of women's hats!" My old +superficial scorn for "the style" disappeared in an alarmed dismay at +its unsuspected scope. "Why, that's <i>terrible</i>! It's appalling! When +there isn't enough money to make the schools what they ought to be, nor +to take care of the sick, nor to keep up the...."</p> + +<p>He showed an unexpected humanity. "Yes, it is awful," he agreed +gravely—"very, very awful. And still more awful is the way we live +right along beside such an awful force and never have the slightest idea +that it rules our lives and not what we wish or decide."</p> + +<p>For all my consternation I found this excessive. "Oh, come, it's not so +bad as <i>that</i>!" I cried.</p> + +<p>"Yes, it is," he assured me with his formidable quiet certainty. "Yes, +it is. It goes beyond anything we can imagine. It's the greatest force +in the world, this desire, this absolute necessity to be in the style. +Nothing else can stand up against it for a moment, not hunger, not fear, +not love, not religion. They only exist so far as they don't get in the +way of being in the style. The minute they interfere with that, over +they go like a pack of cards in a tornado! What do you think a man is +doing when he works all his life for his family? Is he earning their +livings? Not much. He's enabling them to keep in style, and if he +doesn't he is a failure. What do you really want for your children? That +they may grow up to develop all the best they have in them ... yes, <i>if</i> +that doesn't prevent their being in style."</p> + +<p>I found all this so outrageous that I could only stare a silent protest.</p> + +<p>"I don't mean just my small part of it, hats," he explained, "although +hats are always, so to speak, the crest of the tidal wave. It's +everything. Style rules everything. Of course all material things, +furniture, clothes, the way houses are built and gardens laid out and +parks made and pictures painted. Everybody can <i>see</i> with his own eyes +how <i>they</i> are all determined by whatever the style happens to be in +that century or year, and not by anything we want or need. But more than +that, too. Everything goes together. We talk and eat and act according +to the kind of furniture we have; for instance, when rough-hewn Morris +furniture was the rage and we all had to have it or dry up and blow away +with envy, don't you remember how the athletic blowsy styles in clothes +and manners came in too, and it was all the thing to go to a funeral in +a striped shirt and yellow shoes and the girls' shirtwaists bloused over +in front as though they had forgotten to tuck them in, and how bulging +pompadours straggled down in every woman's eyes?"</p> + +<p>"Do you mean," I was ready to laugh at him, "that you think that our +Morris furniture influenced us so deeply as all that? Even Morris would +be surprised to hear so much claimed for it."</p> + +<p>He was scornful of my incapacity to grasp the scope of his idea. "No, +Lord no! The Morris furniture hadn't anything more to do with it than a +tree bent double with the storm has to do with making the wind blow. I +mean that the same thing that <i>made</i> us mortgage our souls to have +Morris furniture just then, made us also talk slang and wear yellow +shoes to funerals."</p> + +<p>"Well, what <i>did</i> make us?" I challenged him.</p> + +<p>He answered monosyllabically, solemnly, with his redoubtable, arresting +conviction, "The style did."</p> + +<p>We were both silent a moment as if in the presence of Niagara or the +ocean.</p> + +<p>Then I said, in a feebler challenge, "Well, what <i>is</i> 'the style'?"</p> + +<p>He professed the admirable ignorance of a wise man in the face of +mystery.</p> + +<p>"I wish I knew. It looks to me like a big current that takes in +everything, that is so big we don't know it's there, just the way people +didn't use to know the world was round, because it is too big to see. +And it carries us along like dry leaves and where it's going to, nobody +knows. We know just as much about it, as we do about where water runs +underground; which is to say, nothing. But when it comes to that part of +style that makes hats and dresses, there are a few people who can hold a +hazel-rod and have it point downwards, and they are oftener right than +the rest of us. And every one of those few is French and lives in Paris. +Don't ask me why! That's the way it is. And it would be enough sight +more convenient for <i>me</i>, let me tell you, if it were otherwise."</p> + +<p>I understood this exclamation, having learned by this time how great an +affliction to Mr. Williams personally were these semi-annual trips to +France. He knew nothing of Paris outside of the great modistes' shops, +and he cared less. Since he knew no French the theaters were closed to +him. Since he was mildly musical (he played the violin a little) +concerts helped a little to allay his ennui; but only a little. Being a +family man of very domestic tastes, he took slight part in the very +cheerful proceedings with which the other buyers whiled away the hours +between business operations, and although he was invited to their gay +suppers in expensive restaurants, he struck an austere note there, +drinking only water, not smoking, and eating sparingly of simple dishes, +quite evidently counting the hours till he could get back to America and +to his garden in Westchester County.</p> + +<p>In spite of this lack of appreciation of what was offered him, he was +very frequently invited to the nightly feasts of his young confrères, +and they hung about him eagerly because of their superstitious reverence +for what they called his "hunch." "Whatever Grandpa says is going to go, +goes," was their expressed belief. They tried by ingenious devices to +exploit his scent for the style, to be within earshot when he was making +selections, to suborn the milliners into showing them the models he had +selected. Such crude, outright efforts at getting the better of him he +defeated with a wary dexterity, getting up and leaving a shop abruptly +if one of his rivals began to loiter too near him, and letting it be +known that he would buy no more from any milliner who reproduced "his" +models for one of the other American buyers. This last precaution was +not necessary, for the sense of professional honor and jealousy is not +keener among doctors themselves than among Paris fashion-makers, nor was +the capacity for darkly guarding secrets more developed in Renaissance +Italian poisoners than in a twentieth-century modiste's shop on the +Place Vendôme. Also Mr. Williams, who had seen a whole generation of +modistes grow up and disappear into old age, enjoyed the very high +esteem of those quick-eyed, quick-fingered, quick-witted ladies with the +wonderful simple coiffures and the wonderful simple hats. This was not +solely because of the very large sums of money which were at his +disposition and which he spent with Napoleonic decision and despatch. +They respected his competence also. "There is one who can appreciate our +work!" they said of him. "He always picks out the best. There is one who +could have made hats, himself!" A characterization which the American +would have repudiated with energy if he could have understood a word +they were saying.</p> + +<p>But although, as a matter of business acuteness, he refused to allow +himself to be exploited in small ways by his young competitors, he was +always ready to expound his philosophy to them and to lay down the +general lines along which they might develop as he had. Not infrequently +their elaborate dinners, where too much had been eaten and drunk by the +elaborately dressed women and smooth-shaven, young-old men, ended by the +question flung despairingly at Mr. Williams' impassive respectability, +"Grandpa, how the dickens <i>do</i> you <i>do</i> it? Tell us!"</p> + +<p>He always told them, at length, in detail, as long as they would listen, +although they never understood one word of what he said. Hoping to catch +him off his guard and to cull some valuable short-cut tip to success, +they lent ears as attentive as their somewhat bemused condition would +let them, as long as their patience held out.</p> + +<p>"The trouble with most of you young people," he was wont to say, +presenting as he went on the abhorrent spectacle of a man at the Café +Riche taking occasional sips from a glass of water, "is that you don't +realize that you are up against a <i>big thing</i>, the biggest thing there +is. You think you can just josh along somehow, pick out what looks good +to you, what you think would be pretty for your best girl to wear, and +have it go. Nothing like that! What <i>you</i> like, what <i>you</i> think is +pretty, hasn't a thing to do with what's going to happen. What's going +to happen, <i>happens</i>, whether anybody likes it or not, and the only +thing for us to do is to keep our ears to the ground <i>hard</i> and try to +guess three or four months sooner than most people. Nobody can guess +further ahead than that and mighty few people even as far as that. Most +people don't know what style is coming till it hits them in the eye. +Now, to make a good guess you've got to keep your eyes open to +everything, everything, and then sort of gather yourself together and +listen, hold your breath and listen, as if you were eavesdropping folks +who were trying to keep a secret from you; as if you had to catch a very +faint A sounded way off that you could tune your own fiddle to. And +you've got to get passive all over, the way the hypnotizers tell you to +do, let yourself go, don't try to have any ideas of your own, don't try +to swim against the current, don't try to hurry things up by swimming +faster than the current. No power on earth can hurry that current, nor +make it bring anything but what it's going to bring! And it's up to us, +let me tell you, to take what it does bring! I've seen lots of styles +that nobody liked, not the modistes who made them, not the buyers who +took them to the States, not the hundreds of thousands of American women +who paid out their husbands' good money to buy them. And yet those +styles had just as big a vogue and lasted just as long as any others, +and the buyers who tried to dodge them and who chose what looked +prettier to them got everlastingly stung. And aren't there styles that +everybody just hates to see disappear, comfortable, decent, becoming +styles? But do they stay in, just because we'd like to have them? You +know they don't.</p> + +<p>"And it's no use trying to do anything on your own hook. There was old +man Blackmar, head of the Blackmar and Jennings Ribbon Company; he could +manufacture ribbons to beat any French factory going, <i>if</i> he got the +designs from France. Every time he tried to have one designed by a +perfectly good American designer, the ribbon didn't sell. It didn't look +so very different, but it wouldn't sell. You'd have thought he'd have +learned something out of seeing that happen every time he tried it, +wouldn't you? But he never did. Why, I was honestly sorry for him, five +or six years ago when all of a sudden the styles went dead against +ribbons or any other trimming for hats. It pretty near ruined him, +coming after the modistes had been piling everything they could buy on +top of their hats. But he didn't know enough to take his medicine +without making a face. He couldn't get it through his head that he was +up against a bigger proposition than <i>he</i> was, than anybody is. He came +to me and he said: 'Williams, I'll give you fifteen thousand dollars, +cash, in your hand, if you'll steer things over in Paris so's to bring +hat-trimmings back into style; ribbons of course if you can, but if not, +most any kind of trimmings. I can alter our machines to do braids and +such. This craze for just the naked hat-shapes with one little rag of an +ornament, I tell you, it'll send me into the bankruptcy court.'</p> + +<p>"I was very sorry for him and I said so, and I said I'd do anything to +help him out except try to slap back the Hudson river with the flat of +my hand. He said he was sick of hearing me always get off that same old +guff, and if I really wanted to, I could. 'Why, they tell me every +modiste in Paris calls you "uncle." With plenty of money you could get +on the right side of them and get them to launch trimmed styles.'</p> + +<p>"I just threw up my hands at that. I saw he didn't know any more about +the innerds of his business than a babe unborn. I said to him: 'Why, +old man, you don't suppose for a minute that the modistes in Paris +<i>invent</i> the styles, make 'em up out of their heads? They haven't got +any more to say about what it's to be than you or me. All they can do is +to take the style that's going to arrive in six months, and put it into +silk and felt and straw. They can't have it the way they <i>want</i> it any +more than the priestess of something-or-other could say what she wanted, +when they put her over the oracle-hole, filled her up with gas, and told +her to make an oracle.'</p> + +<p>"Blackmar was sore as a boil at me, and said if I wouldn't do it he'd +give the job to Pierce. Pierce was buying for Condit and Vergary in +those days. I said he could throw away all the money he wanted to, but +<i>I</i> wouldn't help him spill it.</p> + +<p>"Well, Pierce tried to swing the deal, bucking the universe all alone, +and so proud to have the chance to. He went to all the best modistes in +Paris and said he'd give—well, I'm ashamed to tell you what he gave—if +they would make him models all trimmed up, heavy and expensive with +handsome trimmings. Of course, at first they said they couldn't do it, +the hats wouldn't be in style. And he said if they made the hats that +way and sent them out with their names in gilt letters in the lining, +they would be in style, would <i>be</i> the style. Didn't everything they +made set the fashion? They tried to explain to him that that was because +they took the greatest pains to make things that were in fashion, but +Lord! he couldn't talk their language. He just kept on insisting and +holding out those banknotes, and by and by they said, well, to get rid +of him they <i>would</i>. And he came to my hotel and bragged all over me +like a man who's cornered the wheat-market.</p> + +<p>"They did make him trimmed models: and as they were the best modistes in +the world they were as pretty hats as ever you saw. They were all +trimmed up as per agreement with ribbons that would make a dead woman +sit up and reach out her hand. Pierce took me into his office before +they were packed, to show them to me, and he said, '<i>Now</i>, Grandpa, what +you got to say?' And I said, 'You let me know four months from now how +much money you've made on them.'</p> + +<p>"About six weeks after that, back in New York, I went into his office +and there, by George, were all but two of his fifteen models. None of +the American manufacturers would have them, not at any price. They'd +send their head milliner to see them and she'd say, 'Oh, what perfectly +lovely ribbon,'—but no, thanks, she didn't want to buy the model, +because they wouldn't sell. They weren't what were being worn that +season. Pierce said: 'Great Scott! look at the labels. They come from +all the best modistes in Paris'; and she'd say she couldn't help that; +if they weren't what was being worn they wouldn't sell. And before three +months were up he'd given them to the janitor's little girl for dolls' +clothes. There you are."</p> + +<p>There were evident signs of inattention from his audience by this time, +but he went on: "And young Hammond, he tried to tear the teeth off the +buzz-saw with his fingers, too. And <i>he</i> got what was coming to him. He +had a great idea, regular perpetual motion scheme for economy, of how he +could beat the game and he hypnotized old John Harbine into standing for +it. It was as simple as bread and milk. Hammond would take up a Paris +modiste, somebody on a back-street somewhere, get her under contract to +be 'Harbine's,' and Harbine's alone. Then they'd put her name in the +hands of the best advertising agency in New York and let things rip. +Well, they started out as though they were going to a fire. You couldn't +see the spokes, the wheels went around so fast. The advertising people +delivered the goods, put the best people on their force on the job. I +remember they had one college-graduate woman that could write ads that +would make you pay five dollars for a strawberry basket—<i>once</i>! She +wrote up their great find in Paris, wrote it up like a magazine +short-story—modiste who up to the time Hammond had spotted her had been +so exclusive you couldn't find her with a microscope, had only worked +for the pure-bloods among the French aristocracy, no mere Americans had +ever known her name (you can bet your life they hadn't)—you can imagine +the kind of patter, the sort of thing women suck up by the barrelful. +And then, owing to unheard-of prices offered by Harbine's out of that +disinterested devotion to American womanhood which is Harbine's great +quality, she had finally consented to send a few hats, never more than a +dozen a season, to Harbine's, where the first collection would be on +exhibition March 21st, and which would be exactly copied to order in +imported materials with all the inimitable <i>chic</i> of the original +models, for such low prices as from fifteen dollars up.</p> + +<p>"It was well done. I'm bound to admit that ad.-writer got just the right +esthetic, superior tone into it. And as for Hammond, he ought to have +been a stage-manager. He got some of the people back of me sort of +worried. They came to me, 'Look-y here, Grandpa, sure you're not missing +a point in the game? How <i>about</i> this Suzette Rellot person?'</p> + +<p>"I said: 'Her real name is Marie Duval and she used to sew in linings at +Reboux', that's who <i>she</i> is. If she <i>could</i> have trimmed hats you can +bet your life Reboux would have developed her years ago. Reboux has +candles burning in every church in Paris, praying Heaven to send her +apprentices that she can do something with! And if she <i>can't</i> trim hats +you can bet your life old man Harbine is going to lose some money, a lot +of it in one clip, and he and Jimmy Hammond will part company with a +bang.'</p> + +<p>"Well, I was over here in Paris when their great opening came off. But I +heard about it. Nothing lacked. They all but served free champagne. But +when I went back only a month later, the talk was already going around +among folks on the ins, that there was something the matter with the +Rellot collection. The women weren't just crazy about the hats and the +modistes wouldn't look at them. Later on, what was left of them were +sent down to South America—Colombia, I think. Women just hatching out +from mantillas will stand for anything with a French label on it! And +that summer Jimmy Hammond decided he'd go in for life-insurance."</p> + +<p>When he had talked as long as this I was usually the only person left +listening, the rest having yawned, turned to each other, or melted away. +But I listened, always, open-mouthed with astonishment and wonder. +Before putting on my hats in those days I used to look at them hard, +with respect, almost with alarm, feeling heavy on my head the weight of +their unsuspected significance. Wondering what the great expert's +opinion would be about the plain, everyday hats of ordinary women I +asked him one day: "Tell me, can you descend to small beer? What do you +think of the hats you see, not in those wonderful, silk-hung studios, +but those you see on the heads of the women in the streets, on mine? Is +this hat I have on stylish? I warn you I bought it off a counter for +less than four dollars."</p> + +<p>He answered instantly, without giving a glance at my headgear: "You are +a healthy, normal woman and you're wearing it. Of course it's in style. +If it weren't, and you had to wear it, you'd be sick abed."</p> + +<p>"You exaggerate, you are always exaggerating," I protested. "You only +know women who <i>care</i> about the styles. I never bother my head about my +hats! I just walk into almost any shop and buy the first hat that +doesn't make me look too queer."</p> + +<p>"You don't have to bother yourself about it," he told me, his accent +tinged with weary bitterness. "<i>We</i> do the bothering! Months beforehand. +An army of us, able-bodied men, smart women, pretty young girls, we all +of us give up our lives to fixing things so you can walk into most any +shop and pick up most any hat and find it doesn't make you look too +'queer,' which is your way of saying that it doesn't make you look out +of style."</p> + +<p>"There are moments," I told him, in a half-serious indignation, "when I +find you too absurd for words, the victim of the most absurd +hallucinations! All this portentous talk about the world-wide conspiracy +to make people keep up with the style. As if the style had any +importance for sensible people!"</p> + +<p>"If you knew more about the capital and brains that are invested in that +conspiracy, you'd take it seriously, all right," he assured me with +melancholy, "and as for not taking the styles seriously, how many +thousand dollars would it take to pay you to go around in the street one +day, just one day, in the big bustle your mother used to be ashamed to +go outdoors without?"</p> + +<p>I lost myself in horrified contemplation of the grotesque vision he had +conjured up and forgot to refute him. Perhaps I couldn't.</p> + +<p>Towards the end of his stay he was very much troubled by persistent +rumors that the boat on which he was to sail would be torpedoed on the +way to New York. He acknowledged, with the fatigued frankness of his +sixty years past, that he was mortally afraid of the passage and that +his fear would deprive him of sleep all the way over. "No sane man +likes to be killed," he complained, "let alone be blown up and burned to +death and drowned into the bargain! I'm a family man! I want to go on +earning a living for my wife and children!"</p> + +<p>The evening before he went away he was so fretful about this and so +outspoken about his dread, that I asked him, "Why don't you wait over a +boat?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, what's the use? One boat's as likely to go down as another. And, +anyhow, I've got to get home. And then come over again for the next +season, curse the luck!"</p> + +<p>I thought him again a little absurd. "Oh, come, the heavens wouldn't +fall if you missed one or two seasons!"</p> + +<p>He turned grave, and after a moment's hesitation, opened a door which I +had thought locked and nailed up, and showed me that the room in his +heart which I had thought was certainly empty and vacant was a queer, +dimly lighted little chapel, with queer, dim little candles burning +before what was recognizably an ideal.</p> + +<p>"Oh, it's no time for anybody to lie down on the job," he said offhand. +I did not dream that he was referring to the war. I had become convinced +that his curious, specialized world held no place for the horror and +apprehension which filled the lives of the rest of us. Nor had I ever +seen him give any signs of the shocked pity which most people feel at +the sight of the war-maimed men, the black-clad, white-faced +war-orphans and the widows with blurred eyes. I had thought he saw in +France, only and uniquely, hats. So I asked in genuine ignorance of his +meaning: "How do you mean, this being no time to lie down on the job? +What job?"</p> + +<p>He sat back in his chair and looked at the ceiling; thereafter, as he +talked, transferring his gaze to his finger-tips, joined with nicety. +"Well, I guess I mean something about like this. If we humans are to get +on at all, get any further away from having tails and living in trees, +we've got to knock down the partitions and make one big room of the +world, the same way each nation is one big room, with the blacksmith +trading his horseshoes for clothes and not trying to be a tailor +himself. Take farmers. Maybe you can't remember, but <i>I</i> can, when old +farmers in Connecticut raised nearly every single thing they used all +the year around, and were proud of being such idiots. Nowadays the +Connecticut farmer don't waste his time trying to grow corn in a climate +where you're liable to get frosts in early September; he leaves the +farmer in Iowa to do that, and he raises the best apples in the world +and with the money he makes that way, he buys him oranges that a Florida +farmer has raised. It's my opinion that we've got to come to that on a +big, big scale. And if we do come to it there won't be any more wars. +Now, I don't know anything about anything but hats, and so I don't try +to have an opinion about the League of Nations, nor how the trick is +going to be turned by the statesmen—if there are any such—but if it +<i>is</i> going to be turned, it's going to take everybody's shoulder to the +wheel, you can be sure. And I've got a shoulder. What's got to be done +is to get it through everybody's head that every nation ought not to +learn to produce anything but what it can produce best, and that +self-defense ought not to force it to make a botch of trying to do what +another nation could do better. Now, <i>one</i> of the things that France can +produce better than other people (and it happens to be the thing that I +know about) is hats. I don't know whether it's because she's been at the +business of running the styles so long, so much longer than anybody else +so that she's got all her fibers settled together, just right to catch +the note, the way the wood in an old violin trembles all over at sounds +that leave the wood in the leg of a chair perfectly calm. Mind, I don't +say the violin is any more important than a chair. As far as I'm +concerned personally, if I had to choose I'd rather have the chair. What +I'm trying to say is that they are <i>different</i>. And we've got to get +used to the idea that <i>because things are different it doesn't mean one +is better than the other and they ought both to be like the best one</i>. +Now, maybe it's the other way around, that France has been at this +business of setting styles so long because she's had the gift to begin +with. Anyhow, what's sure is that they do it better, everything along +that line, ribbons, braids, straws, hats, dresses, furniture, houses, +parks—original designs don't come from anywhere but France. But France +is at war and pretty nearly gone under. She's got to make her designs +with one hand and fight for her life with the other."</p> + +<p>He paused. "Well, I don't feel just like picking out that time to stop +coming to France to get her designs and to do my part to keep up the +taste for them, at home."</p> + +<p>I found no sufficiently admiring comment to make on this, and kept a +respectful silence.</p> + +<p>He went on, rubbing his hand back and forth over his gray hair: "But all +that is only my guess at it. What's my guess worth? Nothing. But it's +all I've got to go by, and so I <i>do</i> go by it. I don't <i>know</i> anything +about anything but hats, and I can't but just make a guess at them."</p> + +<p>He folded his hands before him and sighed. "There is a lot too much in +hats for any one man to understand."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="A_HONEYMOON_VIVE_LAMERIQUE" id="A_HONEYMOON_VIVE_LAMERIQUE"></a>A HONEYMOON ... VIVE L'AMERIQUE!</h2> + + +<p>I never knew many of the mere facts of their existence; where all their +money came from, nor the extraordinary romance which must have lain back +of them. Nor did I care to. They were too epic a pair for realism to +touch. I find on thinking them over that I never quite came to believe +in their actual existence; and yet, whatever value this slight sketch of +them may have will be due to its literal truthfulness to fact.</p> + +<p>My first sight of them was on a very cold day in the second year of the +war when they suddenly filled with their resplendent presence the dreary +room which was known as my "office." For several difficult months, +against all the obstacles which made up everyday life in war-time +France, I had been laboring to organize and get into shape a Braille +printing establishment which would provide books for those most tragic +of war-victims, the blind. Together with a crew of devoted volunteers I +had tugged at the task, struggling like everybody else in France with a +universal shortage of supplies, which began with able-bodied men and ran +down to tacks and cheesecloth. There was also the difficulty of getting +the "Authorization from the Government" before drawing your breath; but +unless you have experienced this potent brake on enterprise, there is no +use trying to describe it to you.</p> + +<p>And yet, somehow, we had managed to get along, had added to our two +plaque-making machines a couple of presses (very poor, both of them), +had scrambled together a home-made device for wetting and drying the +paper, had hunted down enough men to run the machines, had trained +enough proof-readers and assembled enough voluntary editors, so that +after a fashion we were really printing. The magazine, liberally bedewed +with our blood and sweat, came out once a month; and although the two +presses broke down with great frequency, we managed, by dint of +incessant repairing, to keep at least one in shape to do tolerable work. +We really had something patched-up, ungainly, but reasonably valid to +show the sightseers who came through on the weekly visiting day, when +all the rest of the institution was open to visitors.</p> + +<p>I took my two Olympian guests for the usual idle, visiting-day couple. I +went the rounds with them, pointing out with a weary satisfaction our +various makeshifts. When I found that they listened receptively, I +indulged in considerable self-pity over our difficulties, past and +present. On their part they asked a good many pointed questions about +the business end of our enterprise, about the financial status of the +institution, about the probability of permanence for the venture. They +came back to the "office" with me, the goddess in sables taking the +solitary chair, while her mate sat down on the edge of my little table, +stretching out before him legs clad in cloth of a fineness I had +forgotten could exist. Quite casually, like the diamonds and pearls of +the fairy-tales, amazing words now issued from their lips. "See here," +said he of the broadcloth overcoat, "this is no way to do business. You +can't get good work done with any such junk as those two presses! Why, I +wouldn't take them as a gift, not for old iron! And turned by +hand-power! Isn't that Europe for you? Why, for twenty-five cents a day +of electric current, you could do ten times the work you are doing now, +and have women run the presses! Go find a modern electric press that a +man can look at and not think he's Benjamin Franklin come to life again, +and let us know how much it costs."</p> + +<p>He handed me his card as he spoke.</p> + +<p>The goddess quitted my rickety, cane-bottomed chair and from her superb +height dropped down on me, "You know, the kind that opens and shuts its +jaws like a whale; perhaps you've seen them in printing establishments +at home." She tempered her assumption of my ignorance by a smile out of +the loveliest eyes imaginable and added: "My father was a printer out +West. I used to play 'round in his shop. That's how I happen to know."</p> + +<p>Gazing up at her fascinated, I noted how deep the little lines of +kindliness were at the corners of her smiling gray eyes, and how, beyond +the usual conventional coating of powder, no effort had been made to +hide the fact that the beautiful face was not in its first youth. The +consequent effect of honesty and good faith was ineffable, and had its +perfect counterpart in the extraordinary simplicity and directness of +her gentle manner. She drew her regal fur up around her long neck and +her husband put his hat back on his thick white hair. "While you're +about it, you'd better get those two plaque-making machines +electrified," he remarked. "Any electrician could do it for you. There's +no sense in having your operators push down that pedal for every letter +they make. Man-power again! Europe!"</p> + +<p>I realized that they were moving towards the door and shook myself out +of my entranced silence. "But you <i>can't</i> buy a press of that kind in +Paris!" I called after them, all the bitterness of my past struggles in +my voice. "You can't buy anything in war-time France. There hasn't been +a press or anything else manufactured in France for two years! Don't you +know that all the factories are making munitions?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Robert J. Hall—that was the name on the card—came back to me and +said earnestly: "Money can't <i>do</i> everything, but I tell you that it can +buy anything buyable if you've got enough of it. Now we'll give you +money enough to buy that press. It's up to you to find it." From the +doorway his wife smiled to mitigate his intense seriousness and said +again, "It's the kind that opens and shuts its jaws, you know." The door +swung shut behind them to a last call-to-arms, "Go to it!" from Mr. +Hall.</p> + +<p>Five minutes later a proof-reader coming found me still standing, +staring at their card.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter?" she asked.</p> + +<p>I took her by the arm. "Look here," I said, "did I just show two +visitors around the place?"</p> + +<p>"Do you mean that awfully good-looking man with the white hair and the +royal-princess-effect in sables and eyes like Trilby's?"</p> + +<p>I nodded, reassured. I had not dreamed them!</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Of course I went to it. Of course I found the press. After such a +galvanic shock, I could have found, if that had been my need, a +featherbed on the Arc de l'Étoile. I have too many other things to tell +you about the Halls to describe the hunt after the press, although in +its way that was epic, too. Enough to say that after three weeks of +impassioned concentration on the subject during which I ate, drank, +slept, and lived printing-press, it was located, a second-hand one in +excellent condition, in a loft in the remotest corner of a remote +industrial region of Paris. It was quite exactly what we needed, a +thousand times better than anything we had dreamed of having. I felt +almost a reverent admiration to see it opening and shutting its great +jaw, and spewing out perfect raised-type pages, at least twelve times +faster than our wretched hand press; doing in one day the work of two +weeks!</p> + +<p>But the price! Like all war prices it was five times what it was worth +when new. I hadn't the least idea that my extraordinary visitors would +buy it for us. Why in the world should they? In fact, by that time I +had gone back to thinking that I had dreamed them.</p> + +<p>However, I betook myself to their hotel, into their private +sitting-room, bright with chintz and copper and flowers. I found Mrs. +Hall without her hat even lovelier than before, a little gray in her +thick soft hair as honestly shown as the faint, fine lines of simple +kindness in her clear skin. She wore a dark-blue satin dress richly +embroidered, evidently a creation from one of the great Paris houses. +She assured me cordially that she was awfully glad to see me.</p> + +<p>Sitting on the edge of the Beauvais tapestry chair like the poor +relation on a begging expedition which I felt myself to be, I timidly +told of my search, trying to be amusing about it. Now that I was there I +dared not mention the price. Finally, however, having run out of +expedients to put off that dangerous moment, I brought out haltingly the +sum needed, and began to say, excusingly, that I thought I might get +<i>part</i> of that from....</p> + +<p>Mr. Robert J. Hall moved to the writing-table and took out a check-book. +"I'll tack another thousand francs on to that," he said over his +shoulder as he wrote, "I haven't been able to sleep nights for thinking +of those operators punching down the pedals by main strength and +awkwardness."</p> + +<p>There was a silence as he wrote. Mrs. Robert J. Hall examined her +glistening nails, looked out of the window, and, with a tact for which I +was grateful, did not once glance at my face. I fancy that my +expression, instead of gratitude, must have been stupefaction. Mr. Hall +blotted his check, detached it, and handed it to me—the little bit of +blue paper through which I saw as in a vision hundreds of the terribly +needed raised-type books put into those terribly empty hands. I could +find no words at all. "It's ... it's just like a miracle!" I was +stammering, when some one knocked at the door, a timid, hesitating +knock, such as mine had been.</p> + +<p>The sound seemed to alarm the Halls. "Good Lord, I bet it's the abbé!" +said Mr. Hall.</p> + +<p>"You don't happen to speak French, do you?" asked his wife hastily. "Oh, +you do? It's all right then. It's the curé of a town in the war-zone and +we want to help him with some war-orphans, but we have the most awful +time trying to make him understand about business details. It's +perfectly terrible, not speaking the languages."</p> + +<p>We turned to meet a short, elderly, double-chinned ecclesiastic who +carried his bulky body with the impersonal professional dignity of his +calling, but was not otherwise in the least impressive. The conversation +began.</p> + +<p>It consisted of an attempt on the part of Mr. Hall to get the curé to +"come to the point," as he expressed it, and name a sum, and of +terror-stricken evasions on the part of the curé to do any such thing +for fear of losing their interest. This fencing centered about a large +house which the curé needed to fit up for the reception of a number of +war-orphans. "How much will it cost?" asked Mr. Hall patiently, over +and over, evidently seeing no reason for his not receiving a direct +answer. Upon my pressing the abbé hard, he finally brought out the sum, +miserably, in a faltering voice which made me want to shake his hand. I +knew how he felt.</p> + +<p>The Halls consulted each other with a look of intimate understanding. +"All right," said the husband, "all right, <i>on condition</i> that he can +get the funds from his diocese to keep the thing going if we set it on +foot." To me, he added: "The more we see of this sort of thing, the more +we see you've got to go slow at times. These Europeans are so +impractical that first thing you know they've used the money you give +them to get themselves into some fool scheme, without half seeing their +way through. We make it a rule not to give anything to a concern which +isn't on a good, sound, business basis. What's the use?"</p> + +<p>I turned to the waiting priest, who had been wildly trying to guess from +our faces what we were saying, and translated Mr. Hall's philosophy of +philanthropy. I found a little difficulty in hitting on the exact French +phrase to express "a good, sound, business basis" but evidently I made +myself understood, because the old man's lips began to tremble eagerly. +"Oh yes, yes, madame, tell them that I can bring a letter to-morrow from +my bishop guaranteeing the support ... if only the house can be secured +and fitted up."</p> + +<p>Mr. Hall sent back through me: "Well, you tell him that the minute he +shows me that letter from his bishop, I'll give him a check for the +house, and some over for extras."</p> + +<p>I translated this exactly as it was said.</p> + +<p>For an instant the curé kept a solemn silence, his eyes looking through +us and beyond. I knew what he was seeing, a big sheltering house with +happy, rescued children playing in the garden. The graceless, stout old +man looked very touching to me.</p> + +<p>Then he came back to a sense of the inherent probabilities of things, +and appealed to me in a trembling voice, as to one who at least spoke +his language and to this degree was more of the real world than these +amazing strangers: "Are you sure you told them correctly? It is such a +great sum! And nobody else has been willing to ... Madame, do you ... +<i>do you really think they will do it</i>?"</p> + +<p>I showed him the check still in my hand. "They have just given me this +for the war-blind," I said. I found my own voice not entirely steady.</p> + +<p>Then it was my turn to look out of the window while he took his agitated +departure. I tried not to listen, but I could not help hearing that he +gave them his blessing. I wondered how he managed it, being but half +their height.</p> + +<p>I was still at the window when he emerged from the hotel entrance into +the open square below. He stood looking up and down wildly, forgetting +to put his broad-brimmed, flat-crowned hat on his head although it was +raining. Then, as though at random, he crossed the wet asphalt and +vanished down a side street. He staggered a little as he walked. I knew +just how he felt.</p> + +<p>When I turned back from the window, the Halls asked, offhand and as +though it would be doing them a favor, to accompany them on an +automobile trip out to the front, near St. Quentin. (I had been trying +vainly for three months to get a <i>sauf-conduit</i> which would let me get +to the front.) "We want to take some money out to the villages the +Germans blew up when they retreated last month; and seeing how quick we +got the curé fixed up with somebody to talk French, we thought it would +be nice if you could go with us." This from Mrs. Hall. Her husband +continued, as if in explanation of a slightly eccentric taste: "You see, +we like to dodge the committee-and-report effect in war-relief. It takes +so long for those big shebangs to get into action, don't you think?</p> + +<p>"And we like to manage so that the spending of the money we give isn't +in the hands of one of these self-satisfied young women in uniform who +know all about Elmira, New York, but do they about the Department of the +Aisne? It's unscientific, I know, but in such cases as these people who +have been cleaned out by the Germans, we like to put the money right in +the fists of the people who need it; and then go away and leave them to +spend it the way they want to. If my house burned down, I don't believe +I'd enjoy having a foreigner tell me how to build it over, and you +needn't tell me they like our ideas any better."</p> + +<p>I was by this time in the state of silent stupor which was the effect +not infrequently produced on me by the Halls. I found no words to tell +them how precisely their invitation fell in with my wishes, and they +took my momentary hesitation for doubt. "We've got a <i>very</i> comfortable +car," urged Mrs. Hall. "I don't think it would tire you much!"</p> + +<p>And Mr. Hall added: "Honestly, it would make me a lot more satisfied if +you would. You haven't any idea what a fool you feel just to poke money +under people's noses and not be able to say anything to them!"</p> + +<p>I thought to myself it was a sort of "foolishness" which I could well +endure, but before I could put this idea into words we were deep in a +discussion of ways and means, what clothes to wear, whether cameras +would be permitted, what to do about food. The date for the expedition +was set. My call was over. Dazed, their check still clutched tightly in +my hand, I was emerging from the hotel entrance into the street. I think +I must have staggered a little as I walked, but the resplendent +doorkeeper did not seem to notice. He was probably quite used to this +phenomenon as a feature of the departure of visitors to the Halls.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>This is not the place to tell you of that phantasmagoric trip to the +front, the nightmare of the dynamited villages, the carefully and +expertly murdered fruit-trees and vines, the ravaged gardens and fields, +the grimly enduring women and old men who toiled feebly with an +invincible determination to bring a beginning of order out of the +hideous chaos which had been their homes. For me the recollection of all +that horror of desolation is shot through with the incredible presence +of the Halls, resplendent in health and good looks and wealth and good +will, brightly interested in everything, cut off by their untouched +prosperity from any grinding comprehension of what they saw, but somehow +not needing to be ground into comprehension like the rest of us, somehow +not needing to put on the sackcloth of bitterness and passion in order +to feel fellowship.</p> + +<p>They kept vaguely reminding me of something ... and on the last night +out I learned what it was.</p> + +<p>Everywhere the gesture was the same. The car rolled into a new set of +ruins, as like the ones we had just left as one part of hell must be +like another. Mrs. Hall always began at once to take photographs, +methodically noting down the name of the village which had stood there. +Mr. Hall got out from his pocket the wallet containing more cash than I +had ever seen together in my life, and I went off with the French +officer escorting me to find the mayor of the ruined town. For the most +part, the real mayor had been carried off by the Germans for forced +labor, and we found some substitute, chosen by the remnant of the +citizens left. Usually it was a white-haired man, once it was a woman, +lean, energetic, stern, who had lost one eye through the explosion of a +dynamite petard. Always we found a worker at his work ... ah, the noble +procession of valiant old men we saw in their shirt-sleeves, in worn, +faded, patched overalls, hammer or mason's trowel in their knotted +hands, sweating and toiling among the ruins.</p> + +<p>The same thing always happened. I explained the Halls' mission. The +mayor opposed to my account the prompt defense of a total incredulity. +Things didn't happen that way, he always explained to me, as we walked +towards the car, he wiping his hands on his overalls. He told me that +nobody gave help at once, that people came and looked and exclaimed and +said how awful and said they would write articles, and others came and +took notes and said they would report to a committee in Paris, and +others said that if a report were written by the mayor and viséed by the +<i>sous-prefet</i> and signed by the <i>Deputé</i> and sent through the Ministry +of the Interior ... by this time we were beside the car, where the +mayor's eyes were always instantly fascinated by Mrs. Hall's tall +beauty.</p> + +<p>Mr. Hall shook him by the hand and left in it big, crisp, crackling +French banknotes, at which the old man gazed hypnotized, while I tried +to express to him something of the kindliness in the hearts of the two +shining messengers from another world. During this time Mrs. Hall always +took our photographs again.</p> + +<p>Then we shook hands all around. The mayor tried convulsively to express +his thanks, and failed. The automobile moved forward. We were off to a +repetition of the scene.</p> + +<p>When our time-limit was up, we scurried back towards Paris in order to +reach the city before the hour set in our <i>sauf-conduits</i>. The car +rushed forward over the long, level road, dimly shining in the +starlight, the flanking poplars shadowy, the cold, pure air blowing hard +in our faces. Mrs. Hall and I were in the tonneau, looking up at the +stars, incredibly steady above our world of meaningless misery. Then it +was that I learned of what they had reminded me. Mrs. Hall said to me, +evidently thinking it the simplest and most matter-of-fact explanation +of their being in France, of their life there, "You see, we haven't been +married so very long, only three months ago. And we were awfully happy +to be married. Of course all newly married folks are, but we had special +reasons. And we wanted to have a very special kind of honeymoon, the +nicest kind anybody ever had. It seemed silly to go to Florida, or to +the Yellowstone, or yachting, or to Hawaii, or to Japan for +cherry-blossom time, or any of the things you usually do. We'd done all +those anyhow, but more than that, when you read the newspapers about the +war and think that our country isn't taking any part in it you don't get +much good out of cherry-blossoms or surf-riding, do you? We wanted to do +what would give us the very best time we ever had, to celebrate our +being married. That's what honeymoons are for, of course. And we decided +that what we would like best, seeing that our Government isn't doing +anything, would be to come to France and help out. So we did."</p> + +<p>She was silent for a moment, while I slowly took in the significance of +what she had said. Then she went on: "And we like it even better than we +thought. We are happier even than we expected. It has been perfectly, +perfectly lovely."</p> + +<p>Then I knew of what they had reminded me. They had reminded me of +America, they <i>were</i> America incarnate, one side of her, the dear, +tender-hearted, uncomprehending America which did not need to understand +the dark old secrets of hate and misery in order to stretch out her +generous hand and ease her too happy heart by the making of many gifts.</p> + +<p>Of course, such an extraordinary phenomenon did not go unheeded by the +sharp eyes of the elegant and cosmopolitan circle in Paris war-relief +work. That circle had as well trained a predatory capacity for emptying +fat pocketbooks as the prettiest girl who ever sold ten-cent bouquets +for five dollars at a church fair. It was with something of the same +smiling security in levying philanthropic blackmail that they began to +close in on the Halls. I heard excited talk of them everywhere. +Everybody's mouth watered at the stories of their "easiness" and plots +to entrap them were laid by every cosmopolitan mondaine who now felt +about her own pet "war-work" the same competitive pride she had had (and +would have again as soon as the new fad was no longer new) for her +collection of pet dogs, or Egyptian rings.</p> + +<p>A scouting party from another charitable institution, one of the very +"chic" <i>œuvres</i>, nosing around our institution to make sure they were +losing no points in the game, stumbled on our new press and were as +awestruck as I had been by its costliness and speed. After this, all the +information which I had about the Halls, scanty and highly improbable as +you will see it to have been, was repeatedly pumped from me by one past +mistress after another in the art of pumping.</p> + +<p>I became so curious as to what the reaction of the Halls to this world +would be, and as to what this world would make of the Halls, that one +afternoon I took the time off to go to one of those horribly dull +afternoon teas in which fashionably disposed charitable ladies made up +for the absence of their usual pre-war distractions. I did not see the +guests of honor at first, and stood dismally taking my tea, submerged in +the talk customary at such affairs, for the most part complaints of war +inconveniences ... the hardship it was to have so few taxis in Paris, +how inconsiderate the Government had been to forbid cakes and candy on +two days a week, how the tailors and dressmakers were profiting by the +high prices to ask preposterous ones, "even of their old clients," how +hard it was to get coal enough to have a fire in one's <i>cabinet de +toilette</i> ... it was one of the days when we had heard of the failure of +a great French offensive, and of the terrible shortage of hospital +supplies at the front! My tea and sandwiches were ashes in my mouth! +Through the window I saw a one-armed soldier with his head in bandages +hobbling by the house, and I found myself bitterly longing for a bolt +from heaven to descend and consume the whole worthless lot of us. Then +I caught sight of the Halls.</p> + +<p>They towered above the crowd and above the very small but very important +person who was monopolizing them, none other than the Duchesse de +Sazarat-Bégonine, who was obviously engaged in opening upon them, one +after another, her redoubtable batteries of persuasion. Do not let this +casual mention of so well known a title lead you to the very erroneous +idea that I move in the aristocratic society which she adorns. Nothing +could be further from the truth. The very fact that I know the Duchesse +de Sazarat-Bégonine is a startling proof of the extent to which, in the +pursuit of her war-relief work, she has wandered from her original +circle! It shows, as nothing else could, what a thorough sport she was +in the pursuit of her new game, stopping at nothing, not even at +promiscuous mingling with the obscure. She was, if you will allow me the +expression, the <i>as des as</i> of the fashionable war-relief world in +Paris. As in the case of Guynemer, when she mounted her aerial steed in +pursuit of big cash donations to her <i>œuvre</i>, all lesser lights +abandoned hopes for theirs.</p> + +<p>She had so many different weapons in her arsenal that she was +irresistible; her château full of the memories of those distinguished +thieves, intriguers, and murderers, the illustrious ancestors of her +husband; her far-renowned collection of historic snuffboxes, her +wonderful Paris house with its rigorously select circle, to enter which +any woman there would have given her ears; her astonishing and +beautiful jewelry; the reputation of having been in her youth the <i>bonne +amie</i> of one of the best-known of the Bourbon pretenders (or was it a +Napoleonic) ... ah, when the Duchesse started out to bring down a +wealthy philanthropist for her Home for One-armed and Tubercular +Soldiers, she never missed her aim. It was not to be doubted that people +who had succumbed without a struggle to the snuffy old parish priest +with his war-orphans, would put up no resistance to this brilliant +onslaught.</p> + +<p>When I perceived the Halls corraled by this well-known personage, I +shamelessly moved closer so that I could overhear what was being said. +This was little enough on the part of the two Halls. Mrs. Hall smiled +silently down on her short and majestic interlocutor. Mr. Hall's +strongly marked face was inscrutable. However, the great lady was quite +used to respectful attention from those of her excompatriots with whom +she deigned to converse, and she continued to talk with her habitual +certainty of herself. At the moment when I came within earshot, she was +retailing to them exactly how many hundreds of wounded heroes had passed +through "her" hands to their eternal benefit; exactly the praises the +Minister of War had given her when her red ribbon was bestowed; exactly +how she had attacked and driven from the field a Spanish lady of wealth +who had had the presumption also to attempt to aid one-armed and +tubercular soldiers; how imitators had tried to "steal" her methods of +outdoor work for the tubercular, and how she had defeated their fell +purpose by allowing no more visitors to that institution without a card +from her personally....</p> + +<p>At this point my attention was called away by an acquaintance who asked +me in a whisper if those people whom the Duchesse had so ruthlessly +grabbed were really the extravagantly rich and queer Americans everybody +was talking about, attached to no institution, who gave as they pleased, +dodging recognition and decorations, mavericks of the fashionable +war-relief world, breaking all the time-honored traditions of that +society.</p> + +<p>When I could resume my eavesdropping, the Duchesse was embarked upon her +snuffboxes, graciously dropping down from the pinnacle of her lofty +exclusiveness an actual invitation to the two nobodies before her to +call on her and see that world-famed collection, comprising snuffboxes +used by the Duc de Talleyrand, the Duc de St. Simon, the Marquis de la +Rochefoucauld....</p> + +<p>About this time I detected an inward glow in Mr. Hall's steady eyes. He +said grimly, "I don't happen to be acquainted with any of those +gentlemen, but in our country snuff-taking is accounted a rather low +form of amusing yourself."</p> + +<p>The Duchesse was brought up short, not in the least by any intimation +that she might not be extracting her usual due of admiration, but by a +great desire to laugh at the unsophistication of the barbarians. For my +part I went warm all over with cheerfulness, and stepped forward to +present my cordial greetings to the Halls. Mrs. Hall soon fell back a +step or two with me, leaving Mr. Hall looking down severely on the +jewel-covered woman before him. There was a shade of anxiety on Mrs. +Hall's usually clear face. "You don't suppose," she murmured to me, +"that Robert will be taken in by that horrid, common old woman and give +some money to her? Men are so blind, even the best of them!"</p> + +<p>I must have laughed out at this, for the Duchesse turned and came +towards us, carrying off Mrs. Hall the moment thereafter, with her +wonderful irresistible assurance of conferring a distinction. I said to +Mr. Hall, moved by the most genuine curiosity: "What do you think of the +celebrated Duchesse de Sazarat-Bégonine? You know she is accounted +perhaps the most chic of all chic Parisiennes. Is there any other city +where a woman of her age could set the style for the most exclusive +society?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Hall did not seem interested in the chic-ness of the great lady. He +was silent for a moment, watching over the heads of the crowd his wife +listening to the Duchesse, her kind eyes bent attentively downward. Then +he said, with decision, "If that bragging old harridan gets a cent out +of my wife, I'll ... I'll spank Margaret."</p> + +<p>I thought then that my cup of diverted satisfaction, was quite full; but +it ran over splashingly when, half an hour later, separated by the crowd +from the Halls, I heard the Duchesse near me, announcing confidently to +a friend: "Oh, no difficulty whatever. The simplest fish who ever +swallowed down the bait in one gulp. Hooked? My dear, they are in my +basket already!"</p> + +<p>I went away on that, full of threadbare meditations on the little child +who had been the only one to see that the Emperor had really nothing on.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Although, after this, our Braille printing establishment continued to +benefit by casual visits from the Halls, visits followed usually by some +sound suggestion for improvement, accompanied by a check, they were +strictly Scriptural as regards the ignorance of the right hands of the +doings of the left, and I had little idea of what were their occupations +in other directions. Once in a while they carried me off to dinner in +some famous restaurant where otherwise I would never have set foot, and +where my war-tired and gloomy spirits received a lesson in the art of +cheer. There was in those delicate and costly repasts a sort of robust +confidence in the ultimate rightness of things ... or at least I used to +have this fancy to explain to myself the renewed courage which came to +me after such evenings, and which may have been simply the result of a +really hearty meal after a good deal of penitential and meager fare.</p> + +<p>I needed all the courage and calmness I could extract from any source +during those days, for it was at that time that my old school friend, +Marguerite Moysset, was notified that her husband was killed in a +skirmish on the Champagne front. Marguerite had already lost, almost at +the beginning of the war, her only child, a boy of nineteen. The death +of her husband left her desperately poor and inexpressibly alone. She +had not wept for her boy's death nor did she shed a tear now for her +husband whom she had almost extravagantly adored. She shut herself up in +a white, stern horror which frightened us, all her well-meaning friends +who hovered about her in those clumsy ministrations which often do more +harm than good but which nevertheless one dares not omit.</p> + +<p>Paradoxically enough it was the much-dreaded moving out of the old +apartment, full of memories of the twenty happy years passed there, and +the moving into the two little rooms on the fifth floor of a dingy old +tenement house in a poor quarter of the city, which did more for +Marguerite than all our foolish efforts. At least it aroused her to a +sort of shocked and horrified life, and carried her out of her own +misery.</p> + +<p>Not long after she had gone there to live I found her with four, +pale-faced, dirty little children in one of her two rooms. She was +heating water on her charcoal stove. "I'm going to give them a bath," +she said to me, pronouncing the commonplace words with a strange wild +accent. "Do you know they have never had a bath, all over their bodies, +in their lives?" I stayed to help her, wondering at the curious +expression on her face. She was, as she had been ever since the blow had +fallen, still very white, but now that pallor was like white heat. After +the children were clean, Marguerite dressed them in coarse, clean, new +clothes, which she told me she had sold her watch to buy, "the +church-bell strikes so near that I don't need a watch any more," and +gave them each a piece of bread and jam. They took their departure then, +stricken into an astonished silence, and Marguerite turned to me with an +angry toss of her head, "Do you know what the war is?" she asked me +fiercely. "<i>I</i> know! It is the punishment we have called down on +ourselves. I see now that the war has only intensified everything that +existed before, it has <i>changed</i> nothing fundamentally. We were living +as hideously in a state of war before as now, except that it was not +physically bloody. There were children in this awful house then as now, +without baths, without food, without decency, while I was giving all my +energy that one little boy might have everything, everything that he +could wish."</p> + +<p>At this I could not repress a protest, calling up the very modest +comforts of her simple home. She brushed me aside. "It was luxurious, +sinfully, wickedly luxurious to live so while other human beings were +living as they were in this house. Oh, I see it so plainly, we were all +living with all our might according to the horrible Prussian maxim that +you have a right to anything you're strong enough to keep other people +from sharing. All the Germans did was to carry it to its logical, +murdering conclusion, and show us what we really were."</p> + +<p>I could not, Heaven knows, deny this, but I ventured a palliative +murmur. "But at least we are ashamed of it. We tried to hide it. We +never gloried in it, as the Prussians do."</p> + +<p>"I am ashamed of it <i>now</i>," she told me somberly, "now when I have +nothing, nothing to use as help but my two hands. I am ashamed of it now +when it is too late."</p> + +<p>The black misery on her face was such that I brought out the foolish +phrase I had been repressing all during the weeks since the news had +come: "Marguerite dearest, why do you keep such a dreadful calm? +Wouldn't it do you <i>good</i> to cry?"</p> + +<p>"<i>I?</i>" she said bitterly. "I haven't the right to cry! Look at my +neighbors!"</p> + +<p>The next time I went back I found her two little rooms full of children, +three small babies on the bed, and a dozen or more of different ages +playing together, while Marguerite, in a long black apron, stirred a +soup-pot on the charcoal fire.</p> + +<p>"Their mothers are working!" She gave me this as all-sufficient +explanation, adding: "But there are so many, many more that I can't +help! If only I had more room to take them in ... and more soup ... and +more bread! But with children it's wicked to start more than you can +carry on, and ... I've made the calculation.... I can't possibly help +any more than there are here!"</p> + +<p>I noticed that the feverish, wild look had gone from her eyes, that she +looked steadied—infinitely tragic—but quiet, purposeful. The children +had brought her back into real life again.</p> + +<p>On a sudden impulse I left her, and went to telephone the Halls, asking +them to meet me near there. While I waited for them, I found myself very +much agitated, my head whirling with possibilities for Marguerite's +future, my legs a little unsteady under me. I revolved the best way to +"approach" them, the most tactful manner of presenting the matter to +them; I brought to mind all the painfully acquired war-relief lore about +"managing" people with money, I tried to recall what I knew of them so +that I might guess at some weakness of theirs to exploit. Perhaps I +could promise to get recognition for them from the French Ministry of +the Interior ... what <i>was</i> the exact name of that medal they give to +foreign philanthropists, of course not the red ribbon, but still....</p> + +<p>In the midst of these cheap calculations, their taxi drove up to the +curb, they stepped out, and I perceived that I had forgotten what they +were. It was not surprising. I lived in a world where there were few +reminders of such as they. Mr. Hall looked at me out of his honest eyes, +and said with his honest American accent, "Well, what's doing?" and I +found myself without preamble giving them the facts, naked facts, +without an adjective to qualify them, without a single picturesque +arrangement. I did not even make an appeal to them. I simply told them +all that had happened since the death of Marguerite's husband. I even +hid nothing of what Marguerite had said which might seem a criticism of +their way of life and of mine. I told them all. When I finished, they +glanced at each other, their good look of deep understanding which, in +the cold, ill-smelling city street was like a gust of warm, +country-scented air across my face. Mrs. Hall said, "I wonder if she'd +mind our going to see her?" Mr. Hall qualified: "Of course if you think +best not to ... we're not acquainted with her. We don't want to seem to +butt in."</p> + +<p>We found her giving those little people their noonday meal, hot soup and +bread. Having only her small kitchen table and four bowls, the children +came in relays. The fear of those who waited, lest the soup should give +out before their turn, was painful to see. Marguerite glanced at my +companions, surprised, and gave me a questioning, half-challenging look. +The Halls stood quietly in one corner of the dark little kitchen and +watched the white-faced clean little mites, all their ineffably clear +child's eyes turned on the tall, pale foster-mother, bending over them, +serving them, stooping to catch a timidly murmured request, smoothing a +little cheek, tying and untying their bibs, wiping their lips ... every +gesture pregnant with passionate motherliness. To me she wore the look +of a mother who returns to her brood after an absence and, finding them +ill-cared for and unhappy, strives burningly and remorsefully to give +them their lost due of love and care.</p> + +<p>With the last relay of four occurred a tragedy. Scrape as she might, +Marguerite could not bring out of the kettle more than enough for three +bowls. For a moment, there was silent consternation. Then, sighing, +without any suggestion from Marguerite, these children of the poor, +began dipping from their portions into the empty bowl. There was on +their thin little faces a patient and unsurprised resignation. When all +the bowls were equally full, they set to eagerly, a natural childlike +greediness coming at last into their eyes. I glanced at Mr. Hall and saw +that his lips were moving as though in some exclamation, but I could not +catch what it was.</p> + +<p>When the last drop had been scraped up from the last bowl and +Marguerite's long white fingers were once more immersed in dishwater, I +ventured to bring my visitors to her and introduce them. They asked a +few questions which Marguerite answered in her careful book-English, +astonished and a little nettled, I could see by their directness and +lack of ceremony.</p> + +<p>Yes, she said, turning a second glance of interrogation on me ... who +<i>were</i> these strangers in her house?... yes, there were other lodgings +to be had in the house where she could care for more children, the whole +top floor was a big, deserted factory loft with skylights letting in the +sun and with windows opening on a flat-roof terrace where the children +could play. But of course that was out of the question. The rent was +very high, it would cost a great deal to heat the room, and where could +she get money to feed any more?... "Even with the number I have, you +saw...."</p> + +<p>"Yes," they said hastily, they had seen! I took it from their accent +that they would not soon forget what they had seen.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Hall looked at her husband, their serious, eloquent glance. He +nodded, cleared his throat, and took out his wallet, that famous wallet! +I remember exactly what he said, it being of the most masterly brevity, +and I mean to set it down textually as he said it. What I cannot set +down is the inimitable, straight, clear gaze out of his eyes, as he +looked at Marguerite, everything but their common humanity forgotten. He +said: "Madame, my wife and I want to help you help these children. I am +going to leave five thousand francs with you to-day, for you to rent +anything, buy anything, do anything you think best for the children. And +there will always be plenty more where that came from, for you to go +on."</p> + +<p>Having said all that he had to say, he was silent, laying down on the +table with his card, the five big banknotes, and putting on them one of +the children's soup-bowls. I noted especially the gentleness with which +he touched the coarse, yellow earthenware, as though it were of great +value. I wondered intensely how Marguerite could thank them. I did not +venture to look at her face.</p> + +<p>Marguerite did not thank them at all. She stood perfectly motionless for +a moment, and then, putting her hands over her face, she broke into a +storm of loud sobs. The tears ran down between her thin fingers and +fell on the coarse yellow bowl and on the banknotes....</p> + +<p>Mrs. Hall pulled at my arm. Mr. Hall opened the door, and I found myself +stumbling down the steep, dark stairs, holding desperately to the greasy +railing. We groped our way down, step by step, in darkness and in +silence, until, nearly at the bottom, I called back, with a quavering +attempt at a jest, "But how about the necessity of a sound business +basis?"</p> + +<p>From the fetid darkness above me, dropped down Mr. Hall's clarion +American accent, "Oh, damn a sound business basis!"</p> + +<p>I found myself obliged to wink back the tears which came along with my +laughter.</p> + +<p>Emerging into the gray light of the narrow street, I turned to wait for +my companions, but when I saw the expression of their faces I knew I +should not be missed, and while they stood to hail a cab I made hasty +farewells and betook myself to the nearest Métro station, my ears +ringing as though I had been hearing the loud, triumphant note of +trumpets.</p> + +<p>I was about to dive into the anthole of the subway entrance when I heard +my name called and saw Mrs. Hall's chic little toque thrust out of a cab +window. "We forgot to tell you," she called across the street to me, +"that we are very much obliged to you indeed for telephoning us."</p> + +<p>With this inimitable farewell they vanished again from my view until +months after this I ran across them, for the last time. I was at the +Gare de Lyon, seeing off a blind soldier whom, with his family, we had +been able to place in a home in the country. As usual with the poor, to +whom journeys are considerable events, we had been fearfully ahead of +time because they were in a panic for fear of losing their train. I had +settled our protégés with all the innumerable valises, baskets, +packages, roll-ups, and wraps which are the accompaniment of a French +family, even the humblest, <i>en voyage</i>, had bidden them godspeed, and +was going back along the platform to the exit when I was confronted by a +familiar royal effect in furs, followed by a mountain of magnificent +baggage on a truck.</p> + +<p>"Hello!" said Mr. Hall. "You on the move too?"</p> + +<p>I explained my presence and turned back to walk with them to their +train. "We are going to Italy," explained Mrs. Hall, "and for once we +are going to try and <i>take</i> Italy something, instead of just getting the +most out of her the way we have done and everybody else has done all +these tourist years."</p> + +<p>(I had some reflections of my own about what Italian hotel keepers and +guides had taken from me, but I kept them to myself, recognizing that as +usual I was on a very different plane from the Golden Age of my +companions.)</p> + +<p>"You see," explained Mr. Hall in their astonishing, matter-of-fact +manner, "you see one of our enterprises at home in the States is making +a lot more money than ever before because of the war-manufacturing ... +now that the Government is in the war, at last, thank the Lord! Of +course, that money's got to go somehow to make up for some of the harm +the war is doing. And it's such a lot that it can swing a big +proposition. We've thought it over a lot, Margaret and I, and we've +decided to put it into helping the reforestation movement in Italy." I +had only a blank glare to greet this idea, so totally unexpected was it +to me. They hastened to expand, both of them talking at once, with a +fresh, eager interest. I gleaned the idea in broken bits of phrases, +"... terrible floods in Italy every few years ... tops of the mountains +bare and eroded ... campaign of education needed ... a thousand young +pines to the acre ... forty millions needed ... a fine Italian forestry +society already existing to direct the work, but without funds since the +war ... hundreds of thousands of acres to be reclaimed...." My head +whirled, but the main outlines were clear.</p> + +<p>"<i>En voiture!</i>" shouted an employee running down the <i>quai</i>.</p> + +<p>They scrambled into their car hastily, but turned at the door for last +remarks. "We've left a deposit in the bank for your friend with the +tenement-house children," they suddenly remembered to assure me, "enough +for a couple of years, and then, whenever she needs it, we're right +here."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Hall, on a sudden impulse, stooped low to give me a good-bye kiss. +"I <i>do</i> hope your husband gets back all right from the front!" she said +earnestly, divining the constant anxiety of my every moment, and then, +her eyes shining, "Oh, my dear, I wonder if anybody ever was so lucky as +to have such a perfectly, perfectly lovely honeymoon as Robert and I!"</p> + +<p>The train began very slowly to move. I walked along beside it, dreading +to see the last of those clear eyes. They smiled and waved their hands. +They looked like super-people, the last inhabitants of the world before +the war, the only happy human beings left.</p> + +<p>I looked after them longingly. The smooth, oily movement of the train de +luxe was accelerated. They were gone.</p> + +<p>I went soberly back into the big echoing station and out into the dingy +winter Paris street.</p> + +<p>I had not gone ten steps before I was quite sure again that I had made +them up, out of my head.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="LA_PHARMACIENNE" id="LA_PHARMACIENNE"></a>LA PHARMACIENNE</h2> + + +<p>When the war broke out, Madeleine Brismantier was the very type and +epitome of all which up to that time had been considered "normal" for a +modern woman, a <i>nice</i>, modern woman. She had been put through the +severe and excellent system of French public education in her native +town of Amiens, and had done so well with her classes that when she was +nineteen her family were thinking of feeding her into the hopper of the +system of training for primary teachers. But just then, when on a visit +in a smallish Seine-et-Marne town, she met the fine, upstanding young +fellow who was to be her husband. He was young too, not then quite +through the long formidable course of study for pharmacists, so that it +was not until two years later, when Madeleine was twenty-one and he +twenty-five, that they were married, and Madeleine left Amiens to live +in Mandriné, the town where they had met.</p> + +<p>Jules Brismantier's father had been the principal pharmacist there all +his life, and Jules stepped comfortably into his father's shoes, his +business, and the lodgings over the pharmacy. If this sounds common and +"working-class" to your American ears, disabuse yourself; the habitation +over the pharmacy was as well ordered and well furnished a little +apartment as ever existed in a "strictly residential portion" of any +American suburb. The beds were heir-looms, and were of mahogany, there +were several bits of excellent furniture in the small, white-paneled +salon, and three pretty, brocade-covered chairs which had come down from +Madeleine's great-grandmother; there was a piano on which Madeleine, who +had received a good substantial musical training, played the best music +there is in the world, which is to say, German (Jules, like many modern +young Frenchmen, had a special cult for Beethoven); and there was a +kitchen—oh, you should have seen that kitchen, white tiles on the walls +and red tiles on the floor and all around such an array of copper and +enamel utensils as can only be found in well-kept kitchens in the French +provinces where one of the main amusements and occupations of the +excellent housewives is elaborate cooking. Furthermore, there was in the +big oaken chests and tall cupboards a supply of bedding which would have +made us open our eyes, used as we are to our (relatively speaking) +hand-to-mouth American methods. Madeleine had no more than the usual +number of sheets, partly laid aside for her, piece by piece, when the +various inheritances from provincial aunts and cousins came in, partly +left there in the house, in which her mother-in-law had died the year +before Madeleine's marriage, partly bought for her (as if there were not +already enough!) to make up the traditional wedding trousseau without +which no daughter of a respectable bourgeois provincial family can be +married. So that, taking them all together, she had two hundred and +twenty sheets, every one linen, varying from the delightfully rough old +homespun and home-woven ones, dating from nobody knew when, down to the +smooth, fine, glossy ones with deep hemstitching on the top and bottom, +and Madeleine's initials set in a delicately embroidered wreath. Of +course she had pillow-slips to go with them, and piles of woolen +blankets, fluffy, soft and white, and a big puffy eiderdown covered with +bright satin as the finishing touch for each well-furnished bed. +Madeleine pretended to be modern sometimes, and to say it was absurd to +have so many, but in her heart, inherited from long generations of +passionately home-keeping women, she took immense satisfaction in all +the ample furnishings of her pretty little home. What woman would not?</p> + +<p>Now, although all this has a great deal to do with what happened to +Madeleine, I am afraid you will think that I am making too long an +inventory of her house, so I will not tell you about the shining silver +in the buffet drawers, nor even about the beautiful old walled garden, +full of flowers and vines and fruit-trees, which lay at the back of the +pharmacy. The back windows of the new bride's habitation looked down +into the tree-tops of this garden, and along its graveled walks her +children were to run and play.</p> + +<p>For very soon the new family began to grow: first, a little blue-eyed +girl like Madeleine; then, two years later, a dark-eyed boy like +Jules—all very suitable and as it should be, like everything else that +happened to Madeleine. She herself, happily absorbed in her happy life +and in the care of all her treasures, reverted rapidly to type, forgot +most of her modern education, and became a model wife and mother on the +pattern of all the other innumerable model wives and mothers in the +history of her provincial family. She lived well within their rather +small income, and no year passed without their adding to the modest +store of savings which had come down to them because all their +grandmothers had lived well within <i>their</i> incomes. They kept the titles +relative to this little fortune, together with what cash they had, and +all their family papers, in a safe in the pharmacy, sunk in the wall and +ingeniously hidden behind a set of false shelves. They never passed this +hiding-place without the warm, <i>sheltered</i> feeling which a comfortable +little fortune gives,—the feeling which poor people go all their lives +without knowing.</p> + +<p>You must not think, because I speak so much of the comfortableness of +the life of this typical French provincial family, that there was the +least suspicion of laziness about them. Indeed, such intelligent comfort +as theirs is only to be had at the price of diligent and well-directed +effort. Jules worked hard all day in the pharmacy, and made less money +than would have contented an American ten years his junior. Madeleine +planned her busy day the evening before, and was up early to begin it. +The house was always immaculate, the meals always on time (this was +difficult to manage with Madeleine cooking everything and only a +rattle-headed young girl to help) and always delicious and varied. +Jules mounted the stairs from the pharmacy at noon and in the evening, +his mouth literally watering in anticipation. The children were always +as exquisitely fresh and well-cared for as only French children of the +better classes can be, with their hair curled in shining ringlets and +their hands clean, as those of our children are only on Sunday mornings. +Madeleine's religion was to keep them spotless and healthful and +smiling; to keep Jules' mouth always watering in anticipation; to help +him with his accounts in the evenings, and to be on hand during the day +to take his place during occasional absences; to know all about the +business end of their affairs and to have their success as much at heart +as he; to keep her lovely old garden flowering and luxuriant; to keep +her lovely old home dainty and well ordered; and, of course, to keep +herself invariably neat with the miraculous neatness of French women, +her pretty, soft chestnut hair carefully dressed, her hands white and +all her attractive person as alluring as in her girlhood.</p> + +<p>Madeleine saw nothing lacking in this religion. It seemed to her all +that life could demand of one woman.</p> + +<p>In the spring of 1914, when Raoul was five years old and Sylvie eight, +Madeleine was once more joyfully sorting over the tiny clothes left from +their babyhood. All that summer her quick fingers were busy with fine +white flannel and finer white nainsook, setting tiny stitches in small +garments. Every detail of the great event was provided for in advance. +As usual in French families, in all good families everywhere, the +mother-to-be was lapped around with tenderness and indulgence. Madeleine +was a little queen-regnant whose every whim was law. Of course she +wanted her mother to be with her, as she had been for the arrival of +Sylvie and Raoul, although her mother was not very well, and detested +traveling in hot weather; and she wanted the same nurse she had had +before, although that one had now moved away to a distant city. But +Madeleine did not like the voice of the nurse who was available in +Mandriné, and what French daughter could think of going through her +great, dreadful hour without her mother by her to comfort and reassure +her and to take the responsibility of everything! So of course the nurse +was engaged and her railway fare paid in advance, and of course +Madeleine's mother promised to come. She was to arrive considerably in +advance of the date, somewhere about the middle of August. All this was +not so unreasonable from a money point of view as it sounds, for when +they made up the weekly accounts together they found that the business +was doing unusually well.</p> + +<p>All through the golden July heats Madeleine sewed and waited. Sometimes +in the pharmacy near Jules, sometimes in the garden where Raoul and +Sylvie, in white dresses, ran and played gently up and down the paths. +They played together mostly and had few little friends, because there +were not many "nice" families living near them, and a good many that +weren't nice. Of course Madeleine kept her children rigorously separated +from these children, who were never in white but in the plainest of +cheap gingham aprons, changed only once a week, and who never wore +shapely, well-cut little shoes, but slumped about heavily in the +wooden-soled, leather-topped "galoches" which are the national foot-gear +for poor French children. Like many good mothers in France (are there +any like that elsewhere?) Madeleine looked at other people's children +chiefly to see if they were or were not "desirable" playmates for her +own; and Sylvie and Raoul were not three years old before they had also +learned the art of telling at a glance whether another child was a nice +child or not, the question being settled of course by the kind of +clothes he wore.</p> + +<p>July was a beautiful month of glorious sun and ripening weather. For +hours at a time in her lovely green nest, Madeleine sat happily, resting +or embroidering, the peaches pleached against the high stone walls +swelling and reddening visibly from one day to the next, the lilies +opening flaming petals day by day, the children growing vigorously. +Jules told his pretty wife fondly that she looked not a day older than +on the day of their marriage, ten years before. This was quite true, but +I am not so sure as Jules that it was the highest of compliments to +Madeleine.</p> + +<p>The last week of July came, the high-tide moment of lush growth. +Madeleine was bathed in the golden, dreamy content which comes to happy, +much-loved women in her condition. It was the best possible of worlds, +she had the best possible of husbands and children, and she was sure +that nobody could say that she had not cultivated her garden to be the +best possible of its kind. The world seemed to stand still in a sunny +haze, centered about their happiness.</p> + +<p>Drenched in sunshine and peace, their little barque was carried rapidly +along by the Niagara river of history over the last stretch of smooth, +shining water which separated them from the abyss.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>I dare not tell you a single word about those first four days in August, +of the utter incredulity which swiftly, from one dreadful hour to the +next, changed to black horror. Their barque had shot over the edge, and +in a wild tumult of ravening waters they were all falling together down +into the fathomless gulf. And there are not words to describe to you the +day of mobilization, when Jules, in his wrinkled uniform, smelling of +moth-balls, said good-bye to his young wife and little children and +marched away to do his best to defend them.</p> + +<p>There are many things in real life too horrible to be spoken of, and +that farewell is one.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>There was Madeleine in the empty house, heavy with her time of trial +close upon her; with two little children depending on her for safety and +care and cheer; with only a foolish little young maid to help her; with +such a terrible anxiety about her husband that the mere thought of him +sent her reeling against the nearest support.</p> + +<p>Almost at once came the Mayor in person, venerable and white-bearded, to +gather up the weapons in all the houses. To Madeleine, wondering at +this, he explained that he did it, so that <i>if</i> the Germans came to +Mandriné he could give his word of honor there were no concealed arms in +the town.</p> + +<p>It was as though thunder had burst there in the little room. Madeleine +stared at him, deathly white. "You don't think ... you don't think it +possible that the Germans will get as far as <i>this</i>!" The idea that she +and the children might be in danger was inconceivable to her. Monsieur +le Maire hastened to reassure her, remembering her condition, and +annoyed that he should have spoken out. "No, no, this is only a measure +of precaution, to leave nothing undone." He went away, after having +taken Jules' shotgun, her little revolver, and even a lockless, +flintless old musket which had belonged to some of the kin who had +followed Napoleon to Russia. As he left, he said, "Personally I have not +the faintest idea they will penetrate as far as Mandriné—not the +<i>faintest</i>!"</p> + +<p>Of course when Jules left, <i>no</i> one had the faintest idea that his +peaceful home town would see anything of the war. That horror, at least, +was spared the young husband and father. But during the fortnight after +his departure, although there were no newspapers, practically no trains, +and no information except a brief, brief announcement, written by hand, +in ink, posted every day on the door of the Town Hall, the air began to +be unbreathable, because of rumors, sickening rumors, unbelievable +ones ... that Belgium was invaded, although not in the war at all, and +that Belgian cities and villages were being sacked and burned; that the +whole north country was one great bonfire of burning villages and farms; +then that the Germans were near! Were nearer! And then all at once, +quite definitely, that they were within two days' march.</p> + +<p>Every one who could, got out of Mandriné, but the only conveyances left +were big jolting farm-wagons piled high with household gear; wagons +which went rumbling off, drawn by sweating horses lashed into a gallop +by panic-stricken boys, wagons which took you, nobody knew where, away! +away! which might break down and leave you anywhere, beside the road, in +a barn, in a wood, in the hands of the Germans ... for nobody knew where +they were. The frightened neighbors, clutching their belongings into +bundles, offered repeatedly to take Madeleine and the children with +them. Should she go or not? There was nobody to help her decide. The +little fluttering maid was worse than nothing, the children were only +babies to be taken care of. After her charges were all in bed, that last +night, Madeleine wrung her hands, walking up and down the room, +literally sick with indecision. What ought she to do? It was the first +great decision she had ever been forced to make alone.</p> + +<p>The last of the fleeing carts went without her. During the night she had +come to know that the first, the most vital of all the innumerable and +tragic needs of the hour was the life of the unborn baby. She was forced +to cling to the refuge she had. She did not dare fare forth into the +unknown until she had her baby safely in her arms.</p> + +<p>And perhaps the Germans would not come to Mandriné.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>For two days the few people left in town lived in a sultry suspense, +with no news, with every fear. M. le Curé had stayed with his church; M. +le Maire stayed with the town records, and his white-haired old wife +stayed to be with her husband (they had never been separated during the +forty years of their marriage); good fresh-faced Sister Ste. Lucie, the +old nun in charge of the little Hospice, stayed with some bedridden +invalids who could not be moved; and there were poor people who had +stayed for the reason which makes poor people do so many other things, +because they could not help it, because they did not own a cart, nor a +wheelbarrow, nor even a child's perambulator in which to take along the +old grandfather or the sick mother who could not walk. Sœur Ste. +Lucie promised to come to be with Madeleine whenever she should send the +little maid with the summons.</p> + +<p>Madeleine sickened and shivered and paled during these two endless days +and sleepless nights of suspense. There were times when she felt she +must die of sheer horror at the situation in which she found herself, +that it was asking too much of her to make her go on living. At such +moments she shook as though in a palsy and her voice trembled so that +she could not speak aloud. There were other times when she was in an +unnatural calm, because she was absolutely certain that she was dreaming +and must soon wake up to find Jules beside her.</p> + +<p>The children played in the garden. They discovered a toad there, during +that time, and Madeleine often heard them shouting with laughter over +its antics. The silly little maid came every few moments to tell her +mistress a new rumor ... she had heard the Germans were cannibals and +ate little children, was that true? And was it true that they had a +special technique for burning down whole towns at once, with kerosene +pumps and dynamite petards? One story seemed as foolish as the other to +Madeleine, who hushed her angrily and told her not to listen to such +lies. Once the little maid began to tell her in a terrified whisper what +she had heard the Germans did to women in Madeleine's condition ... but +the recital was cut short by a terrible attack of nausea which lasted +for hours and left Madeleine so weak that she could not raise her head +from the pillow. She lay there, tasting the bitterness of utter +necessity. Weak as she was, she was the strongest of their little band. +Presently she rose and resumed the occupations of the day, but she was +stooped forward for very feebleness like an old woman.</p> + +<p>She told herself that she did not believe a single word the +terror-stricken little maid had told her; but the truth was that she +was half dead with fear, age-old, terrible, physical fear, which had +been as far from her life before as a desire to eat raw meat or to do +murder. It was almost like a stroke of paralysis to this modern woman.</p> + +<p>For two whole days the town lay silent and helpless, waiting the blow, +in an eternity of dread. On the morning of the third day the sound of +clumsily clattering hoofs in the deserted street brought Madeleine +rushing downstairs to the door of the pharmacy. An old farmer, mounted +on a sweating plow horse, drew rein for an instant in the sun and, +breathing hard, gave the news to the little cluster of white-faced women +and old men who gathered about him. Madeleine pressed in beside her +poorer neighbors, closer to them than at any time in her life, straining +up to the messenger, like them, to hear the stroke of fate. Its menacing +note boomed hollowly in their ears. The Germans were in the next town, +Larot-en-Multien, only eight miles away. The vanguard had stopped there +to drink and eat, but behind them was an ant-like gray horde which +pressed steadily forward with incredible haste and would be in Mandriné +within two hours.</p> + +<p>He gathered up his reins to go on, but paused to add a brief suggestion +as to what they might expect. The Germans were too hurried to burn or to +destroy houses; they were only taking everything which was easily +portable. They had robbed the church, had taken all the flour from the +mill, all the contents of all the shops, and when he left (the sight of +the shining plate-glass windows of the pharmacy reminded him) they were +just in the act of looting systematically the pharmacy of Larot, taking +down all the contents of the shelves and packing them carefully into a +big camion.</p> + +<p>He rode on. The women dispersed, scurrying rapidly each to her +dependents, children, or sick women, or old men. The Mayor hurried away +to carry a few more of his priceless town records to the hiding-place. +The priest went back to his church. For an instant Madeleine was left +alone in the empty street, echoing to disaster impending. She looked at +the pharmacy, shining, well ordered, well stocked, useful, <i>as Jules had +left it</i>.</p> + +<p>At the call to action her sickness vanished like a mere passing +giddiness. Her knees stiffened in anger. They should not carry off +everything from the Mandriné pharmacy! What could the town <i>do</i> without +remedies for its sick? The mere first breath from the approaching +tornado annihilating all in its path crashed through the wall which had +sheltered her small, comfortably arranged life. Through the breach in +the wall she had a passing glimpse of what the pharmacy was; not merely +a convenient way for Jules to earn enough for her and the children to +live agreeably, but one of the vital necessities of the community life, +a very important trust which Jules held.</p> + +<p>And now Jules was gone and could not defend it. But she was there.</p> + +<p>She ran back into the shop, calling for her little maid, in a loud, +clear voice such as had not issued from her throat since Jules had gone +away. "Simone! Simone!"</p> + +<p>The maid came running down the stairs and at the first sight of her +mistress expected to hear that her master had returned or that the +French troops were there, so like herself did Madeleine seem, no longer +stooping and shivering and paper-white, but upright, with hard, bright +eyes. But it was no good news which she brought out in the new ringing +voice. She said: "The Germans will be here in two hours. Help me quickly +hide the things in the cellar ... you know, the further room ... and we +can put the hanging shelves over the door so they won't know there is +another part to the cellar. Bring down the two big trays from the +kitchen. We can carry more that way. Then light two or three candles up +and down the cellar stairs. It won't do for me to fall, these last +days."</p> + +<p>She was gathering the big jars together as she spoke, and taking out the +innumerable big and little drawers.</p> + +<p>In a moment the two women, one who had been hardly strong enough to +walk, the other scarcely more than a child, were going slowly down the +cellar stairs, their arms aching with the weight of the trays and then +running back upstairs in feverish haste. Shelf after shelf was cleared +of the precious remedies that meant health, that might mean life, in the +days to come. The minutes slipped past. An hour had gone.</p> + +<p>From her attic windows from where she could see the road leading to +Lorat-en-Multien, a neighbor called down shrilly that dust was rising +up in thick clouds at the lower end. And even as she called, silently, +composedly, there pedaled into the long main street five or six men in +gray uniforms on bicycles, quite calm and sure of themselves, evidently +knowing very well that the place had no defenders. Madeleine saw the +white hair of M. le Curé and the white beard of M. le Maire advance to +meet the invaders.</p> + +<p>"We can't do any more here," she said. "Down to the cellar now, to mask +the door. No, I'll do it alone. Somebody must be here to warn us. We +mustn't be caught down there." She turned to go, and came back. "But I +can't move the hanging shelves alone!"</p> + +<p>Simone ventured, "Mlle. Sylvie? Could she watch and tell us?"</p> + +<p>Madeleine hesitated a fraction. Sylvie, like her mother, had been asked +to do very little with herself except to be a nice person.</p> + +<p>Then, "Sylvie! Sylvie!" called her mother with decision.</p> + +<p>The little girl came running docilely, her clear eyes wide in candid +wonder.</p> + +<p>Madeleine bent on her a white, stern face of command. "The Germans are +almost here. Simone and I have been hiding papa's drugs in the cellar +and we've not finished. Stay here ... pretend to be playing ... and call +to us the moment you see the soldiers coming. <i>Do you understand?</i>"</p> + +<p>Sylvie received her small baptism of fire with courage. Her chin began +to tremble and she grew very white. This was not because she was afraid +of the Germans. Madeleine had protected her from all the horrid stories +which filled the town, and she had only the vaguest baby notions of what +the Germans were. It was her mother's aspect, awful to the child, which +terrified her. But it also braced her to effort. She folded her little +white lips hard and nodded. Madeleine and the maid went down the cellar +stairs for the last time.</p> + +<p>When they came back, the troops were still not there, although one could +see beyond the river the cloud of white dust raised by their myriad +feet. The two women were covered with earth and cobwebs, and were +breathing heavily. Their knees shook under them. Taking the child with +them, they went up the stairs to the defenseless home. They found +five-year-old Raoul just finishing the house-and-farmyard which he and +Sylvie were beginning when she was called down. "If only I had three +more blocks to do this corner!" he lamented.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Twenty minutes from that time they heard heavy, rapid footsteps enter +the shop below and storm up the stairs. There was a loud knocking, and +the sound of men's voices in a strange language.</p> + +<p>Madeleine went herself to open the door. This was not an act of bravery +but of dire necessity. There was no one else to do it. She had already +sent the children to the most remote of the rooms, and at the sound of +those trampling feet and hoarse voices Simone had run away, screaming. +Madeleine's fingers shook as she pushed back the bolt. A queer pulse +began to beat very fast in the back of her dry throat.</p> + +<p>The first Germans she had ever seen were there before her. Four or five +tall, broad, red-faced men, very hot, very dusty, in gray, wrinkled +uniforms and big boots, pushed into the room past her. One of them said +to her in broken French: "Eat! Eat! Drink! Very thirsty. Quick!" The +others had already seized the bottles on the sideboard and were drinking +from them.</p> + +<p>Madeleine went into the kitchen and brought back on a big tray +everything ready-cooked which was there: a dish of stew, cold and +unappetizing in its congealed fat, a long loaf of bread, a big piece of +cheese, a platter of cooked beans.... The men drinking at the sideboard +cried aloud hoarsely and fell upon the contents of the tray, clutching, +cramming food into their mouths, into their pockets, gulping down the +cold stew in huge mouthfuls, shoveling the beans up in their dirty hands +and plastering them into their mouths, already full....</p> + +<p>Some one called, warningly, from below. The men snatched up what bottles +were at hand, thrust them into their pockets, and still tearing off huge +mouthfuls from the cheese, the bread, the meat, they held, and +masticating them with animal noises, turned and clattered down the +stairs again, having paid no more attention to Madeleine than if she had +been a piece of the furniture.</p> + +<p>They had come and gone so rapidly that she had the impression of a +vivid, passing hallucination. For an instant she continued to see them +there still, in lightning flashes. Everywhere she looked, she saw yellow +teeth, gnawing and tearing at food; bulging jaw-muscles straining; dirty +foreheads streaked with perspiration, wrinkled like those of eating +dogs; bloodshot eyes glaring in physical greed.</p> + +<p>"Oh, les sales bêtes!" she cried out loud. "The dirty beasts!"</p> + +<p>Her fear left her, never to come back, swept away by a bitter contempt. +She went, her lip curling, her knees quite strong under her, to reassure +Simone and the children.</p> + +<p>The house shook, the windows rattled, the glasses danced on the +sideboard to the thunder of the innumerable marching feet outside, to +the endless rumble of the camions and artillery. The volume of this wild +din, and the hurried pulse of straining haste which was its rhythm, +staggered the imagination. Madeleine scorned to look out of the window, +although Simone and the children called to her from behind the curtains: +"There are millions and millions of them! They are like flies! You +couldn't cross the street, not even running fast, they are so close +together! And how they hurry!"</p> + +<p>Madeleine heard some one come up the stairs and enter the hall without +knocking. She found there a well-dressed man with slightly gray hair who +informed her in correct French, pronounced with a strong accent, that he +would return in one hour bringing with him four other officers and that +he would expect to find food and drink ready for them. Having said this +in the detached, casual tone of command of a man giving an order to a +servant, he went away down the stairs, unfolding a map.</p> + +<p>Madeleine had all but cried an angry refusal after him, but, as brutally +as on a gag in her mouth, she choked on the sense of her absolute +defenselessness in the face of physical force. This is a sensation which +moderns have blessedly forgotten, like the old primitive fear of +darkness or of thunder. To feel it again is to be bitterly shamed. +Madeleine was all one crimson flame of humiliation as she called Simone +and went into the kitchen.</p> + +<p>They cooked the meal and served it an hour later to five excited, elated +officers, spreading out maps as they ate, laughing, drinking +prodigiously and eating, with inconceivable rapidity, such vast +quantities of food that Simone was sure she was serving demons and not +human beings and crossed herself repeatedly as she waited on table. In +spite of all their haste they had not time to finish. Another officer +came up the stairs, thrust his head in through the door, and called a +summons to them. They sprang up, in high feather at what he had said, +snatching at the fruit which Simone had just set on the table. Madeleine +saw one of her guests crowd a whole peach, as big as an apple, into his +mouth at once, and depart, choking and chewing, leaning over so that the +stream of juice which ran from his mouth should not fall on his +uniform.</p> + +<p>Simone shrieked from the kitchen, "Oh, madame! The garden! The garden!"</p> + +<p>Madeleine ran to a window, looked down, and saw long rows of horses +picketed in the garden. Two German soldiers were throwing down hay from +the gable end of the Mandriné livery-stable which overlooked the wall. +The horses ate with hungry zest, stamping vigorously in the flowerbeds +to keep off the flies. When they had finished on the hay, they began on +the vines, the little, carefully tended fruit-trees, the bushes, the +flowers. A swarm of locusts could not have done the work more +thoroughly.</p> + +<p>As she stood there, gazing down on this, there was always in Madeleine's +ears the incessant thundering rumble of the passing artillery....</p> + +<p>Through the din there reached her ears a summons roared out from below: +"Cellar! Cellar! Key!"</p> + +<p>She was at white heat. She ran downstairs, forgetting all fear, and, +raising her voice to make herself heard above the uproar outside, she +shouted with a passionate wrath which knew no prudence: "You low, vile +thieves! I will not give you one thing more!"</p> + +<p>Her puny defiance to the whirlwind passed unnoticed. The men did not +even take the time to strike her, to curse her. With one movement they +turned from her to the cellar door, and, all kicking at it together, +burst it open, trooped downstairs, returning with their arms full of +bottles and ran out into the street.</p> + +<p>And all the time the very air shook, in almost visible waves, to the +incessant thundering rumble of the artillery passing.</p> + +<p>Madeleine went upstairs, gripping the railing hard, her head whirling. +She had scarcely closed the door behind her when it was burst open and +five soldiers stormed in, cocked revolvers in their fists. They did not +give her a look, but tore through the apartment, searching in every +corner, in every closet, pulling out the drawers of the bureaus, +tumbling the contents on the floor, sweeping the cupboard shelves clear +in one movement of their great hands, with the insane haste which +characterized everything done that day. When they had finished they +clattered out, chalking up something unintelligible on the door. Raoul +and Sylvie began to cry wildly, their nerves undone, and to clutch at +their mother's skirts.</p> + +<p>Madeleine took them back into their own little room, undressed them and +put them to bed, where she gave them each a bowl of bread and milk. All +this she did with a quiet air of confidence which comforted the +children. They had scarcely finished eating when they fell asleep, worn +out. Madeleine heard Simone calling for her and went out in the hall. A +German soldier, desperately drunk, held out a note which stated that +four Herr-Lieutenants and a Herr-Captain would eat and sleep there that +night, dinner to be sharp at seven, and the beds ready.</p> + +<p>After delivering this he tried to put his arm around Simone and to drag +her into the next room. Simone struggled and screamed, shriek after +shriek, horribly. Madeleine screamed too, and snatching up the poker, +flung herself on the man. He released his hold, too uncertain on his +feet to resist. Both women threw themselves against him, pushing him to +the door and shoving him out on the narrow landing, where he lost his +balance and fell heavily, rolling over and over, down the stairs.</p> + +<p>Madeleine bolted the door, took a long knife from the kitchen table, and +waited, her ear at the keyhole, to see if he tried to come back.</p> + +<p>This was the woman, you must remember, who less than a month before had +been sitting in the garden sewing on fine linen, safe in an unfathomable +security.</p> + +<p>The man did not attempt to return. Madeleine relaxed her tense crouching +attitude and laid the knife down on the table. The perspiration was +streaming down her white cheeks. It came over her with piercing horror +that their screams had not received the slightest response from the +outside world. No one was responsible for their safety. No one cared +what became of them. It made no difference to any one whether they had +repelled that man, or whether he had triumphed over their resistance....</p> + +<p>And now she must command her shaking knees and trembling hands to +prepare food for those who had sent him there. Of all the violent +efforts Madeleine had been forced to make none was more racking than to +stoop to the servility of this submission. She had an instant of frenzy +when she thought of locking the door and defying them to enter, but the +recollection of the assault on the thick oaken planks of the cellar +door, and of its splintering collapse before those huge hobnailed boots, +sent her to the kitchen, her teeth set in her lower lip. "I never will +forgive them this, never, never, never!" she said aloud passionately, +more passionately than she had ever said anything in her life, and she +knew as she spoke that it was not of the slightest consequence to any +one whether she would or not.</p> + +<p>At seven the meal was ready. At half-past seven the four officers +entered, laughing, talking loudly, jubilant. One of them spoke in good +French to Madeleine, complimenting her on her soup and on the wine. "I +told my friends I knew we would find good cheer and good beds with +Madame Brismantier," he told her affably.</p> + +<p>Astonished to hear her name, Madeleine looked at him hard, and +recognized, in spite of his uniform, a well-to-do man, reputed a Swiss, +who had rented a house for the season, several summers back, on a +hillside not far from Mandriné. He had professed a great interest in the +geology of the region and was always taking long walks and collecting +fossils. Jules had an amateur interest in fossils also, and this, +together with the admirably trained voice of the Swiss, had afforded +several occasions of social contact. The foreigner had spent an evening +or two with them, singing to Madeleine's accompaniment. And once, having +some valuable papers left on his hands, he had asked the use of the +Brismantier safe for a night. He had been very fond of children, and +had had always a jolly greeting for little Raoul, who was then only a +baby of two. Madeleine looked at him now, too stupefied with wonder to +open her lips. A phrase from "An die ferne Geliebte," which he had sung +very beautifully, rang in her ears, sounding faint and thin but clear, +through the infernal din in the street.</p> + +<p>She turned abruptly and went back into the kitchen. Standing there, +before the stove, she said suddenly, as though she had but just known +it, "Why, he was a spy, all the time!" She had not thought there were +such people as spies outside of cheap books.</p> + +<p>She was just putting the roast on the table when some one called loudly +from the street. The men at the table jumped up, went to the window, +leaned out, exchanged noisy exultant words, cursed jovially, and turned +back in haste to tighten the belts and fasten the buttons and hooks +which they had loosened in anticipation of the feast. The spy said +laughingly to Madeleine: "Your French army runs away so fast, madame, +that we cannot eat or sleep for chasing it! Our advance guard is always +sending back word to hurry faster, faster!"</p> + +<p>One of the others swept the roast from the table into a brown sack, all +crammed their pockets full of bread and took a bottle under each arm. At +the door the spy called over his shoulder: "Sorry to be in such a hurry! +I will drop you a card from Paris as soon as the mails begin again."</p> + +<p>They clattered down the stairs.</p> + +<p>Madeleine bolted the door and sank down on a chair, her teeth chattering +loudly. After a time during which she vainly strove to master a mounting +tide of pain and sickness, she said: "Simone, you must go for Sister +Ste. Lucie. My time has come. Go by our back door, through the alley, +and knock at the side door of the Hospice ... you needn't be gone more +than three minutes."</p> + +<p>Simone went downstairs, terribly afraid to venture out, even more afraid +to be left alone with her mistress. Madeleine managed to get into the +spare bedroom, away from the children's room, and began to undress, in +an anguish of mind and body such as she had not thought she could endure +and live. But even now she did not know what was before her. In a short +time Simone came back, crying and wringing her hands. A sentry guarded +the street and another the alley. They had thrust her back into the +house, their bayonets glittering, and one had said in French, +"Forbidden; no go out till daylight." She had tried to insist, to +explain, but he had struck her back with the butt end of his rifle. Oh, +he had hurt her awfully! She cried and cried, looking over her shoulder, +tearing at her apron. It was evident that if there had been any +possibility for her to run away, she would have done it, anywhere, +anywhere....</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Madeleine's little boy was born that night. She, who of course must +needs have her mother to take all the responsibility, and the nurse +whose voice was agreeable to her, went through her fiery trial alone, +with no help but the foolish little Simone, shivering and gasping in +hysteria. She was nothing but a pair of hands and feet to be animated by +Madeleine's will-power and intelligence. In those dreadful hours +Madeleine descended to the black depths of her agony but dared never +abandon herself even to suffer. At every moment she needed to shock +Simone out of her panic by a stern, well-considered command.</p> + +<p>She needed, and found, strange, unguessed stores of strength and +resolution. She felt herself alone, pitted against a malign universe +which wished to injure her baby, to prevent her baby from having the +right birth and care. But she felt herself to be stronger than all the +malignity of the universe. Once, in a moment's lull during the fight, +she remembered, seeing the words, zig-zag like lightning on a black +sky,—a sentence in the first little history-book she had studied as a +child,—"The ancient Gauls said they feared nothing, not enemies, not +tempest, not death. Until the skies fell upon their heads, they would +never submit." ... "They were my ancestors!" said the little Gaulish +woman, fighting alone in the darkness. She clenched her teeth to repress +a scream of pain and a moment later told Simone, quite clearly, in a +quiet tone of authority, just what to do, again.</p> + +<p>Outside, all night long, there thundered the rumbling passage of the +artillery and camions.</p> + +<p>In the morning, when Sylvie and Raoul awoke, they found Simone crouched +in a corner of their mother's room, sobbing endlessly tears of sheer +nervous exhaustion. But out from their mother's white, white face on the +pillow looked triumphant eyes. She drew the covers down a little and +lifted her arm. "See, children, a little new brother."</p> + +<p>As she spoke she thrust out of her mind, with a violence like that with +which she had expelled the ruffian from the door, the thought that the +little brother would probably never see his father. It was no moment to +allow herself the weakness of a personal sorrow. She must marshal her +little forces. "Come, Sylvie dear. Simone is all tired out; you must get +us something to eat, and then you and Simone must bring in all you can +of what is left in the kitchen and hide it here under mother's bed." She +had thought out her plan in the night.</p> + +<p>During the next days Madeleine was wholly unable to stand on her feet. +From her bed she gave her orders—desperate, last-resort orders to a +defeated garrison. The apartment was constantly invaded by ravenously +hungry and thirsty men, but her room was not entered. The first morning +the door to her room had been opened brusquely, and a gray-haired +under-officer entered hastily. He stopped short when he saw Madeleine's +drawn white face on the pillow, with the little red, bald head beside +her. He went out as abruptly as he had gone in and chalked something on +the door. Thereafter no one came in; although not infrequently, as +though to see if the chalked notice were true, the door was opened +suddenly and a head with a spiked helmet thrust in. This inspection of a +sick woman's room could and did continually happen without the slightest +warning. Madeleine was buffeted by an angry shame which she put aside +sternly, lest it make her unfit to nurse her baby.</p> + +<p>They lived during this time on what happened to be left in the kitchen, +after that first day of pillage, some packages of macaroni, tapioca, and +cornstarch, part of a little cheese, some salt fish, two or three boxes +of biscuits, a little sugar, a little flour. They did unsavory cooking +over the open fire till their small supply of wood gave out. The +children submitted docilely to this régime, cowed by their mother's +fierce command not for an instant to go out of her sight. But the little +maid, volatile and childish, could not endure life without bread. She +begged to be allowed to go out, to slip along the alley to the Hospice +and beg a loaf from Sister Ste. Lucie. There must be bread somewhere in +town, she argued, unable to conceive of a world without bread. And in +the daytime the sentries would let her pass.</p> + +<p>Madeleine forbade her to leave the room, but on the third day when her +mistress was occupied with the baby she slipped out and was gone. She +did not come back that day or the next. They never saw or heard of her +from that moment.</p> + +<p>Madeleine and the children continued to live in that one room, shaken by +the incessant rumble of the passing artillery wagons and by the +hurrying tread of booted feet. They heard now and again incursions into +the other rooms of their home, and as long as there were loud voices and +trampling and clattering dishes, the children crept into bed beside +Madeleine and the baby, cowering together under the poor protection of +their mother's powerless arms. They never dared speak above a whisper +during those days. They heard laughing, shouting, cursing, snoring in +the rooms all around them. Once they heard pistol shots, followed by a +great splintering crash of glass and shouts of wild mirth.</p> + +<p>Madeleine lost all count of the days, of everything but the diminishing +stock of food. She tried repeatedly to sit up, she tried to put her feet +to the floor, but she felt her head swim and fell back in bed. She had +little strength left to struggle now. The food was almost gone, and her +courage was almost gone. As though the walls of the room were closing in +on her, the approach of the spent, beaten desire to die began to close +in on her. What was the use of struggling on? If she could only kill the +children and herself ... there was no hope.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>One morning Sylvie said in a loud, startled whisper: "Oh, <i>maman</i>, they +are going the other way! Back towards Lorat ... and yet they are still +hurrying as fast as ever ... faster!"</p> + +<p>Madeleine felt her hair raise itself on her scalp. She sat up in bed. +"Sylvie, <i>are you sure</i>?"</p> + +<p>And when the child answered, always in her strained whisper, "Yes, yes, +I am sure," her mother sprang out of bed with a bound and ran to the +window.</p> + +<p>It was true. The dusty-gray tide had turned. They were raging past the +house, the horses straining at the heavy artillery wagons, lashed into a +clumsy canter by the drivers, leaning far forward, straining, urging; +the haggard men, reeling in fatigue, stumbling under their heavy packs, +pressing forward in a dog-trot; the officers with red angry faces, +barking out incessant commands for more haste ... and their backs were +turned to Paris!</p> + +<p>The Frenchwoman, looking down on them, threw her arms up over her head +in a wild gesture of exultation. They were going back!</p> + +<p>She felt as strong as ever she had in her life. She dressed herself, set +the wretched room in some sort of order, and managed to prepare an +edible dish out of soaked tapioca and sugar. The children ate it with +relish, comforted by their mother's new aspect.</p> + +<p>About two o'clock that night Madeleine awoke to an awful sense of +impending calamity. Something had happened, some tremendous change had +come over the world. She lay still for a long moment, hearing only the +beating of her own heart. Then she realized that she heard nothing but +that, that the thunder of the trampling feet had stopped. She got out of +bed carefully, trying not to waken the children, but Sylvie, her nerves +aquiver, heard and called out in a frightened whisper, "<i>Maman, maman!</i> +What is it?" She caught her mother's arm, and the two went together to +the window. They leaned out, looked to right and left, and fell to +weeping in each other's arms. Under the quiet stars, the village street +was perfectly empty.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>The next morning Madeleine made the children swallow a little food +before, all together, the baby in his mother's arms, they ventured out +from their prison-room. They found their house gutted and sacked and +sullied to the remotest corner. The old brocade on the chairs in the +salon had been slit to ribbons by sword-slashes, the big plate-glass +windows over the mantel-pieces had each been shattered into a million +pieces, all the silver was gone from the drawers, every piece of linen +had disappeared, the curtains had been torn down and carried away, and +every bit of bedding had gone, every sheet, every blanket, every +eiderdown quilt. The mattresses had been left, each having been cut open +its entire length and sedulously filled with filth.</p> + +<p>The kitchen, emptied of all its shining copper and enamel utensils, was +one litter of splintered wood, remnants of furniture which had been cut +up with the ax for fuel. Madeleine recognized pieces of her mahogany +beds there. Through the kitchen window she looked down into the walled +space which had been the garden and saw it a bare, trampled stable-yard, +with heaps of manure at each end. She looked at all this in perfect +silence, the children clinging to her skirts, the baby sleeping on her +arm. She looked at it, but days passed before she really believed that +what she saw was real.</p> + +<p>A woman's voice called quaveringly from the landing: "Madame +Brismantier, are you there? Are you alive? The Germans have gone." +Madeleine stepped to the landing and saw old Sister Ste. Lucie, her face +which had always been so rosy and fresh, as gray as ashes under her +black-and-white coif. She leaned against the wall as she stood. At the +sight of the sleeping baby in Madeleine's arms, the gray face smiled, +the wonderful smile which women, even those vowed to childlessness, give +to a new mother. "Oh, your baby came," she said. "Boy or girl?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Madeleine, "he came. A boy. A nice little boy." For one +instant the two women stood there in that abomination of desolation, +with death all around them, looking down at the baby, and smiling.</p> + +<p>Then Sœur Ste. Lucie said: "There is nothing left in the pharmacy, I +see. I thought maybe they might have left something, by chance, but I +see everything is smashed to pieces. You don't happen to have any +supplies up here, do you? We need bandages horribly at the Hospice, for +the wounded. There are forty there."</p> + +<p>Madeleine knew the minute size of the little Hospice and exclaimed: +"<i>Forty!</i> Where do you put them?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, everywhere, on the floor, up and down the hall, in the kitchen. But +we haven't a thing except hot water to use for them; all the sheets were +torn up two days ago, what they hadn't stolen! If I only had a little +iodine, or any sort of antiseptic. Their wounds are too awful, all +infected, and nothing ..."</p> + +<p>Without knowing it Madeleine took a first step forward into a new life. +"There's plenty of everything," she said. "I hid them all in the far +room of the cellar."</p> + +<p>"God grant 'they' didn't find them!" breathed the nun.</p> + +<p>Madeleine lighted a candle, left the sleeping baby in the charge of +Sylvie, and went with Sœur Ste. Lucie down into the cellar. They +found it littered and blocked with emptied and broken bottles. A strange +hoarse breathing from a dark corner frightened them. Lifting her candle, +Madeleine brought to view a German soldier, dead-drunk, snoring, his +face swollen and red. The women let him lie as an object of no +importance and turned to the hanging shelves. They heaved a long sigh; +the blind was still there, untouched. Madeleine's device was successful.</p> + +<p>As they looked among the heaped-up supplies from the pharmacy for +bandages and antiseptics, Sœur Ste. Lucie told Madeleine very briefly +what had been happening. Madeleine listened in a terrible silence. +Neither she nor the nun had strength to spare for exclamations. Nor +could any words of theirs have been adequate. The news needed no +comment. M. le Maire was dead, shot in front of the Town Hall, on the +ground that there had been weapons found in one of the houses. "You know +in the Bouvines' house they had some Malay creeses and a Japanese sword +hanging up in M. Bouvines' study, things his sailor uncle brought back. +The Mayor never thought to take those down, and they wouldn't give him +time to explain. M. le Curé was dead, nobody knew or ever would know +why—found dead of starvation, strapped to a bed in an attic room of a +house occupied by some German officers. Perhaps he had been forgotten by +the person who had tied him there...." The nun's voice died away in +sobs. She had been brought up under M. le Curé's protection all her life +and loved him like a father.</p> + +<p>Madeleine sorted bandages in silence, her throat very dry and harsh. +Later Sœur Ste. Lucie went on, trying to speak more collectedly: "The +worst of trying to care for these wounded is not being able to +understand what they say."</p> + +<p>"How so?" asked Madeleine, not understanding in the least.</p> + +<p>"Why, I don't speak German."</p> + +<p>Madeleine stopped short, her hands full of bandages. "Are they <i>German</i> +wounded? Are we getting these things for <i>German soldiers</i>?"</p> + +<p>Sœur Ste. Lucie nodded gravely. "Yes, I felt just so, too, at first. +But when I saw them wounded, bleeding, so sick, worn out.... How would +you like German women to treat your husband if he should be wounded in +Germany? We are all nothing but wretched sinners in the sight of God. +And are we not taught to do good to our enemies?"</p> + +<p>Of all this (which meant in reality simply that Sœur Ste. Lucie was a +warm-hearted woman whose professional habit had been for forty years to +succor the afflicted) Madeleine took in very little at the time, +although it was to come back to her again and again. At the moment she +thought that she did not believe a single word of it. She certainly did +not at all think that we are the best of us but wretched sinners, and +she had as remotely academic a belief as any other twentieth-century +dweller in the desirability of doing good to your enemies. The idea of +Jules wounded in Germany did indeed bring a flood of confused emotions +into her mind. If Germany should be invaded, would Frenchmen be stamping +into strangers' houses and taking the food out of the mouths of the +owners, would they...?</p> + +<p>"Well," said Sœur Ste. Lucie, impatient of her trance-like stare.</p> + +<p>It was none of what she had been thinking which now moved Madeleine to +say automatically, "Oh, of course we'll have to give them the bandages +and the peroxide." She could not have named the blind impulse which +drove her to say this, beyond that a sort of angry self-respect was +mixed with it. Her head ached furiously, whirling with fatigue and lack +of food, her back ached as though it were being beaten with hammers. She +renounced any attempt to think.</p> + +<p>"Here," said Sœur Ste. Lucie, staggering herself with exhaustion. +"The baby is only a few days old. You're not fit to be doing this."</p> + +<p>Madeleine, who had lain flat on her back for two weeks after the birth +of the other two children, shook her head. "No, no, I can do it as well +as you. You look fearfully tired."</p> + +<p>"I haven't had my clothes off for ten days," said the nun. "And I'm +sixty-two years old."</p> + +<p>In the street door, with her basket of bandages on her arm, Sœur Ste. +Lucie stood looking around her at the desolate filth-strewn shop, the +million pieces of glass which had been its big windows covering the +floor, its counter hacked and broken with axes. She said: "We haven't +any mayor and the priest is dead, and we haven't any pharmacy and the +baker is mobilized, and there isn't one strong, well man left in town. +How are we going to live?"</p> + +<p>Madeleine took another step, hesitating, along the new road. She leaned +against the counter to ease her aching body and put back her hair to +look around her at the wreck and ruin of her husband's business. She +said in a faint voice: "I wonder if I could keep the pharmacy open. I +used to help Jules with the accounts, I know a little about where he +bought and how he kept his records. I wonder if I could—enough for the +simpler things?"</p> + +<p>"You have already," said the nun, as she went away, "and the first +things you have given out are bandages for your enemies. God will not +forget that."</p> + +<p>Madeleine received this with an impatient shrug. She was not at all glad +that her first act had been to help the suffering among her enemies. She +had hated doing it, had only done it because of some confused sense of +decency. She heartily wished she had not had it to do. But if it had +been necessary, she would have done it again ... and yet to do it for +those men who had murdered M. le Maire, so blameless and M. le Curé—so +defenseless!... No, these were not the same men who lay bleeding to +death in the Hospice to whom she had sent bandages. <i>They</i> had not +murdered ... as yet!</p> + +<p>Her head throbbed feverishly. She renounced again the effort to think, +and thrusting all this ferment down into her subconsciousness she turned +to the urgent needs of the moment. It seemed to her that she could not +breathe till she had set the pharmacy as far as possible in the order +Jules had left it. This feeling, imperious and intense, was her only +refuge against her certainty that Jules was killed, that she would never +see him again. Without an attempt to set to rights even a corner of the +desolated little home, upstairs, she began toiling up and down the +cellar stairs carrying back the glass jars, the pots, the boxes, and +bottles and drawers. It seemed to her, in her dazed confusion, that +somehow she was doing something for Jules in saving his pharmacy which +he had so much cared for, that she was almost keeping him from dying by +working with all her might for him there....</p> + +<p>In the middle of the morning she went upstairs and found that Sylvie, +working with Raoul, had cleared the kitchen of the worst of the rubbish. +In a pot-closet under the sink there were two old saucepans which had +not been stolen. Madeleine made a fire, stoically using her own +broken-up furniture, and, putting a few potatoes (the last of their +provisions) on to boil, sat down to nurse the hungry baby.</p> + +<p>"<i>Maman</i> dear," said Sylvie, still in the strained whisper of the days +of terror. She could not speak aloud for weeks. "<i>Maman</i> dear," she +whispered, "in the salon, in the dining-room, I wanted to try to clean +it, but it is all nasty, like where animals have been."</p> + +<p>"Hush!" said her mother firmly. "Don't think about that. Don't look in +there. It'll make you sick if you do. Stay here, tend the fire, watch +the baby, and play with Raoul." She outlined this program with decision +and hurried back downstairs to go on with the execution of one conceived +in the same spirit. If she could only get the pharmacy to look a little +as it had when Jules had left it, it seemed to her that Jules would seem +less lost to her.</p> + +<p>She shoveled the incredible quantity of broken glass back through the +shop into what had been her garden, hardening herself against a qualm of +horror at the closer view of the wreckage there. The two big sycamore +trees had been cut down and sawn into lengths to use for fuel in the +open fire, the burned-out embers of which lay in a black ring where the +arbor had stood.</p> + +<p>She went back to her work hastily, knowing that if she stopped for an +instant to look, she would be lost.</p> + +<p>At noon she went upstairs, and with the children lunched on potatoes and +salt.</p> + +<p>She was putting the last of the innumerable drawers back in its place, +after having tried it in all the other possible places, when a poorly +dressed, rough-haired, scrawny little boy came into the shop. Madeleine +knew him by sight, the six-year-old grandson of Madame Dulcet, a +bedridden, old, poor woman on Poulaine Street. The little boy said that +he had come to get those powders for his grandmother's asthma. She +hadn't slept any for two nights. As he spoke he wound the string about a +top and prepared to spin it, nonchalantly. Looking at his cheerful, +dirty little face, Madeleine felt herself a thousand years old, +separated for always and always from youth which would never know what +she had known.</p> + +<p>"I don't know anything about your grandmother's asthma powders," she +said. The little boy insisted, astonished that a grown person did not +know everything. "<i>He</i> always kept them. Grandmère used to send me twice +a week to get them. Grandmère will scold me awfully if I don't take them +back. She's scolding all the time now, because the Germans took our +soup-kettle and our frying-pan. We haven't got anything left to cook +with."</p> + +<p>The memory of her immensely greater losses rose burningly to Madeleine's +mind. "They took <i>all my sheets</i>!" she cried impulsively,—"every one!"</p> + +<p>"Oh," said the little boy indifferently, "we never had any sheets, +anyhow." This did not seem an important statement to him, apparently; +but to Madeleine, her old world shattered, emerging into new horizons, +beaten upon by a thousand new impressions, it rang loudly. The Germans, +then, had only put her in the situation in which a woman, like herself, +had always lived ... and that within a stone's throw of these +well-filled linen-closets of hers! There was something strange about +that, something which she would like to ponder, if only her head did not +ache so terribly. The little boy said, insistently, "<i>He</i> always gave +me the powders, right away!"</p> + +<p>Through obscure complicated mental processes, of which she had only the +dimmest perceptions, <i>Jules</i> had always given the powders ... how +strange it was that precisely a bedridden woman who had most need of +them should have owned no sheets ... there came to her a great desire to +send that old woman the medicine she needed. "You go outside and spin +your top for a while," she said to the child; "I'll call you when I'm +ready."</p> + +<p>She went upstairs. Holding her skirts high to keep them out of the +filth, she picked her way to the bookcase. Books were scattered all +about the room, torn, cut, trampled on, defiled; but for the most part +those with handsome bindings had been chosen for destruction. On the top +shelf, sober in their drab, gray-linen binding, stood Jules' big +record-books, intact. She carried down an armful of them to the +pharmacy, and opened the latest one, the one which Jules had put away +with his own hand the day he had left her.</p> + +<p>The sight of the pages covered with Jules' neat, clear handwriting +brought a rush of scalding tears to her eyes. Her bosom heaved in the +beginning of sobs. She laid down the book, and, taking hold of the +counter with all her strength, she forced herself to draw one long, +regular breath after another, holding her head high.</p> + +<p>When her heart was beating quietly again, quietly and heavily, in her +breast, she opened the book and began studying the pages. Jules set +everything down in writing, it being his idea that a pharmacist had no +other defense against making those occasional mistakes inevitable to +human nature, but which must not occur in his profession.</p> + +<p>Madeleine read: "March 10, sold 100 quinine pills to M. Augier. Stock +low. Made 100 more, using quinine from the Cochard Company's +laboratories. Filled prescription...." Madeleine's eyes leaped over the +hieroglyphics of the pharmaceutical terms and ran up and down the pages, +filled with such items, looking for the name Duguet. She had almost +given up when she saw, dated July 30, 1914, the entry: "Made up fresh +supply Mme. Duguet asthma powders, prescription 457. Dr. Millier. Drawer +No. 17."</p> + +<p>Madeleine ran behind the counter and pulled out No. 17. She found there +a little pasteboard box marked, "Duguet."</p> + +<p>"Oh, boy, little boy!" she called.</p> + +<p>When the child came in she asked, "Did your grandmother ever get any +other medicine here?"</p> + +<p>"No," said the grandson of the bedridden woman, "she hasn't got anything +else the matter with her."</p> + +<p>"Well," said the pharmacist's wife, "here is her medicine." She put the +box in his hand.</p> + +<p>"Oh, we never get more than four at a time," he told her. "She never has +the money to pay for more. Here it is. Granny hid it in her hair so the +Germans wouldn't get it. She hid all we have. She's got more than <i>five +francs</i>, all safe."</p> + +<p>He put a small silver coin in her hand and departed.</p> + +<p>The mention of the meager sum of hidden money made Madeleine think of +her own dextrously concealed little fortune. She had noticed at once on +entering the shop that the arrangement of false shelves which concealed +the safe had not been detected, and was intact. She pushed the spring, +the shelves swung back, and disclosed the door of the safe just as +usual. She began to turn the knob of the combination lock. It worked +smoothly and in a moment the heavy door swung open. The safe was +entirely empty, swept clear of all the papers, titles, deeds, bonds +which had covered its shelves.</p> + +<p>As actually as though he stood there again, Madeleine saw the polite +pseudo-Swiss geological gentleman, thanking Jules for the temporary use +of his excellent safe.</p> + +<p>She was petrified by this new blow, feeling the very ground give way +under her feet. A cold, cold wind of necessity and stress blew upon her. +The walled and sheltered refuge in which she had lived all her life was +utterly cast down and in ruins. The realization came to her, like +something intolerable, indecent, that <i>she</i>, Madeleine Brismantier, was +now as poor as that old bedridden neighbor had been all her life ... +<i>all her life</i>....</p> + +<p>Somehow, that had something to do with those sheets which she had had +and the other woman had not ... her mind came back with a mortal +sickness to the knowledge that she had now nothing, nothing to depend +upon except her own strength and labor—just like a <i>poor</i> woman. She +<i>was</i> a poor woman!</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Somebody was weeping and tugging at her skirts. She looked down blindly. +It was Raoul, her little son. He was sobbing and saying: "Sylvie said +not to come, but I couldn't stand it any more. I'm hungry! I'm hungry, +and there isn't a thing left upstairs to eat! I'm hungry! I'm hungry!"</p> + +<p>Madeleine put her hand to her head and thought. What had happened? Oh +yes, all their money had been stolen, all ... but Raoul was hungry, the +children must have something to eat. "Hush, my darling," she said to the +little boy, "go back upstairs and tell Sylvie to come here and look out +for the shop while I go out and find something to eat."</p> + +<p>She went down the silent, empty street, before the silent empty houses +staring at her out of their shattered windows, and found not a soul +abroad. At the farm, in the outskirts of town, she saw smoke rising from +the chimney and went into the courtyard. The young farmer's wife was +there, feeding a little cluster of hens, and weeping like a child. She +stared at the newcomer for a moment without recognizing her. Madeleine +looked ten years older than she had a fortnight ago.</p> + +<p>"Oh, madame, we had three hundred hens, and they left us just these +eight that they couldn't catch! And they killed all but two of our +thirty cows; we'd raised them ourselves from calves up. They killed them +there before the very door and cooked them over a fire in the courtyard, +and they broke up everything of wood to burn in the fire, all our hoes +and rake handles, and the farm-wagon and ... oh, what will my husband +say when he knows!"</p> + +<p>Madeleine had a passing glimpse of herself as though in a convex mirror, +distorted but recognizable. She said, "They didn't hurt you or your +husband's mother, did they?"</p> + +<p>"No, they were drunk all the time and they didn't know what they were +doing mostly. We could hide from them."</p> + +<p>"Then your husband will not care at all about the cows and pigs and +farm-wagons," said Madeleine very firmly, as though she were speaking to +Sylvie. The young farmer's wife responded automatically to the note of +authority in Madeleine's voice. "Don't you think he will?" she asked +simply, reassured somewhat, wiping away her tears.</p> + +<p>"No, and you are very lucky to have so much left," said Madeleine. "I +have nothing, nothing at all for my children to eat, and no money to buy +anything." She heard herself saying this with astonishment as though it +were the first time she had heard it.</p> + +<p>The young wife was horrified, sympathetic, a little elated to have one +whom she had always considered her superior come asking her for aid; for +Madeleine stood there, her empty basket on her arm, asking for aid, +silently, helplessly.</p> + +<p>"Oh, we have things left to <i>eat</i>!" she said. She put some eggs in +Madeleine's basket, several pieces of veal left from the last animal +killed which the Germans had not had time entirely to consume, and, +priceless treasure, a long loaf of bread. "Yes, the wife of the baker +got up at two o'clock last night, when she heard the last of the Germans +go by, and started to heat her oven. She had hidden some flour in +barrels behind her rabbit hutches, and this morning she baked a batch of +bread. It's not so good as the baker's of course, but she says she will +do better as she learns."</p> + +<p>Madeleine turned back down the empty, silent street before the empty +silent houses with their wrecked windows. A child came whistling along +behind her, the little grandson of the bedridden Madame Duguet. +Madeleine did what she had never done before in her life. She stopped +him, made him take off his cap and put into it a part of her loaf of +bread and one of the pieces of meat.</p> + +<p>"Oh, meat!" cried the child. "We never had meat before!"</p> + +<p>He set off at a run and disappeared.</p> + +<p>As she passed the butcher-shop, she saw an old man hobbling about on +crutches, attempting to sweep up the last of the broken glass. It was +the father of the butcher. She stepped in, and stooping, held the +dustpan for him. He recognized her, after a moment's surprise at the +alteration in her expression, and said, "Merci, madame." They worked +together silently a moment, and then he said: "I'm going to try to keep +Louis' business open for him. I think I can till he gets back. The war +<i>can't</i> be long. You, madame, will you be going back to your parents?"</p> + +<p>Madeleine walked out without speaking. She could not have answered him +if she had tried. In front of the Town Hall she saw a tall old woman in +black toiling up the steps with a large package under each arm. She put +down her basket and went to help. It was the white-haired wife of the +old mayor, who turned a ghastly face on Madeleine to explain: "I am +bringing back the papers to put them in place as he always kept them. +And then I shall stay here to guard them and to do his work till +somebody else can come." She laid the portfolios down on a desk and said +in a low, strange voice, looking out of the window: "It was before that +wall. I heard the shots."</p> + +<p>Madeleine clasped her hands together tightly, convulsively, in a gesture +of utter horror, of utter sympathy, and looked wildly at the older +woman. The wife of the mayor said: "I must go back to the house now and +get more of the papers. Everything must be in order." She added, as +they went down the steps together: "What will you do about going on with +your husband's business? Will you go back to live with your mother? We +need a pharmacy so much in town. There will be no doctor, you know. You +would have to be everything in that way."</p> + +<p>This time Madeleine answered at once: "Yes, oh yes, I shall keep the +pharmacy open. I already know about the accounts and the simple things. +And I have thought how I can study my husband's books on pharmacy, at +night after the children are in bed. I can learn. Jules learned."</p> + +<p>She stooped to pick up her basket. The other woman went her way. +Madeleine stepped forward into a new and awful and wonderful world along +a new and thorny and danger-beset path into a new and terrifying and +pleasureless life.</p> + +<p>A wave of something stern and mighty swelled within her. She put down +her head and walked forward strongly, as though breasting and conquering +a great wind.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="BY_DOROTHY_CANFIELD" id="BY_DOROTHY_CANFIELD"></a>BY DOROTHY CANFIELD</h2> + +<h3>THE BENT TWIG</h3> + +<p>The story of a lovely, opened-eyed, opened-minded American girl.</p> + +<blockquote><p>"The romance holds you, the philosophy grips you, the +characters delight you, the humor charms you—one of the most +realistic American families ever drawn."—<i>Cleveland +Plaindealer.</i></p></blockquote> + + +<h3>THE SQUIRREL-CAGE</h3> + +<p>An unusual personal and real story of American family life.</p> + +<blockquote><p>"We recall no recent interpretation of American life which has +possessed more of dignity and less of shrillness than +this."—<i>The Nation.</i></p></blockquote> + + +<h3>HILLSBORO PEOPLE</h3> + +<h3>With occasional Vermont verse by <span class="smcap">Sarah N. Cleghorn</span>.</h3> + +<blockquote><p>"No writer since Lowell has interpreted the rural Yankee more +faithfully."—<i>Review of Reviews.</i></p></blockquote> + + +<h3>THE REAL MOTIVE</h3> + +<p>Unlike "Hillsboro People," this collection of stories has many +backgrounds, but it is unified by the underlying humanity which unites +all the characters.</p> + + +<h3>UNDERSTOOD BETSY</h3> + +<h3>Illustrated by <span class="smcap">Ada C. Williamson</span>.</h3> + +<blockquote><p>"Children will read it eagerly for the story of a very real +little girl. Parents will find it worth a whole shelf of books +on child training. Teachers will get more than one pointer from +its pages, and anyone with a grain of humor can't afford to +miss it."—<i>Publishers' Weekly.</i></p></blockquote> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="BY_SIMEON_STRUNSKY" id="BY_SIMEON_STRUNSKY"></a>BY SIMEON STRUNSKY</h2> + + +<h3>PROFESSOR LATIMER'S PROGRESS</h3> + +<p>The "sentimental journey" of a middle-aged American scholar upon whose +soul the war has come down heavily, and who seeks a cure—and an +answer—in a walking trip up-State.</p> + +<blockquote><p>"The war has produced no other book like 'Professor Latimer's +Progress,' with its sanative masculine blend of deep feeling, +fluid intelligence, and heart-easing mirth, its people a joyous +company. It is a spiritual adventure, the adventure of the +American soul in search of a new foothold in a tottering world. +We have so many books of documents, of animus, or argument; +what a refreshment to fall in, for once in a way, with a book +of that quiet creative humor whose 'other name' is +wisdom."—<i>The Nation.</i></p></blockquote> + + +<h3>LITTLE JOURNEYS TOWARDS PARIS (1914-1918)</h3> + + +<h3>By <span class="smcap">W. Hohenzollern</span>, translated and adapted for unteutored minds by +<span class="smcap">Simeon Strunsky</span>.</h3> + +<blockquote><p>"If only the Germans could be supplied with translations of +this exquisite satire they would die laughing at the grisly +joke on themselves. Not only funny, it is a final reductio ad +absurdum of the Hun philosophy."—<i>Chicago Tribune.</i></p></blockquote> + + +<h3>BELSHAZZAR COURT</h3> + +<h3>Or Village Life in New York City</h3> + +<p>Graceful essays about the average citizen in his apartment house, in the +street, at the theater, the baseball park, with his children, etc.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="BY_MARGARET_WIDDEMER" id="BY_MARGARET_WIDDEMER"></a>BY MARGARET WIDDEMER</h2> + +<h3><i>NOVELS</i></h3> + +<h3>THE WISHING-RING MAN</h3> + +<p>A romance of a New England summer colony.</p> + +<blockquote><p>"Margaret Widdemer, who says she likes happy stories, proves it +by writing them for other people to read.... The book is full +of charm, amusing incident, and gay conversation; and the +interest in the situation holds to the last half page."—<i>N.Y. +Evening Post.</i></p></blockquote> + + +<h3>YOU'RE ONLY YOUNG ONCE</h3> + +<p>Miss Widdemer's new novel is the story of youth's romance as it came to +the five girls and three boys of a happy American family.</p> + + +<h3><i>POETRY</i></h3> + +<h3>FACTORIES, AND OTHER POEMS</h3> + +<h3>Second printing.</h3> + +<blockquote><p>"An art which speaks ever so eloquently for itself.... Splendid +effort both in thought and execution, and ranks with the cry of +the children as voiced by Mrs. Browning."—<i>San Francisco +Chronicle.</i></p> + +<p>"Among the foremost of American versifiers when she touches the +great passionate realities of life."—<i>Living Age.</i></p></blockquote> + + +<h3>THE OLD ROAD TO PARADISE</h3> + +<h3><i>In Press.</i></h3> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="By_ROMAIN_ROLLAND" id="By_ROMAIN_ROLLAND"></a>By ROMAIN ROLLAND</h2> + + +<h3>JEAN-CHRISTOPHE</h3> + +<h3>Translated from the French by <span class="smcap">Gilbert Cannan</span>. In three volumes.</h3> + +<blockquote><p>This great trilogy, the life story of a musician, at first the +sensation of musical circles in Paris, has come to be one of +the most discussed books among literary circles in France, +England and America.</p> + +<p>Each volume of the American edition has its own individual +interest, can be understood without the other, and comes to a +definite conclusion.</p> + +<p><i>The three volumes with the titles of the French volumes +included are</i>:</p> + +<h3>JEAN-CHRISTOPHE</h3> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dawn—Morning—Youth—Revolt</span></p> + +<h3>JEAN-CHRISTOPHE IN PARIS</h3> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Market Place—Antoinette—The House</span></p> + +<h3>JEAN-CHRISTOPHE: JOURNEY'S END</h3> + +<p><span class="smcap">Love and Friendship—The Burning Bush—The New Dawn</span></p></blockquote> + + +<h3><i>Some Noteworthy Comments</i></h3> + +<blockquote><p>"'Hats off, gentlemen—a genius.' One may mention +'Jean-Christophe' in the same breath with Balzac's 'Lost +Illusions'; it is as big as that.... It is moderate praise to +call it with Edmund Gosse 'the noblest work of fiction of the +twentieth century.' A book as big, as elemental, as original +as though the art of fiction began to-day. . We have nothing +comparable in English literature. ."—<i>Springfield Republican.</i></p> + +<p>"If a man wishes to understand those devious currents which +make up the great, changing sea of modern life, there is hardly +a single book more illustrative, more informing and more +inspiring."—<i>Current Opinion.</i></p> + +<p>"Must rank as one of the very few important works of fiction of +the last decade. A vital compelling work. We who love it feel +that it will live."—<i>Independent.</i></p> + +<p>"The most momentous novel that has come to us from France, or +from any other European country, in a decade."—<i>Boston +Transcript.</i></p></blockquote> + +<p><i>A 32-page booklet about Romain Rolland and Jean-Christophe, with +portraits and complete reviews, on request.</i></p> + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Home Fires in France, by Dorothy Canfield + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOME FIRES IN FRANCE *** + +***** This file should be named 35616-h.htm or 35616-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/5/6/1/35616/ + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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