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diff --git a/old/51245-8.txt b/old/51245-8.txt deleted file mode 100644 index ab7193a..0000000 --- a/old/51245-8.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,7633 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Journal of Small Things, by Helen Mackay - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. 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. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: Journal of Small Things - -Author: Helen Mackay - -Release Date: February 18, 2016 [EBook #51245] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JOURNAL OF SMALL THINGS *** - - - - -Produced by Brian Coe, Moti Ben-Ari and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by the Library of Congress) - - - - - - - - - -JOURNAL OF SMALL THINGS - - - - -_Other Books by Helen Mackay_ - - - Accidentals - Stories for Pictures - The Cobweb Cloak - Half Loaves - Houses of Glass - London one November - - - - - JOURNAL OF - SMALL THINGS - - BY - HELEN MACKAY - - [Illustration] - - New York - DUFFIELD AND COMPANY - 1917 - - - - - Copyright, 1917, by - DUFFIELD AND COMPANY - - - - - FOR - MARGARET - - - - -PREFACE - - -Those who have read Mrs. Mackay's book, which she entitled -_Accidentals_, will know exactly what to expect from her new book, -_Journal of Small Things_. Like the early one it consists of a series -of little sketches more or less in the form of a diary, vignettes -taken from a very individual angle of vision, pictures in which the -hand of the painter moves with exquisite fineness. They are singularly -graceful, very delicate and also very pathetic, these random memories -of a sympathetic friend of France, who describes what she saw during -the opening stages of the war in Paris and in provincial towns. The -precise quality of them is that they are extremely individual and -intimately concerned with little things--episodes half observed, -half forgotten, which cluster round a big tragedy. The author's mind -is bent on the record of such little things as might escape some -observer's notice, but which to her give all the salt and savour to her -experiences. - -Listen to this. "I want to make notes of things, not of the great -things that are happening, but of the little things. I want to feel -especially all the little everyday dear accustomed things, to take hold -of the moods of them, and gather up their memories, to be put away and -kept, and turned back to from always afterwards. It is as if they were -things soon to be gone away out of the world and never to be again." - -Wherever she moves, Mrs. Mackay carries with her this exquisite -sensitiveness to things which we might rashly call insignificant or -unessential, and it adds immensely to the poignancy of her sketches and -to the truth of her record. How valuable is her method we can judge -from another extract concerned with "The River." "I know why the river -goes so slowly, lingering as much as ever she can, and a little sadly. -It is because just here she leaves behind her youth and wildness of -great mountains, her mood of snows and rocks, cascade and woods and -high rough pastures, cow-bells and mountain-horn. Going down into -the classic countries, infinitely old, those deep, rich countries, -she pauses here, between the high clear lift and lilt and thrill of -mountain music and the cadenced melody of Provence." - -The figures of the narrative are for the most part only outlined -against this background of vividly remembered things. But however -faint the tracery, the character clearly emerges. Whether it be Madame -Marthe, or the apache girl Alice, or Claire, or the old Curé who was -going to preach a fierce sermon until his eyes fell upon the pathetic -upward look of his congregation, and especially of Madelon, and then -forgot all his harsh words--from beginning to end the various figures -live and move before our eyes. The record is sad of course; it could -not be otherwise than full of a keen pathos almost unrelieved. But -there is never any false sentiment nor any touch of the vulgar or -commonplace. Mrs. Mackay's book is the work of a sincere and genuine -artist. - - W. L. COURTNEY. - - - - -PART I - -From a House on a Road to Paris - - - - -From a House on a Road to Paris - - -Sunday, July 26th, 1914 - -When we came back from Mass, up from the village by the rue du Château -and through the park and the garden, the yesterday's papers were -arrived from Paris. - -I delayed down in the parterres, it was so beautiful. There had been -rain, and the sunshine was golden and thick on all the wet sweet -things, the earth of the paths, the box edges, the clipped yews, the -grass of the lawns, the roses and heliotrope and petunias in the -stately garden beds. - -There is a certain smell in old formal gardens, that seems to me always -to mean France. It is like the stab of an arrow. I feel it, swiftly, in -my heart, and stop and hold my breath, and say, "This is France." - -The news in the papers was strange. - -We thought we would go to the village, to the Place, and feel what the -village felt. - -We went along the terrace and around between the south tower and the -moat to the entrance court, and across the moat bridge, where the -watch-dogs were chained one on either side, to the green court, and out -of the big wrought-iron, vine-covered gates, to the Place aux Armes. - -All the village was there in its Sunday dress, under the lime trees. - -The swallows were flying, high about the Dungeon Tower and low across -the big old grassy cobbles of the Place. They were crying their strange -little cry. I thought, "They are calling for storm." And yet the sky -was blue and gold behind the Dungeon Tower. - -We went to get the papers in the little dark shop that smells of spices -and beeswax and shoe leather. - -I asked: What did Monsieur Créty think of the chances of war? - -He shrugged his old shoulders, and said he had some fine fresh -chocolate and nougat out from Paris. - -We went back and read the papers and ate the chocolates and nougat on -the terrace. - -A host of little white butterflies kept clouding over the terrace -steps, between the pots of roses and heliotrope. - -There was a great brief thunderstorm while we were at lunch, and then -the sun came out. - -We motored through the wet sunshiny country, softly dipped and softly -lifted, blue-green forest and wide ripe harvest fields, blue and purple -and crimson beet fields, long low brown and rust-red towns with square -church towers, Sunday people out in the doorways, and swallows always -flying low and crying. - -We had tea in Soissons, at Maurizi's, and went to the cathedral, where -the offices were over, and to the pastrycook's, Monsieur Pigot's, to -buy some cherry tarts. - -Home by the long straight road between the poplars. - -It was so cold suddenly that one imagined autumn. There was a wind come -up, and some yellow leaves were flying with it. - -After dinner we had a fire lighted in the tiled room. The heat brought -out all the sweetness of the roses in the blue bowls, and the flames -sent lovely lights and shadows to play along the old stone walls. - -I do not think I would be afraid if it were not for my dreams. - -Every night I have dreamed of galloping horses and thunder--or cannon, -I don't know which--and of blood, dripping and dripping down the -château stairs. I see the blood in red pools on the worn old grey -stones of the stairs, and in black stains on the new carpet. Some of -the nights I have stayed up, walking the floor of my room that I might -not sleep and dream so horribly. - - -Monday, July 27th - -The papers make things look better; we think it cannot be, cannot -possibly be. - -But I am always afraid, because of my dreams. My dreams have been very -bad all night. - -I was in the potager most of the morning, working hard. - -In the afternoon some neighbors came to tea. They came from quite far, -motoring across the forests, and none of them had known the house. - -I loved showing them the old place that is not mine, the colours that -are faded and worn till they have become beautiful, the things that by -much belonging together are fallen into harmony. - -I do not believe that the people of these old houses can love them -quite as hopelessly as strangers do. - -There is a certain special peculiar château smell, that trails down -long galleries, and lingers on the stairs, that lurks in far corners of -the rooms, and abides in all the cupboards, and behind the tapestries, -and in the big carved chests, that clings to wood and waxed floors and -stone, and stirs along the heavy sombre walls, and that means France, -like the smell of old gardens of box and yew. It stabs one--always the -arrowy perfume--and makes one feel France with an odd intensity. From a -far way off one would be homesick remembering it. - -We had Monsieur Pigot's tarts for tea, and sat for a long time about -the dining-room table, talking of how afraid we had been of war, -yesterday. - -We went up into the Dungeon Tower and down into the souterrains, and -then all along the rampart walls. - -I love the way the little town crowds up close to the ramparts, the -cobbled grass-grown streets, the roofs all softened and coloured by -ages and weathers. - -A child laughed down in the street; a woman called to it; there was a -scamper of little feet, and the two of them were laughing together. - -Off beyond the roofs we could see the blonde of the ripe grain fields, -and the purple of the forests. - -I had so intensely a sense of its all being for the last time. I said -to Manon, "It can't last, it is too beautiful." - - -Tuesday, July 28th - -One feels, in all these days, as if there were a great storm coming up. -I keep thinking all of the time, there is a great storm coming up. That -is an absurd thing to make note of, as if it had some strange meaning, -as if it were not just that in all these days, really, always there is -a storm coming up. - -I never have known such storms, nor yet such sunsets. The sunsets are -like the reflection of great battlefields beyond the world. One is -frightened because of the sunsets, more than because of the storms. -Every day while the sun shines there is the rumble of thunder about all -the horizon. It is like the cannon of my dreams. All the time, while -the sun shines, great thunder-clouds are gathering upon the horizon, -mounting up from the horizon, white and yellow, and purple and black. -The sunshine is heavy, and thick; you do not know if the sky is dark -blue or purple, and at sunset the dark cloud-shapes threaten and menace. - -Whatever one does, one has the feeling of doing it before the storm, -in the teeth of the storm. When the storm does come, with its crashing -and blinding, it brings no relief. It is as if these midsummer storms -meant something for which the whole world waited. - -And that feeling of the end of things grows always stronger. There is -no reason. Nobody, here at least, troubles about war. - -This morning we were caught by a wonderful thunderstorm out in the -fields. - -Now from the terrace we are watching the sunset, all of thunder-clouds, -purple and blue and black, and of fire. - -Three of the white peacocks have come up to tea with us, under the big -cedar. - - -Wednesday, July 29th, late of the night - -I went up to Paris. I thought if I could feel how Paris felt to-day, I -would know if the menace is real. Here one knows nothing. - -There is sunshine and rain, and the fields are white to the harvest, -the heat hangs over the long white roads, and the shade of the forests -is grateful. - -The people of the little town go about their ways; their sabots clatter -on the cobbles, and their voices have part with the shrilling of -cigale and the call of the swallows. The children out of school, at -noon and at sunset, play in the Place aux Armes, and the women come -there to market in the mornings, under the limes, and after work the -men lounge there against the moat wall. - -But since Sunday I have so strange a feeling, a sense of its being the -end of things. The end of--I don't know what. I want to make notes -of things, not of the great things that are happening, but of the -little things. I want to feel especially all the little everyday dear -accustomed things, to take hold of the moods of them, and gather up -their memories, to be put away and kept, and turned back to always -afterwards. - -I want to make notes of the sweetness of my room to wake to, all the -garden coming in through the drawn blinds. - -I want to put away and keep my memory of the fragrance of the garden, -and its little voices, bird and bee and grasshopper and cricket and -stirring leaf. I want to remember things I saw from my window--the -terrace with its grey stone mossy parapet; the steps between the pots -of heliotrope and roses; the parterres, the old vague statues, the -crouching sphynxes--beautiful because they are broken and deep in -roses--the trimmed yews, the paths and box borders and formal beds of -flowers; the wall of trees around; the glimpses through the trees of -the town's stained, blurred roofs, and of grain fields and the forests. - -I want to remember the little clover leaf table for my breakfast tray, -the bowl of sweet-peas, the taste of the raspberries. - -I want to remember the Long Gallery, the château smell in it; the clear -green stir of the limes in the entrance court under its windows; the -stairs that I kept dreaming about, with the dark Spanish pictures hung -along them, and the armour on their turnings. - -I want to remember the bird's nest in the lantern over the entrance -door, and the begonias in the beds along the wall; the big dogs -dragging at their chains to come and meet me, the huge tumbling puppy, -the gardener's babies, Thérèse and Robert, bringing Thérèse's new rag -doll to show me. - -I started, motoring, only about 10 o'clock for Paris. - -It was market day in the Place; there were the rust-red and burnt-umber -awnings and the women's blue aprons and clattering sabots. - -There were many magpies in the road. "Une pie, tant pis; deux pies, -tant mieux," and one must bow nine times to each of them. - -The country was dim and blue in the gauze lights of the morning. -The road was empty between the poplar trees. It was good to see the -peasants at work in the fields, and the life of the villages going its -way in the morning streets. - -I tried to get the papers in Compiègne, but they were not yet come. - -There were many soldiers about. - -It was the road through Senlis and Chantilly. - -The trainers had the race-horses out at exercise in the misty forest -roads. - -I thought, "There _can't_ be war." - -Luzarches and Ecouen, and St. Denis and then Paris. - -I got out of the car on the boulevards. There were many people out and -I went with the swing of the crowd up and down. It was good to be in -the swing of a crowd. People hurried and people dallied; people stood -and looked into shop windows; people sat and sipped things on café -terraces; people pushed and elbowed; people stopped and stood where -they were, reading the noon papers; strangers spoke to one another, if -the swing of the crowd threw them for an instant together; everybody -looked at one another with a queer new sudden need of each the other, -and they all felt, more or less, one thing together. - -After a while I went to my own home. - -I thought I had never seen the Place de la Concorde more beautiful, -oval and white, or crossed the bridge with a deeper sense of going home. - -My own little Place was very quiet, all the big houses closed; nobody -left but the sentinels before the Palace and the concierges in their -doorways with their cats and canaries. - -Our concierges and I were more glad even than usual to see one -another. Old Boudet in his habitual shirt-sleeves, feeling, evidently, -particularly socialistic, was yet quite tolerant of me; and sweet, -slow, fat, very respectable mother Boudet, whose gentleness always -seems begging one to excuse shirt-sleeves and politics, was so ready to -cry that I kissed her. - -Our rooms were sad, things moved back and covered over, blinds closed. -I did not stay long in those rooms. - -I did not try to see any one. It was not people I had wanted, only -Paris. I started back early. - -I want to remember all the things of the way back into the country; -every thing of the fields, red warm ploughed earth and fresh-cut grass -and tall clover; every thing of the forests, lights and mists and -shadows, depths of moss and fern; every thing of the villages, stone -stairways and hearth fires, the pot-au-feu, cows and people's living. - -At Compiègne I stopped in the Grand' Place to read the news scrawled in -chalk on the blackboard before the Mairie. - -A sense of things that were happening came to me less from the words on -the bulletin than from the faces of the people in the crowd before it. - - -Thursday, July 30th - -Early in the morning a friend of mine telephoned from her people's -château across the two forests, to tell me that her husband was -arranging for her to take the babies to-morrow up to Paris. - -He said that in '70 the Germans had come that way, by the grand old -historic road, down upon Paris. The château had then passed through -dreadful times. If there were war he would have to go out on the first -day. He would have his babies then far off from the danger he did not, -of course, believe in. - -She told me all he said. She thought it was a great bother. Would we -come over that afternoon to tea? - -I picked sweet-peas and raspberries down by the well, and wrote a lot -of letters in my north-tower room. - -That her husband felt like that about it, filled me with a sense of -disaster--like the thunder and red I kept dreaming of. - -We motored over after lunch, through the soft, vague, intimate country -that has no especial beauty and that is so beautiful. - -Some one called to us from the children's wing. It was "Miss," and she -said, "No one will come to the door; go straight in, Madame is there. -We are leaving, now, in five minutes." - -The children's mother stood half-way down the long white gallery. - -She looked very small and young. - -She said, "He won't let us wait till to-morrow. He has telephoned. We -are going now, in five minutes." - -Down the long white length of the gallery, we saw the children's -grandmother in the billiard-room, sitting against the big south window. - -She had the little baby in her arms, and the two bigger ones stood -close against her. - -I went to her. - -She said, "You see, I am minding the babies." - -She said that just because one had to say something and not cry. - -We went away quickly. - -Wide misty fields under another red war sunset. I thought, how one felt -war in the sunset. - -As we went, dusk came, gathering, deepening, very soft and kind. The -fields and sky were darkly blue. There was a clear edge of the world, -between the fields and the sky. And over the edge of the world there -was a slim little new white moon. - -There was a small clear singing of field birds in the dusk, and there -were bats abroad, and swallows. - - -Friday, July 31st - -The beggars came as usual to the château for their Friday morning sous. -There were the usual dozen of them; old men, and women with babies, -and old women, and Margotte, the girl who was _innocente_, with her -nodding head and hands that would never keep still. They came out of -their holes in the marble quarries, and from nobody knew quite where, -according to their long custom. All that was just as usual. But they -were not as usual. - -They were angry because Venus and Olga, the great Danes of the moat -bridge, barked at them. Venus and Olga always barked at them, but the -beggars never had been angry before. Before, they had been, always, -apologetic and conciliatory. - -An old woman with wild white hair screamed at the butler who came with -the sous, and a young woman with a baby in her arms and two babies -hiding in her skirts, shook her fist at the château windows. There was -a sound of growling, snarling voices, more ugly than the dogs' barking, -in the court of the lime trees. - -I went out to talk with the beggars. I was afraid of them, ridiculously -and terribly, as one is afraid of things in dreams. That especially -terrible fear which belongs to dreams, exaggerated, absurd, seemed to -be fallen, suddenly, somehow, upon everything. - -I was afraid of the wild white hair of the old woman in the shawl, and -of Margotte's twitching, clutching, crazy hands. - -I do not want to write about this day. I will always try not to -remember it. - -After dinner we walked in the garden and along the rampart walls. We -went to feed the rabbits. How absurd to be heartbroken because it may -be the last time that we ever shall feed cabbage-leaves to the rabbits! - -Now, writing in the north-tower room, I feel a strange commotion in the -village. How wide-awake the village is, so late! There are footsteps -going up and down the streets, up and down, and voices, under the -ramparts. The sound of footsteps and voices is strange in the night. -Why are the people going up and down like that? Of what are they -talking? There is the sound of a drum. - -The sound of the drum comes across the moat, past the Dungeon Tower, -through the lime trees of the entrance court, along the dim halls and -corridors. - -The drumming stops. - -A man's voice takes up the reading out, very loud, of something, to the -hush that has fallen on footsteps and voices. - - -Saturday, August 1st - -This has been the day of waiting. Everywhere, every one waited. - -In the Place aux Armes people stood and waited. The men waited to be -told what to do. The women waited, each one of them staying close to -her man. The children hung on to their fathers' hands. - -In all the little towns along the road to Paris it was like that. - -In the larger towns there was much movement of soldiers about in the -streets. All the red képis were covered with blue. I wondered why. - -The fields were empty. The work of the fields was left, flung down. The -scythe lay in the sweep it had only half cut. - -From Louvres already the men were gone. Only women and old people and -children were left, in the length of the long street. - -At the porte de La Chapelle we and a hay-cart going into Paris, and a -small poor funeral coming out to the cemetery of St. Ouen, were all -blocked together. The gendarmes were questioning the peasant of the -hay-cart, who stood in his blue blouse at the head of a big sleepy -white horse, and answered sulkily. One of the croquemorts told us that -the order for general mobilization was posted up on the walls of Paris. -I stared at his shiny top hat and black gloves that were too long in -the fingers, and tried to realize what it meant. - -The streets of our quarter are empty, and more strange than the streets -and the boulevards we came through, where crowds were swaying up and -down. - -Madame Boudet and I were afraid to go across and read the words of the -white oblong placard that is pasted up on the wall of the Palace. - - -Paris, Sunday, August 2nd - -First day of the mobilization, the state of siege is declared -throughout France. - -Already the many gardens of this old quarter are deep in the colours -and odours and melancholy of autumn, and give autumn's fatefulness and -foreboding to all the streets and rooms. I thought when I waked to it, -has this sense of autumn always meant the end of many more things than -summer? - -With one's coffee to read-- - -First day of the mobilization, the state of war is declared throughout -France. - -How silent this Paris is, this special part of Paris, of houses that -close proud heavy doors upon all they feel, of streets withdrawn from -thronging and demonstration. - -In my room it is like waking to the silence that is beyond the end of -the world. - -So this is one way war begins, not with shouting and singing, but with -a great silence. - - -Monday, August 3rd - -They go. They all go. There is nothing I can say of it. I can only feel -it, as they go. - -I, I am a stranger, I have no part in it. I have no right to agony and -pride. - -I went and sat on a bench in the Cour la Reine, where already the -leaves are falling. - -One of my friends came and met me there, and we sat on the bench -together, where the yellow leaves fell slowly. We never talked at all. - -Her husband had gone the night before. - -She said, "I am so glad that it is _now_, when my boy is just a baby." -She said, "I have prayed, and prayed, all these days, if it has got to -be, let it be now, when my son is just a baby." - - -Tuesday, August 4th - -Other people will write beautiful things of it--it is so beautiful. - -How beautiful it is, this going forth of all that is young and gay and -fearless, of all that means our ideal and our faith, without singing -and shouting, to battle. - -There are no grand words, they only go. - -And none of the women cry, till afterwards. - -You see them laughing as they help their boys carry the bundles. - -And you see them coming home through the streets afterwards, each one -alone and proud, crying quite noiselessly. - -Sometimes the people who feel things most, remember only the smallest -things. - -There was an old woman with a push-cart full of pears, this morning, in -the rue Boissy d'Anglas, who ran and ran as fast as she could, panting, -out of breath, to give her pears, all of them, to the blue boys of an -infantry regiment passing with their blankets and knapsacks. - -I remember that, and that it was a beautiful blue-and-gold day, with a -flaming, thundering sunset. - - -Wednesday, August 5th - -I keep thinking back over those last days of peace, that were so -precious, and nobody knew. - -The Sunday that was to be the last, what memories has it given the -women to treasure, the men to carry away with them? Memories of such -small absurd things have become sacred, or become terrible. The men -may lose those memories in their great spaces of battle, but the women -must stay with them in the rooms. - -Against the great background of these days it is queer what small -absurd things stand out. The greatest days of all the world--and how -terribly worried we are that Louis has gone off without his little -package of twenty-four hours' provision, the bread and chocolate and -little flask. It was ready for him and on the table in the hall, and -every one forgot it; and he was gone, and there it was, a ridiculous -thing to sob over. - -Those women who did not cry at the station, what absurd things they -sobbed over, afterwards, at home--his golf sticks in the corner, his -untidy writing-table, the clothes, all sorts, he had left flung about -the room. How many of them will remember always that second pair of -boots he had to take with him, that simply couldn't be got, that had to -be hunted over Paris for, desperately, as if of utmost importance, all -his last day? However could she have got through that last day if it -had not been that she must keep up because of the boots? - -In the afternoon, at the Rond Point of the Champs Elysées, my fiacre -was held up for the passing of a regiment on its way to some station. -A woman and a little boy were marching along beside one of the men, -going with him just as far as they might go. The woman had no hat, and -the sun was very hot. Her hair was tumbled across her eyes. The little -boy was holding tight to the edge of his father's long blue coat. - - -Thursday, August 6th - -Poor little Charlotte's baby was born to-day, the day after its father -went out. And it is dead. A boy--and he had so wanted it to be a boy. - - -Friday, August 7th - -To-day I went with a friend of mine to Notre Dame des Victoires, where -she prayed. All those starry lights, and all that dusk of kneeling, -beseeching people. - - -Saturday, August 8th - -In the afternoon went with Chantal to the Gare d'Orsay, then to the -Austerlitz, and the Lyon, trying to find a way for her and the babies -to go home to the Vaucluse. - -People are camped out about the stations; all the streets are full of -them, waiting to get places in the line before the ticket windows. - -Foulques came to dine. It is his last night. He goes out to-morrow. -He was very quiet. I have never seen him quiet like that before. -Last night, down in the country, he had got through with all the -good-byes--Claire, and his home, and the little son; I suppose there -was nothing left for him to feel. - -Old Madame Boudet has a letter from her son, who went on Tuesday. She -is very happy because he says his next letter will be from Berlin. She -is a little anxious because he speaks no German. Father Boudet forgets -that he is socialist and anti-militarist, because he is so proud that -his son should be a soldier of France. His shirt-sleeves are no longer -symbolic, they mean just that, for thinking of the hero, he has no time -to think of his coat. - - -Sunday, August 9th - -Mimi's birthday: cake with six candles, and the little girl from -upstairs come with her Miss to tea. - - -Monday, August 10th - -There is a sort of dreadful comfort in knowing that their going off is -over. - -They are gone. - -The women saw them off, helped them hurry their things together--those -bundles, boots, something to eat in the train. Every one had laughed. - -The last things are over--the last night, when he slept so well and she -watched; the last sitting down at the table together; the last standing -together in the room; his last look around it, and her last seeing of -him there; the going out at the door. - -The last going out of the door together. There was the bundle to carry, -and to laugh over. Everybody's motor had been taken, everybody's -chauffeur was gone with all the other husbands and sons. Omnibuses and -taxis were gone. The metro was not running, nor the tram. How to get to -the station--such confusion, and such laughing over it. - -The station, somehow. And the crowd--such a crowd. And all the crowd -was just one man going off, and one woman who could bear it. - -There had been just one bearing of it, and then it was over. - -How silent Paris is! - -It is one of those hot veiled days, when everything is tensely strung, -high pitched, and yet nothing seems to be quite real. - -The leaves are falling in the Tuileries Gardens. I remembered, crossing -there, that this is the anniversary day of a fallen kingdom. - -The little Dauphin shuffled his feet through the fallen leaves as he -went to the burial service of kingdoms, across the garden, in the old -riding academy. - -I imagine his loving the sound of the dead leaves about his feet, as I -used to love it when I was a child. - -The sense of autumn and the end of things is heavy upon Paris. - -All the news is good. It is just the sadness of autumn-- - - Les sanglots longs - des violons - de l'automne. - -I went to meet Chantal in the Cour la Reine. - -We sat on the top of the river wall. No boats passed along the river, -and few people passed under the slowly falling leaves. - -We were very alone with Paris. - -An old shabby man came by, reading an evening paper as he walked -slowly. We asked him what the news was. He stopped and stood by the -wall with us and read good news to us. He said, "I fought through '70. -It was just so in '70." - -Chantal said to me, "How dreadful to be old! The night of the first -big victory, let's get somebody to take us out with the crowd on the -boulevards." - - -Tuesday, August 11th - -Eliane let me come to-day, for the first time since her boy went, on -the Tuesday. She has changed so, one can scarcely believe it, in just -these few days. She does not look young any more. How badly he would -feel; he always loved his pretty little mother to look young. He loved -it when people took her for his sister, and how delighted he was that -time she went to see him when he was in barracks, and the captain was -shocked. She is no more young and pretty and she does not care. - -Her eyes looked as if they never could cry again. She told me that the -last night she had listened outside his door, and when she was quite -sure he was asleep, she crept in, and groped for a chair at the foot -of his bed, and sat there, not seeing him, just knowing him near, all -night long while he slept. She went quietly out of the room before he -waked, when the light began to show the oblong of the windows--she did -not want him to know that she had watched. She said he slept the whole -night long, never stirring, and that she had known she must not cry, -for fear of waking him. She thought something had happened in that -night to her throat and to her eyes, so that she could never have tears -any more. - - -Arras, August 16th - -It was a heavy grey day, very still. People were telling one another -that all the news was good. The first German flag taken had been -brought to Paris: one could go that day to the Ministry of War to see -it. I wished I could have waited in Paris over a day to go to see it. I -thought, it will be the first thing I do, to go to see it, when I come -back next week. - -It was interesting to think that we went around by Arras because -British troops were detraining at Amiens. - -It was all of it splendid, and one was proud and eager. - -But the fields of France frightened me. They looked stricken. They -lay under the soft, grey, close-pressing hours, so strangely empty. -Everywhere the fields lay empty. The fields were ripe with harvest. -The wheat was burnt amber, and fallen by its own heaviness. The wide -swathes lay low along the ground, like the ground-swell of tired seas. -The harvest was left, abandoned. Sometimes one saw troops moving along -the white roads. - -The towns had an odd stir of troops in the streets. - -At Arras, coming into the town, we saw that droves of cattle had been -herded into a big enclosure, and that soldiers were guarding them. We -saw tents pitched in the fields. It was Sunday. The women of Arras were -out in their Sunday dresses. They seemed all to have come down to the -railroad to watch the trains pass and to have brought all the children. -There were only very old or very young men, except the soldiers. There -were many soldiers. All their képis were covered with blue. They were -come with the others to watch the trains pass. - -In the deep cut beyond the station it seemed as if the whole town were -come out to sit on the banks and just look. - -They were like children, I thought, not understanding, helpless, -waiting for something that was going to happen. - - -London, September - -The night Ian went out was pretty bad. There were several other -officers with him, and their wives and mothers and sisters and children -all came to see them off. - -Every one knew quite well what it meant, and every one pretended not to -know. - -I had come to feel, like the rest of them, that one has simply got to -pretend. - -We all pretended as hard as we could that it was splendid. - -There was a woman on the platform who must have been crazy, I think. - -She did not belong to any one going out. She was one of those dreadful -things you see in London, with a big hat heaped with feathers, and -draggled tails of hair. I think she had a red dress. - -She came up to us under the windows of the train, and stood nodding her -dreadful feathers and waving her dreadful hands and calling things out. - -She called out, "Oh, it's all very fine now, you laugh now--but you -won't laugh long. You won't laugh out there. And who of you'll come -back and laugh, my pretty boys, my gay boys?" - -Nobody dared take notice of her. If any one of us had taken notice of -her, nobody could have borne it. There seemed to be no guard about to -stop her, and not one of us dared admit that she was there. - -"My pretty boys, my gay boys," she kept calling out, "you laugh now, my -poor boys, but you won't laugh long." - -There were some little Frenchmen, cooks, I think, or waiters, from some -smart hôtel, going to join the colours. They were in a third-class -carriage next to the carriage of the British officers. - -They heard the woman calling out like that. They were little -pasty-faced cooks or waiters. - -But they began to sing. They began to sing the Marseillaise to drown -the woman's voice out. - -They did it just for us, our men going out, there on the platform. - -Our men began to whistle it and hum it and stamp it. And we tried to. - -The crazy woman called out those terrible things, that were so true. - -And our men and the little Frenchmen sang and whistled and stamped. And -so did we. - -And the train went out like that. - - -Paris, end of September - -I have come home for six days. "I am here," I keep saying to myself, "I -am here, at home," as if I could not believe it. - -And those homeless people, that they begged for at all the stations -where the train stopped on our way, those driven, herded people, -stupid from horror they have passed through, helpless, in my home I -keep imagining them. Where the train stopped in the dark at half-lit -stations, people of the Red Cross came asking help, "Pour nos blessés, -pour nos refugiés." - -Somehow, in my little rooms, it is the refugees I see the more plainly. -There is the young woman with the wheelbarrow, and the old woman, the -grandmother, with the baby, the young man carrying the old man on his -shoulders, the little brother and sister with the bundle. I see them -toiling down the white road, turning back wild looks toward the smoke -of their home. They had to leave the cow, but the old dog followed -them. I see them in some strange place. They can go no farther. They do -not care where they are, or what happens to them. They have looked upon -the end of all that they had ever known. - -Once, when the train stopped at a very small station, where one could -smell the fields all close about and sweet, there was a woman's voice -pleading; one heard her, as she came from door to door, along the -train, in the dark, "For our homeless; we have thousands and thousands -of homeless----" Her voice trailed on in the dark. - -I was coming home. Until the boat lay against the quay I had not -let myself believe that I was coming home. It was after sunset. The -heaped-up town at the edge of the sea, with its old roofs and chimneys, -was black, in a livid, cold, desolate sky, that made one think of the -dead. The fields of France were dark as we came through them. The towns -had few lights, one felt them to be in grief, and lonely. In each town -there was the same pleading at the windows of the train, "Pour nos -blessés, pour nos refugiés." We came in the small hours to Paris. - -The broken-down fiacre dragged through scarcely lit streets that were -all empty, and across the great Place, where nothing stirred, and -over the bridge of the river, that was as lonely as a river of the -wilderness. And then there was my home, where I must dream, all the -nights, of homeless people, thousands and thousands of homeless people. - - -London, November - -I go to the little Soho church of Our Lady of France, to just stay -there, not praying or anything. - -I go just to be with a people who are far from their country in her -great need. - -Most of them are very humble people. There is a smell of poverty always -in the little dark church. They are people to whom "home" can mean -only some small poor place and things, a thatched cabin, a vineyard, a -mansarde over a cobbled street. - -They kneel in the little dark church and sing-- - - Sauvez, sauvez la France - Au nom du Sacré Coeur-- - -while alien feet tread hearts down into the stains and bruises of the -roads between shattered poplar trees and thatched roofs burning. - - -Paris, just before Christmas - -I try not to write. The only things worth saying are the things I do -not know how to say. - -Every morning people take up the day like a burden. They carry its -weight of dread along the hours, down the length of them to the end. -Night comes at last, and they can lay the burden down, perhaps, for a -little. - -When it is over they will look back and know how beautiful this winter -was, and what high places they had sight of from the strange far -journeyings of the days. - -When it is over they will know that it was good to work so hard, to -give all, to be tired when night came. - - - - -PART II - -Small Town Far Off - - - - -Small Town Far Off - - -Monday, August 2nd, 1915 - -We thought we had to get away. But there is no getting away. One feels -it almost more in the country and in the little towns than in Paris, -where life, somehow or other, keeps on. - -The country stands so empty. - -The men are gone. They are gone from the cornfields and vineyards and -pastures. They are gone from thatched roofs and tiled roofs. From wide -white poplar-bordered roads, and steep cobbled streets, and hill paths -that are like the beds of mountain torrents, from the wide way of the -river, and from all the little ways of the streams. - -The women are left, and the old people, and the children. The oxen are -left. The war has taken the horses and the mules. - -The great tawny oxen are beautiful, dragging the plough through the red -fields, or the load of brushwood or green rushes along the Roman road. - -The women trudge beside the oxen. - -The old people had thought that they were come to the time of resting, -at the long end of it. They had thought to rest, at last, in their -doorways. But here they are, out in the fields of their sons and their -sons' sons, at work, only vaguely understanding why. - - -The Town - -The town is the colour of honey and burnt bread, its walls and gates -and roofs, its castle and tour sarazine and the tall tower of the -cathedral. - -The tower, a tall campanile, makes one think of Italy, as do the open -stone loggie, and garlands and trellises of vines. - -Sometimes I think the town speaks to me in Italian. I try to -understand, and then I know that it is not Italian, nor yet quite -Latin, but the grand old tongue of the illumined pages of its princes' -Mass books. And then again it speaks to me in the patois its shepherd -saints spoke. - - -The Saint - -The vines and fields come close about the town that for so long has -counted its years by vintages; the good year of the purple grapes, the -poor year of the white grapes. - -The town has had its part in many wars, but that was long ago. - -It has a patron saint, a shepherd boy, who saved it in three wars, -miraculously. But it does not ask him for help in this war. He is too -intimate and near. The town is too used to asking him that the spring -rains may not wash the vines, that a frost may not come to hurt them, -that a malady may not take the grapes. - -The mountains shadow the town, with shadows less blue than they -themselves are, and scarcely more intangible than they are, as one -looks up to them. - -The river passes quietly below the town, slowly along the wide, still -valley. - - -The River - -I know why the river goes so slowly, lingering as much as ever she can, -and a little sadly. - -It is because just here she leaves behind her youth and wildness of -great mountains, her mood of snows and rocks, cascade and woods and -high rough pastures, cow-bells and mountain-horn. Going down into -the classic countries, infinitely old, those deep, rich countries, -she passes here, between the high clear lift and lilt and thrill of -mountain music and the cadenced melody of Provence. - - -The old Estampe - -There is an old print in the library of the castle, that shows the -town, her hill become a mighty mountain, the river a terrific flood, -the castle guns emitting huge neat clouds of smoke upon the army -of Savoy. You see the army of Savoy, in plumes and velvet cloaks, -withdrawing upon prancing steeds, and the lords of the town issuing -forth from the Roman gate with bugles and banners. - -They were gorgeous, gallant little wars that the sons of the town rode -out to in those days. - - -The Dépôt d'Eclopés - - -I - -The dépôt d'éclopés is just beyond the town, on the Roman road. The -building was once the Convent of the Poor Claires. When the Sisters -were sent away it was used as Communal Schools. There is a great plane -tree outside the door in the yellow wall, and a bench in the shade. -There is room for seven éclopés to sit crowded together on the bench. -They bring out some chairs also. - -All day long, and every day, as many of the éclopés as can get about, -and do not mind that the road see them, and can find space in the shade -of the plane tree, sit there, and look up and down the sunshine and the -dust. - -Some of them have one leg, and some of them have one arm. There is one -of them who is packed into a short box on wheels. He sits up straight -in the box, and he can run it about with his hands on the wheels. There -is another in such a little cart, but that one has to lie on his back, -and cannot manage the wheels himself. There is one who lies on a long -stretcher, that they fix on two hurdles. There are two who are blind. -The two blind men sit, and stare and stare. - -Looking to the right, from the dépôt d'éclopés, you see the Roman -gate of the town and remains of the ancient walls, and the old poor -golden roof, heaped up about the square golden tower of the cathedral. -The many ages have been so golden and slow upon the town that their -sunshine has soaked into it. It is saturated with the sunshine of the -ages and become quite golden. You imagine it in dark winter weather -glowing with a gold of its own. To the left, from the gate of the dépôt -d'éclopés, the road leads between poplars and vineyards and cornfields -to the mountains. The mountains stand very still, one against the -other, one behind the other. They also are golden, having retained -ages and ages of sunshine. They stand splendid, cut out of gold -roughly, shadowed with purple and blue. - -I often go and stay with the éclopés at the gate, they like to have -anybody come. It was a long time before I dared go in at the gate. - -Inside the gate there is a courtyard that was once the nuns' garden, -with their well in the middle of it and their fruit trees trained along -the walls. And there, there move about all day, or keep to the shadow, -of first the east wall, then the west, those of the éclopés whom the -road must not see. - -Some of them look up at you when you come in. But most of them turn -away from you. - -The two blind men at the gate who stare and stare, they cannot see the -golden town or the golden mountains. They cannot see the compassion and -the kindness that there is for them in the faces of all those who look -upon them. - -But these men in the courtyard, however will they learn to bear, down -all their lives, the looks that there will be for them in the most -kind, compassionate faces? - - -II - -There are not ever enough chairs under the plane tree. There are more -éclopés than there are chairs. How they laugh! They think it very -droll to see a man who has only his left leg and a man who has only his -right leg sharing a chair. - -The men who have no legs say that that is not nearly so bad as having -no arms. They say that the men with no arms are ashamed to be seen, -like the men wounded in the face. They say that the men with no arms -will never come out even to the gate. - - -III - -They never will let you stand. It is a dreadful thing to do, to take -one of their chairs. But they like to talk to a stranger. - -All of them, except the man whose spine has been hurt, love to talk. - -The man whose spine has been hurt lies all day, the days he can be -brought out, on a stretcher, never stirring. He never speaks except to -say one thing. He is very young. He looks as if he were made of wax. - -He keeps saying, "How long the days are at this season!" - -He will ask, over and over again, "What time is it?" and say, "Only -eleven o'clock?" Or, "Only three o'clock?" - -And then always, "How long the days are at this season!" - - -IV - -They are taking out for a walk those of the éclopés who are fit for -it. There must be nearly a hundred of them. In every possible sort -of patched, discoloured uniform, here they come hopping and hobbling -along. They have more crutches and canes than feet among the lot of -them. - -One of the men who has no legs goes so fast on his wooden stump and his -crutches that everybody stops to look, and all the éclopés laugh, and -the people stopping to look, laugh, and he laughs more than any of them. - -If things are tragic enough, they are funny. I have come to know that, -with the éclopés at the gate. And inside the gate, with those of the -éclopés who keep back against the walls, I have come to know that the -only safety of life is death. - - -The Cathedral - - -I - -The Place de la Cathédrale is full of hot red sunset, taken and held -there, like wine in the chalice of old golden walls. The old golden -walls of the houses that once were palaces lift up the shape of a cup -to the wine of the sunset, a vessel of silence and slow time. - -Now every night at sunset the bells of the Cathedral are ringing, and -people are coming into the Place from the rue St. Réal and the rue -Croix d'Or and the tunnel street, under the first stories of the Palais -du Maréchal, that is called the rue Petite Lanterne. - -They are coming to the Cathedral for the prayers and canticles for -France. - -There are women and old people and children and soldiers, fine straight -young chasseurs alpins from the garrison, like chamois hunters, with -béret and mountain-horn, and wounded soldiers from the hospitals, and -from the dépôt d'éclopés, with crutches and canes and white bandages. - -The swallows are flying low back and forth across the cobbles of the -Place and crying. - -Behind the tower of the Cathedral, the great purple mass of the -mountains stands out against the sunset. The smell of the mountains, -of vineyards and cows and cool waters, comes down to the smells of the -town's living in the Place. - - -II - -Inside the church there are no lights, except of so much of sunset as -comes in under the low arches, and of the red lamp, and of the candles, -burning for Our Lady of Victories, and for the new Saint Jeanne d'Arc. -Among the dusky figures, very still, in the church, you see white -things. Sometimes it is the white cap of an old crone and sometimes it -is a white bandage. - - -III - -The church smells like a hospital. There is no more the smell of -incense in the church, that used to linger there from office to office -through the years. You wonder if really ever the church smelled of -incense and wax candles. The smell of hospital has so come to belong -there. - - -Americans - -He did not seem so very ill. He had not that look of being made of wax. -And he talked all the time. Most of them die so silently. - -He lay in the bright ward and talked all of the time. - -He had enlisted in the Foreign Legion and fought since the beginning, -and was wounded last week in the Argonne. - -He wanted me to sit beside him and listen. I hated the things he said. - -He said he was a fool, they all were fools, and they all knew it now. -He said there was no glory. They had thought that war was glorious. -And it was hideous; sardine tins and broken bottles, mud or dust, never -a green thing left to live. There was no enemy. Just guns. When a man -fell, nobody had hit him, only a gun. If he was dead, lucky for him. -When they were wounded they made noises like animals. It killed you -to pick them up. He said they "went sorter every which way" in your -hands. If they fell between the trenches you couldn't get to them. It -seemed as if they'd never die. Sometimes they made noises like wolves -and sometimes like cats. That was the worst, the noises like cats. You -never knew if it weren't cruel to throw them bread. If you threw them -bread, they lived and lived. The trenches were full of rats. The rats -came and ate your boots and straps and things while you slept. The -smells were "something fierce." "Gee, what fools we were," he said. - -He picked at the bedclothes and grinned at me and said, "Say, kid, -ain't you homesick for back over across the Duck Pond?" - -I said, "Oh, no, no." - -I looked out of the window to the sky of France that never has failed -me of dreams, and I said, "No, no, no." - -Oh, why did I? Why didn't I pretend for him that I was homesick too? - - -An Altar - -From the narrow deep old street you turn in under an arch to a vaulted -passage that is always dark and cold. It looks into a court that once -was very proud. Now a wholesale wine merchant has heaped his tuns one -upon another in one corner, and in another corner a carpenter has his -saws and benches and great logs of mountain oak and pine. There are the -smells of wine and fresh-cut wood together with the smell of stones and -ages in the court. - -The houses about the court still keep something of their "grand air." -They are of all the colours that time in the south gives to stones, -saffron and amber and gold, as if the stone were soft for the sunshine -to sink into. - -On the left of the court there is a wide high door under an escutcheon. - -The sound of the bronze knocker is very stately. - -The wine merchant has a blackbird that whistles all day in its osier -cage, and the children of the carpenter are always laughing and -calling, as they play with the fresh curled wood shavings. - -But everybody seems to stop and listen when you lift the bronze knocker. - -A lame man-servant comes to open the door. He fought through '70 with -his master and was wounded at Sedan, where his master was killed. - -There is a wide stone stairway, with a wrought-iron railing, and with -walls discoloured where the tapestries have been taken away. - -The tapestries are gone also from the corridor, and from the room to -which the man-servant opens the door. - -The old portraits are left in the walls of that room, and the exquisite -wood-carving of the time of the Sun King, but the three or four chairs -and the table on the right by the great carved hearth, are such as one -would find at the Bazar of the Nouvelles Galeries. - -The room is empty, except for these chairs and the table, and the -little altar. - -The long side of the room, opposite the door, has four tall windows -that look across a garden, with untrimmed yew-trees and box edges, -over green paths, tangles of grass and flowers, to what used to be -conventual buildings and the nuns' orchard. - -The little altar is at the end of the room on the left as you come in, -facing the windows. - -There is a statue of Notre Dame des Victoires and a statue of Saint -Jeanne d'Arc, and there is the Cross between them. There are two -seven-branched old bronze candlesticks. The altar is spread with "a -fine white cloth." - -On the floor before it is laid something covered with the flag of the -Republic. - -I know what it is that the flag covers. - -She had showed it to me. - -One day, I don't know why, she took me there and lifted the flag, and -showed me a heap of toys. - -She said, "They were babies when they died." "They died;" she said, -"the two of them in one week together, of a fever. It was in the year -that we called, till now, the 'Terrible Year.' It was in the month of -the battle in which their father was killed." She said, "Look at the -wooden soldiers of my babies, the Hussars and the Imperial Guards. How -long ago! And this was a little model of the cannon of those days. Look -at the bigger one's musket and the little one's trumpet and drum. And -the little uniforms of the Empire I had made for them, and they were so -proud of--My sons, to whom it was not given to die for France." - - -Hospital - -One long side of the hospital looks from its rows of windows to -vineyards and the mountains. The smell of burning brushwood comes in, -to the smell of the hospital. - -Through all the vineyards these days they are burning the refuse of the -vines. The smoke stays among the vines, lingering heavily. The purple -smoke and the red and purple wine colours of the vines, and the purple -mists of the distances, gathered away into the purple shadows of the -mountains, make one think at twilight of the music of a violin, or of a -flute. - -The Number 18 is very bad. He does not know any one any more. He lies -against a heap of cushions, his knees drawn up almost to his chin, his -eyes wide open all the time, his hands picking at the covers. - -The boy in the next bed keeps saying, "If my mother were here, she -would know what to do. If my mother were here, she would save him." - -There is a boy who wants some grapes. His whole body is shot to pieces. -They do not dare give him even a sip of water. He keeps begging and -begging for grapes. Very shortly the hillside under the windows will be -heavy and purple with grapes. - -There is a boy who talks about riding over everything. He keeps saying, -"We rode right over them, we rode right over them." - -There is another who keeps crying, "Oh, no, not that! Oh, no, not that!" - -There is the petit père, who is getting smaller and smaller. When they -are dying, they seem always to get smaller and smaller. He had a bullet -through one lung, but it was out and he was getting well. Only, he -caught cold. - -He is from the north. His wife and his two little girls are somewhere -in the country from which no news comes. He has had no news of them -since he left them and went away to war, on the second day. - -He used to talk of them all the time, and worry terribly. - -But now he cannot talk at all, and he does not worry any more. He -smiles quite happily and has no more grief. - -When they do the dressings of Number 26 he crams his handkerchief into -his mouth so that he may not scream. He shivers and trembles and the -tears roll down his cheeks, very big tears. But he never makes a sound. - -Number 15 is not a boy at all, but just a little sick thing. He is so -very little in his bed. He is like a sparrow--the skeleton of a sparrow. - -I feed him crumbs of bread, and sips of water, as if he were a sparrow. - -How one loves a thing one has fed with a teaspoon. - -I do not like No. 30. I am always so afraid that I shall in some way -show how I dislike him. It is hateful of me, but I cannot like him. -He screams at his dressings, and he is fat, and he sends out and buys -cheeses and eats them. - -The little Zouave is better again. That is the most dreadful thing, -that it is so long. He takes so long to die. The days when he is better -are the most cruel days. - -To-day in the middle of the morning, he was beckoning to me with a -feeble little thin brown hand. - -I went over and bent down, for he can only whisper. - -He said, "I said good morning to you when you first came in, and you -did not know." - -Number 4 is not going to die. The shade of death is gone from his young -face. - -He is going to lie for a long time on a rubber cushion that has a tube -hanging down, quite long, like a tail. - -Every day, for a long time, at the dressings I shall have to pull back -the sheets and blankets and take away the hoop, and see that thing that -used to be a big fine man lying quite helpless and of so strange a -shape upon the rubber cushion with the tail. - - -The Omelet - -The vine was red on the white old soft wall. - -It was very beautiful. There were masses of purple asters under the red -vine, against the wall. There was a bowl of purple asters on the table -between the carafes of red and white vine. - -We had an omelet and bread and butter and raspberries, and water, very -beautiful in the thick greenish glasses. - -Under the yellow boughs of the lime tree we could see the misty valley -and the mountains. - -The table had a red-and-white cloth. - -The little old thin brown woman who served us wanted to talk all the -time with us. She wanted to talk about the omelet; she had made it and -was very proud of it. She wanted to talk about the war and to talk -about her son. - -She said that there had been some horrible, strange mistake and that -people thought that he was dead. She had had a paper from the Ministry -of War telling her he was dead. It was very strange. She had had a -letter also from the Aumonier, telling her he was dead. But, of course, -she knew. - -She said he would come home, and be so sorry she had had such dreadful -news, and so glad that she had not believed it. - -They would laugh together. He had beautiful white teeth, she said, and -his eyes screwed tight up when he laughed. - -She told us how she and he would laugh together. - - -Gentilhommière - -The road, up through the vineyards and pastures and fields of maize and -of buckwheat, was like the bed of a mountain torrent, all tossed down, -and grey and stony, between the poplars. In other years it had been a -well enough kept little road, but in this year there was no one to care -for it. And surely it had been a mountain torrent, in the spring's last -melting of snows and in the heavy rains of the summer. Who was there -left to mend it? Or who, indeed, to travel it? - -We climbed it slowly in the golden autumn afternoon. - -The poplar trees that bordered it were almost bare, the rains and winds -of this most dreadful year had dismantled them already. They were tall -slim candles, tipped with yellow flame. They were candles lit in -sunshine, too early, before candle-light time. - -Autumn was come too soon. - -The vines had failed. And yet no one had ever seen the colour of the -vines so beautiful. - -The road climbs up and up through the vineyards. - -The house stands on a ridge, among chestnut trees that were turned -already golden and brown, high against the high wall of the mountains. - -The mountains were of the colours of the vintage, purple and topaz and -red. - -The clouds made snow peaks high behind the mountains. - -The house has a heap of steep, old, uneven blue-tiled roofs. Its walls -are as yellow as the corn. There is a long terrace before it, with a -stone balustrade, worn and soft, and a pigeon tower at one end of the -terrace, and the tower of a great dark yew tree at the other end. - -I thought what a withdrawn little place it was, held quite apart, like -a thing treasured and feared for. - -The road passes under the pigeon-tower end of the terrace, and round -into a courtyard that the farm and service houses close in on two sides. - -The courtyard smelled of clover and of cows. Multitudes of white -pigeons fluttered about the old thatched roofs of the grange, where -the hay was stored in the gable, and corn hung drying in golden -festoons, and the dust of the threshing floor was deeply fragrant. The -wine vats smelled of grapes. And odours of lavender and wild thyme came -close down from the mountain side. - -The entrance door stood open, across the grass and cobbles of the -court, to whosoever might trouble to go in. - -There was a great chestnut tree on either side of the door, and the -ground about the door was strewn with brown burrs and golden leaves. - -A little old peasant woman, who must surely have been the Nounou long -ago, came to the door, in sabots and the white stiff winged cap of the -country. - -She said that Madame had gone down to the black wheat fields. - -The waxed, black, shining stairs came straight down into the red-tiled -hall. - -Across the hall there was a fine carved and painted room, that lay all -along the length of the terrace. That room was closed because of the -war. "Madame had it closed," explained the little old nurse, "since the -day when Monsieur Xaxa went." - -In the dining-room there was a big table pushed back to the wall, with -many chairs crowded out of the way against it. The old nurse said, "We -do not use this room, now that Monsieur Xaxa is gone." - -She would show us the kitchen with its red-brick tiles, and dark, great -beams, and earthen jars and coppers, and its old stone hearth, like an -altar. - -She said, "Nothing is kept as beautifully as it should be. Madame and I -are quite alone." - -She would have us go up the shining stairs. "You must see the room -of Monsieur l'Abbé," she said, "it is all ready for him. He comes -to-night. We have been for days and days getting his room and all the -house, prepared for him." - -There were purple and white asters in bowls and vases. The floor of the -room shone like a golden floor. The old green shadowy mirror reflected -the room as if it were a dream room, into which one might pass, just -stepping through the tarnished lovely frame. The bed was covered with -a very fine ancient green-and-white striped brocade. On the bed, under -the crucifix and the Holy Water basin and the spray of box, there were -laid out Monsieur l'Abbé's soutane and his soft hat with the tassel. -His embroidered worsted slippers stood on the golden floor beside the -bed. - -"He is Madame's eldest son," said the old nurse, "and he is a great -and wonderful saint. A great and wonderful saint." - -"But," she said, as we went out of his room to the stairs, "it was -always Monsieur Xaxa that Madame loved best." - -As we went down the stairs she added, "He was a wild boy, but we adored -him. He was always wild, not like Monsieur l'Abbé. But how we adored -him!" - -She said, "I thought Madame would die the day he went away. But yet it -is he who is dead, since seven months, and Madame and I, we live." - - -Château - -The gates stand open. Some one has broken open the gates. Or perhaps no -one had troubled to close them. - -The porter's lodge, under the limes, is empty. - -The avenue of ancient, stately lime trees that leads to the château, -is overgrown, in this one year, deep with grass and moss. The trees, -that have not been trimmed, shade it too darkly. The leaves of the -lime-trees are falling. In another year it would seem strange if the -leaves fell so, before the end of August; but in this year no death -seems strange. The dead leaves lie deep in the avenue. - -At the end of the avenue the château stands, helplessly. Through long -times and much history, its towers commanded the valley and the great -road of the river. Its name rang in high councils, and its banners knew -the winds of many wars. - -Again its sons went out to battle. They were three of them. They went, -just more than a year ago, three gay young chasseurs alpins. They are -all three of them dead, on the field of honour. - -The little aged orange trees are all dead in their green tubs in the -courtyard. The ivy has grown across the great barred entrance door. The -lantern over the door is full of swallows' nests. - -The old Monsieur and the old Madame are gone away. How could they have -lived on in the house that was not to be for their sons? - -We asked many people in the village, but no one knew where they had -gone. - - -Shopping - - -I - -In the library of the Octagon I found some little etchings of these old -streets and courtyards and allées murées, steep roofs and balconies -and open loggie, carved windows and doorways, corners and turnings, -done beautifully by someone who had surely understood them. He had -known how the smell of old wood and stone strikes out from certain -shadows and stabs you in the heart; and the sudden sharp loneliness you -feel because of dead leaves driven against the tower stairs. - -The librarian said, "He was indeed an artist." - -The librarian was very old. He wore a little black skull cap and a grey -muffler about his throat. He was bent quite over, and could see what -I had taken only when he held the things close to his eyes. His hands -were twisted like old brown fagots, and they trembled and fumbled as he -held the etchings, one after the other, close to his eyes. - -"We were very proud of him," said the librarian, "he was of this town. -He would have given the town fame throughout the world. His right arm -is shot away. And he is so young." - -He kept on repeating that while he tied up my etchings. - -"He is so young," kept saying the librarian, who is so old. - - -II - -As I was leaving the antiquity shop in the rue Basse du Château, -standing a minute at the door with the antiquary's pretty young wife -and the two fat babies, there came along the street four fantassins, -two of them limping, one with his arm in a sling, carrying a funeral -wreath between them. - -It was made of zinc palms and laurels, and the tricolour was laid -across it. - -We stood, not saying anything. - -The fantassins passed, going up toward the ramparts of the Porte du -Midi and the cemetery, carrying their comrade's wreath and the flag. - -The antiquary's little young wife was crying. - -She said, "I have a letter to-day from my husband. I have a letter -every ten days. He also is a fantassin. He is in the Argonne." She -threw back her head that the tears might stay back in her eyes, and -said, "He was very well when he wrote. He wrote that he was very well, -and that I was not to be afraid." - - -III - -I went to scold the old woman of the fruit shop because she never -remembers my apricots. - -The fruit shop in the rue des Ramparts is a low stone doorway, hung -with scarlet peppers and dried golden corn and yellow gourds, and -onions that are of opal and amethyst and pearl; and heaped about with -cabbages and lettuce and tomatoes and the few fruits of the season, -blackberries and plums and apricots. - -The old woman sits in the doorway. She wears the white winged cap -and a blue apron and a brown silk fringed shawl and a big gold cross -on a gold chain. Her husband was killed in '70. She has no son. Her -daughter's three big sons were very kind to her. They are all three of -them chasseurs alpins. From one there has been no news since eleven -months ago. - -She was sitting perfectly still in her place, her hands lying together, -hard-worked and tired, on her blue apron. She was looking straight -ahead of her and did not see me at all. - -I stood and looked at her, and did not speak and saw far-off things, -and turned and went away. - - -Mountains - - -I - -The inn, up in the rough stony town of the high mountains, was forlorn -enough. There were some dogs and chickens about the door of it, in the -wet street. - -The woman who came to the door of the inn was one of those thin, dark -pale, quiet women about whom there is always something sympathetic and -sad. She said, she feared the inn could do us little honour; we must -forgive, because of the war. - -The stone hall was narrow and cold, the stairs went straight up from -the farther end of it, and two doors opened from it on either side of -it. - -The woman took our wraps, and put them down on a table that there was -by the entrance door. - -Before the door to the right, down by the stairs, there was a small, -fat, blonde baby standing, a little round-headed boy baby, in a black -blouse, knocking on the door and crying and calling "Georgeot." He did -not turn to look at us at all, but went on always knocking and crying. - -The woman said, "You see, we never expect any one now, but if Monsieur -and Madame will be indulgent--this is the dining-room, Madame," she -opened one of the doors on the left, and went ahead of us into the dark -room, and groped to the window to throw back the blinds. - -We went to one of the bare tables, and she arranged it for us, not -talking to us any more. And after a while fetched us potatoes and -cheese, and sour bread and red wine which tasted of the roots and stems -of vines. - -Whenever she left the door a little open behind her, we could hear the -baby in the hall sobbing and calling for "Georgeot." We asked her, "But -the poor little soul, what is the matter that he calls like that?" - -She told us it was his father he was calling. She said he had been -hearing her call his father "Georgeot." His father had been home for -six days' leave, and was gone back just this morning. "You understand," -she said, "my husband had not seen his baby in eleven months, and he -had him every minute in his arms; and since he is gone the baby will -not go away from his door, or stop calling for him." - -She did not seem to want to talk any more about it, and we pretended to -find our lunch most excellent. - -When we went out into the hall again she had picked the baby up, and -was standing with him in her arms, there by his father's door. She -patted his yellow head down against her shoulder, but he still went on -crying for "Georgeot." - -It was raining hard out in the grey street. - -In a shop under a vaulting, that the crook of a shepherd Saint had -blessed through hundreds of years, I bought a queer sort of woolly -beast for the baby. - -But the baby did not care for it at all. - - -II - -Going on yet higher up into the mountains, we met a dreary little -funeral, coming down under umbrellas. The coffin, under a black cloth, -was pushed along in a two-wheeled cart by a woman and a very old man. -Some women and two or three old people followed, and some children and -dogs. - -It was not the funeral of a soldier, only of some one uselessly dead. - - -III - -Rain, sunshine, wet black rock, great blue and black and purple clouds, -clear azure spaces, snows, lifted drifted crests of snow, like waves -arrested--all this as we went up, and up, with a rainbow like a bridge -across the valley we were leaving behind us. - -Up and up and up, into the young joy of the mountains, young as at the -beginning of the world, joyous above all things. What do they care, the -great mountains? They stand quite still, and all things pass. They lift -their heads, and do not even know. - -A baby cried because its father was gone away to war. Its mother did -not cry at all. - -A stranger came by and cried, not because of those especial people, but -because of the world. - -A little funeral straggled down the hill in the rain. - -None of it mattered. - -I thought, we went up high above all griefs. - -Some children and a woman, from a hut up in the snow, came to beg of us. - -I thought, for what did they need to beg, they, who had the everlasting -snows? I thought, how absurd to beg for bread to live, in a place -where death would be so pure and clear, would ring out so joyously. I -thought, how nice it is that all the roads of life lead up to death. -And that death, however come to, is so high a thing. - -It was terribly cold. The snow was over us and under us, as the clouds -were. - - -IV - -In the round basin circled with snows, the ancient hospice--that is -no more a hospice, from which its old possessors have been driven -away--stands white, beside the white road, in the close-cropped -pasture. The sheep and tawny rough cattle were the only things that -stirred. The smoke of the hospice chimneys stayed quite motionless in -the golden air. - -The air rang like a golden bell. - -The music of the cow-bells was no more distinct a music than that of -just the golden ringing of the air. - -They lighted a fire in the stove of the long white refectory, and we -had tea and bread and butter and honey beside it. - -There were no guests in the hospice. The little white stone rooms, that -used to be the monks' cells, had floors of red-brick tiles and thick -walls, and each cell had one deep narrow window. - -The woman who built our fires, and fetched our tea, and showed us to -our little white stone rooms, was not old, but looked very old and sad. -She had a red knitted shawl and big gold ear-rings, and big brown dumb -eyes. - -We went out into the music of the sunset, every mountain peak was -singing. It was utterly still, except for the sheep-bells and -cow-bells. The silence was a great music, joyous and grave. - - -V - -I am sitting up in bed, writing by the light of two candles; it is a -golden light, in the pure white moonlight that fills the cell. - -The slit of a window opposite the bed is wide open, and the moonlight -floods in. - -I am so cold, I have put on my big travelling coat. - -The moonlit air tastes of mountain tops. The stillness is immense in -the small room. All the silences of the world are in the room. - -I cannot see the moon, nor the snow peaks; only the sky of sheer -moonlight, and a dark dim mountain, looming. - -I am so glad to be awake and cold. - - -VI - -While I was writing, something happened. An ugly sound broke the -spell. Some one was coming to the hospice. There was the sound of a -motor-bicycle, from a long way off, coming through the stillness. There -was the calling of its horn and then it was at the door. - -I heard the door open, and a cry of delight; and a man's young voice, -joyous, high-keyed, intense, and a woman's voice, laughing and sobbing. - - -VII - -I saw the sun come up out of the snow, I saw all the marvellous things -that there are between darkness and dawn. - -I had made myself stay awake the whole night through, to not lose one -minute of the mountains. The mountains were mine, from sunset through -the dusk and the dark and the moonlight, to the dark again, and through -that other so different dusk that is before the dawn, to the sun's -great silent rising, and the full glory of the day. - - -VIII - -It was the son of the woman of the gold ear-rings and the red shawl, -who had come home in the night, unexpected, for six days' leave. - -He was out in the morning pastures, a tall lean mountain boy, with -gleaming white teeth, and brown eyes like his mother's, but laughing, -and with absurd dimples in his brown young face. - -His mother was out with him in the dawn, the red shawl over her head, -keeping close beside him as he went swinging across the pastures, her -short step almost running by his long step. - - -The Little Maître d'Hotel - -Our little worried grey butler is gone. - -His class has been called out, the class of Quatre-vingt-douze. - -It appears he was only forty-three. - -I had thought he was sixty at least. It must be because he has been -anxious all his life that he seems so old. - -He was terribly worried and anxious when he talked to me, the night -before he went, about the old father and mother he must leave. He -would be going probably only somewhere back of the lines to guard -a bridge or a railway, but for him it meant--who knows what darkly, -helplessly imagined things? He talked a great deal in a high-pitched -voice--standing there, very white in his proper livery--of bayonet -attacks, of the coal he had managed to get in for the old people, of -dying for France, and of his mother's rheumatism, and of the cow they -had had to sell. - - -The Garage - -There are twelve convalescents installed after a fashion in the garage -half-way down the field path. They are so nearly well that they can -make up their beds and sweep out their rooms and wash at the pump and -go down to eat at the canteen of the hospital Sainte Barbe. They go -to the Clinique there every second or third or fourth day. An orderly -comes up from there once in a while with clean linen for them. And that -is all they need be troubled about. They are quite comfortable and very -forlorn. - -They spend their days hanging out of the windows of the loft over the -garage or sitting about the big board table of the space underneath, -where the motors used to be kept. - -Most of them are men from cities who do not know what to do with the -country, and the three or four who are country boys know so well what -to do with vines and fields, that the vines and fields they may not -labour, so close about them here, only worry them. They are the men who -get most cross and quarrelsome over the games of cards at the board -table. - -They all quarrel more or less. Sometimes I wonder, how can men who -are so splendid, so simply, steadily, dumbly splendid, who have been -through so much, seen death so close, and life so close, quarrel like -this over nothing at all. But most times I understand. - -The crickets trill all the hot noons in the grass, and the droning of -the bees sounds very hot. Like clouds of white butterflies drift over -the path, make little drifting butterfly shadows on the path. There is -a most wonderful smell of clover in the heat. Down under the fields -there are heaped together the crowded old rust-red and burnt umber and -golden roofs of the town. And all away beyond there is the valley, -opened out, long road and river, to high, far distances of mountains -and snows. - -I go and sit with my friends about the big board table, in the place -where the motors used to be kept. I play cards with my friends, the -twelve convalescents. I play badly, for I hate cards, but they like -to have a guest. They try to arrange the game so that I may win. They -want me to win; they think that I will enjoy it better. If they knew -how bored I am they would be dreadfully upset. I wish I loved cards and -could play well, to please them. - -Towards evening they are certain to be cross with one another. - -One after the other they will soon be going back to the Front, all of -them. There is not one of them who will go unwillingly. They have been -there, they know what it is, but there is not one who will grumble when -he goes back, or fail when he faces _that_ again. Every one of them, -when he goes back, will say the same thing. "Of course I must go back, -all the comrades are there." "Tous les copains sont là-bas." But in the -meantime they quarrel. - -From the doors of the garage, wide, one sees the sunset among the -mountains. The bats flit across and the owls call. The dusk comes, -velvet-thick and soft, with smells of fields and vineyards and of the -town's hearth fires, and with the myriad voices of cigale and frog and -sleepy bird, and with the small life noises of the town. Gathering up, -and folding in, the night comes. - -There is electric light in the garage that my friends are very proud -of indeed. A huge naked bulb dangles from a cord over the table where -we sit playing cards. - - -Francine - -The son of Francine is home on leave. - -Francine comes every day to help in the kitchen. She was scrubbing the -kitchen's grey stone flags when her son came. - -He came swinging up the path between the wheat and poppies and -cornflowers. He came up the terrace steps, in his leggings and his -béret, a fine young diable bleu. - -Francine came, running, wiping her red hands in her apron, suddenly -beautiful and very proud. - - -Railway Station, The Days of the 25th - -The trains of wounded arrive almost always at dawn, the late autumn -dawn. - -The lamps of the station are still burning, but grow pale. - -Beyond the open platform, across the tracks, you can see that dawn has -come to the sky, behind the mountains. - -There is a star in the midst of the dawn, Hesper, star of both the -twilights, very big and bright and near, like a lamp. - -It is very cold. - -In the pale light of the dawn and the pale light of the station lamps -they wait for the train of wounded to come in. - -The Red Cross has a cantine at the station in what used to be the -buffet. But these men will be past need of coffee and soup. - -The cart of the buffet, that used to be pushed along the trains with -breakfasts under the carriage windows, is heaped now, in these days, -with very strange things. There is need of these things, always. There -is this, and that, that cannot wait. - -The doctors from the Lycée Prince Victor, now the big military -hospital, are there by the chariot. They stand waiting and talking -together. They turn up their coat collars and sink their hands in their -pockets and stamp their feet in the cold of the dawn. - -The orderlies wait with their stretchers, back against the wall, under -the gay posters of places where people used to go to be amused. - -The Red Cross nurses keep back in the cantine, where it is warmer. - -The train is late. It has been from three to six hours late each one -of these dreadful mornings. - -Everything has been ready since long, long ago, in the deepest dark of -the night. - -If only there are enough blankets. - -The train is terribly, terribly late. - - -New Ones - -It was for this that they evacuated last week all who could possibly be -moved, to fill the wards with other broken things. They gathered up all -the broken things that had lain here so long, and sent them away. And -now the wards are full of other broken things. - -The old ones had grown accustomed to the rooms. They had suffered and -been unhappy in these rooms, and when they had to go away they did not -want to go. They had nothing left but the place and people of their -suffering, and they found, when they had to go, that they loved the -place and the people they had grown so used to. They seemed to be -afraid to go away. To all the weariness was added this new weariness. - -And now the wards are full of new ones. - -The new ones lie very still. - - -Deaths - -It is quite simple. - -If it can be that the priest comes, it is very well. All that the -priest does is beautiful. The feet and hands, the eyes, the lips have -sinned, and the touch of forgiveness upon them is exquisite. It is -exquisite, that last entering in of the Divine Body to the body that -is dying. But if for any reason no priest comes, if no one cares or -troubles to ask for him, or if there is no time, God is most surely -there and understands. And one is comforted to find that there is no -need to fear for them, as they die. - -They die so quietly. I am glad to know how quiet a thing it is to die. - -There was only one who was not quiet. - -They bound ice about his head, and then he did not shriek and fling -himself about any more, but lay quite quietly until he died. - - -Another Winter, Thursday, October 7th - -When the rain had gone over, in the late afternoon, and the clouds were -lifted and drifted a little, we saw that there was snow on all the -near mountains, through the pines, upon the pastures. - -The cold wet street was full of excited swallows. Here was the cold. -The cold was come too soon. They never yet had gone south so early. - -Dear me, dear me--where would they stop the night? - -Up under all the old shaggy rusty eaves, that reach out over the narrow -streets, hundreds and hundreds of swallows were crowding each other in -and out of sheltered places, such a fluttering and twittering. Under -thatch and tiles, along the ledges of fine proud old stone windows, and -of wine-red wooden balconies, they pushed and crowded each other, and -in and out of the brown clayey nests that summer had abandoned. - -People in the streets stopped to watch, laughing a little. - -People in the cold, wet streets stopped to watch the swallows, women -and old people and children. - -"They have seen the snow on the mountains," said the people to one -another, laughing a little. - -And then always, every one said, each to the other, the same thing. - -The one thought of all of them together, "Another winter." - - - - -PART III - -Paris - - -Monday, October 11th - -I was thinking all night in the train--how can I look at them, how can -I speak to them in their depth of grief? I was thinking--when the old -woman comes to open the door, what can I say to her? When the old man -comes to take my big dressing-case and my little dressing-case, and my -strap of books, how can I face him? Their son is dead. - -The son of our concierge is dead. "Mort au Champ d'Honneur." - -They were so proud of him. They did so worship him. He was such a -clever boy that he had gone beyond anything they had ever imagined. If -you just in passing saw him with them, you thought he did not belong to -them at all. You thought he was a gentleman who was waiting a minute -for some reason, there in the loge. But you would have known, if you -had had time for it, how he worshipped them and was proud of them; they -had worked so hard, his little fat slow sweet mother in the neat black -dress, and his little stumpy cross father, who made it a point to come -to the door in his shirt sleeves. - -In those wonderful first days the son of our concierge went away. - -It was on Tuesday, the second day, in the afternoon, about five -o'clock. He had to be at the Gare d'Austerlitz at seven, and getting -there was difficult. - -I think that day was the most cruel and most wonderful of all. I shall -always remember how hot it was, and how the leaves were fallen in the -garden. - -They told me how it seemed as if he really could not go. He kept -starting, and coming back; and starting, and coming back. He hugged his -little fat old mother, in her neat black dress; and hugged her, and had -to turn back to hug her again. His father was going with him, to help -carry the bundles. He was in his shirt sleeves. He kept blowing and -blowing his nose. His mother had said she would not come to the door. -But she did come to the door. She had said she would not stand to watch -him go. But she did, crying and smiling and waving to him. He got to -the street corner four different times. And three of the times he came -back, to hug her just once again. - -And he is killed. - -There will be the little stumpy father in his shirt sleeves, and the -little, so very respectable mother, fat and slow. - -How can I look at them? What can I say to them? - -They must open the door for us, and pay the taxi, and carry up our -things. - -How can I tell them that I kneel before their sorrow as if it were a -throne? - - -Same day, 11th of October - -The first thing to do was to go up to my neighbour's queer big -kitchen--up on the roofs--because there were eleven little soldiers at -supper, to whom, though I have not been here to see them until now, I -must say good-bye. It is the last day of their leave, they will be off -to-morrow. - -Always my permissionnaires eat with my neighbour's permissionnaires -together in the kitchen on the roof. They are always men from the -invaded countries, who have nowhere to go for their leave. - -Before, they have always been men who had been in hospitals and were -sent to us for their sick-leave; but these are little young boys, the -Classe Seize, just from their dépôts, with a few days of leave before -their beginning of battle. The oldest of them is nineteen. - -You go up to the kitchen by a little twisted stairway, like the -stairway of a tower. On three sides of the kitchen there are charming -blue mansarde roofs and black crooked chimney-pots, and on the fourth -side there are the treetops of an old garden. When the leaves are -fallen, one can look down from the kitchen terrace, through the -branches of the trees, and see all the design of the garden, paths and -lawns, statues and massifs and the big central basin, as in the ground -plan, drawn so long ago. - -To-night the fallen leaves in the sunset made the garden a place all -of amber. One looked down into an amber glow. And all the roofs and -treetops of the quarter, and the two tall towers of Sainte Clotilde, -seemed translucent; for the gold of the sunset to shine through. - -The kitchen has a floor of polished red brick tiles and shines with -beautiful copper pots. - -Eleven little soldiers were just finishing their coffee at the table -with the red cloth. - -What babies they are. And how alike they look, all of them. It is -absurd. Eleven round close-cropped heads; eleven round rosy peasant -faces; eleven pairs of round clear eager questioning eyes; eleven -straight young figures, with stiff gestures, in bleu d'horizon. - -Classe Seize, eighteen years, nineteen years, twenty years. It has -become the age to die. - - -Tuesday, October 12th - - -The Chocolates - -I went to get some chocolates at a little shop near the hospital. - -The woman of the shop counted me out the heap of chocolates one by one -in their silver paper. - -She was a thin pale little woman with the sort of blue eyes that are -always sad. Her eyes looked as if they had cried and cried, in her -worn faded little face. She had the little woollen cape of the quarter -around her shoulders and her pale hair was rather grey. - -While she was counting the chocolates the postman came. He brought a -big square yellow envelope addressed in that special writing, surely, -of a little soldier, and with the franchise militaire. - -I thought--It is a letter from her son. - -She took it, thanking the postman, and put it down on the table and -went on counting out the chocolates. - -"But, Madame," I said, "are you not going to read your letter?" - -She turned and I saw that she was crying. - -"It is from my son," she said. - -She began putting the chocolates in handfuls into a paper bag. - -She said, "This morning I had a notice from the Mairie that he is -killed." - - -The Goldfish and the Watch - -On a table in the window there was an opal-blue bowl full of water, -with purple iris floating in it, and little bright goldfish, four of -them, glinting through it. - -Some one had given it that day to the children. - -René, the eldest boy, stood by the table watching the goldfish, not -thinking of his father at all. - -There were minutes in the days when he did not think of his father. - -But afterwards it was always the same thing. - -He never told any one, because he was seven years old and very shy. No -one would have understood. And it was dreadful to him when people did -not understand. - -It was about his father's watch. - -On one thick, hot, velvet-black night, his father had come into his -room and waked him with a sudden switching on of the light, and said, -"Hop up, old chap, you've got to go and tell your mother to stop -crying." - -"But, father, why? Will she not stop when you tell her?" - -"It is because of me that she cries. I have got to go away." - -"Oh, father, why have you got to go away?" - -"Because there is war, René. I have got to go and fight. And you have -got to stay and look after your mother. Quick now; go to her and say, -'I'm here.'" - -"But, father----" - -"Here's my watch for you, old chap, and the chain, you see. Mind you -take care of it. Don't let it run down. I want to find it right to -the minute when I come back. And I want to find your mother well, not -crying--and you, my brave little man, taking care of everything for me." - -"Like the watch, father?" - -"Yes, like the watch." - -So he had to take simply terrible care of his father's watch. - -If it ran down, if he let it run down, what in the world would not -happen? - -The battles might be lost to France. His mother might die. And then -whatever could he say to his father? - -In the days he used to hurry home from everything, to the watch. And -in the nights he used to sit up in bed to listen for its ticking. He -would stay awake for hours in the nights, afraid it might stop and he -not know. Often in the nights he would cry from the tiredness of having -to keep awake and listen. But in the days he would forget the watch, -sometimes, for a little. - -To-day he was happy because of the goldfish. - - -Hospital, Friday, October 15th - -Just these days the people of several of the men have been coming from -far to see them. - -Way off, in some little town of Brittany or the Béarn, or Provence, -there had arrived word that the soldier this or that had been wounded -thus or so, and was at the hospital. Upon months and months of waiting -in dreadful, helpless ignorance, the shock had come as a relief almost. - -But how strange and terrible a thing the journey was to people who -could understand so little what they must do. Where to go, what to -do. Perhaps they were people who had never ventured beyond the town -where the diligence stopped, who never had taken a train. They did not -know what the Champagne meant. They did not know where Paris was. The -departure was a tremendous thing. A tearing up of roots and cutting -with a knife. Then the journey, confused and terrifying. Then the great -city, and the great hospital. - -There is a moment when it seems as if it were a stranger, the boy lying -there, in the bed that is one of such a long row of beds. His people -stand, a little dazed, down by the door. The long ward, the two long -rows of beds against its walls, the stretcher-beds down the middle -of it; and all those boys who lie so still--how strange it seems to -them! And their boy, who does not wave his hand or shout to them, who -scarcely lifts his head--his smile has changed, has come to be quite a -different smile. - - -Hospital, Sunday, October 17th - - -Number 24 - -Number twenty-four is dying. I am very glad. It is much better for him -that he should die. But it takes so long. It is terrible that it should -take so long to die. - -He calls me, "Ma petite dame." - -"My little lady, what time is it?" - -Strange, how they ask that, so many of them, when they are dying. - -There is a clock on the wall opposite his bed. They tell me that for -three weeks he has not been able to see it. He says the room is full of -mist. - -He says, "My little lady, can you see the clock?" - -I always answer, "No, I cannot see the clock." - -He says, "You cannot see it because of the mist." - -And I say, "I cannot see it, because of the mist." - - -La Mort d'un Civil - -The old Monsieur is dying. He has been dying for days and days and -days. He is dying at a time when death is very cheap. Every one is -dying. The youth of the whole world is being taken away. What does it -matter at all that an old man, who has no part in the war, is taken -away? Who, except his elderly maiden daughter, has time to care? - -Cousine Gertrude is very kind. She comes every evening, after the -hospital, and stays for two hours, sitting in the room, knitting grey -socks, while his daughter rests a little. - -Her boy François, aged twenty-one, went out on the first day. He has -been all the time in the trenches, except for one leave of six days. He -is in the trenches now, in Champagne. - -The man dying here has everything that is possible done for him. He has -the best that can be had of doctors and nurses. - -These boys in the trenches one dares not think of how it may be with -them. - -His daughter is very brave. She never cries. She remembers that Cousine -Gertrude would like a cup of tea. - -She knows that the son of Cousine Gertrude is young and beautiful. - -Death, in these days, is young and beautiful. - -And her father is old. His death is only a dreary thing. - -She understands that even people as good as Cousine Gertrude must -grudge it its place in the world. - - -Canal - -In all the mornings and nights, going to the hospital and coming back -from it, I love my canals. The canals of Venice, of Holland, rivers and -great waterfalls and fountains and the waterways of kings' gardens, -that people travel far to find beautiful, are beautiful for all the -world. But my canal is beautiful for just me. - -Its narrow stone-bound curve is hung over by uncared-for plane-trees, -and by ragged, jagged, rickety, crooked houses, that lilt and tilt -and lean together and over, dingy and dark. The rough cobbled quays -have small traffic now, the litter of the canal's old life is gone -from them. They are quiet, with no more rough calling and shouting of -carters, and turmoil of hoofs and wheels. Sometimes, but rarely, a slow -heavy flat canal boat is towed and poled along, through the locks and -under the high black bridges. But most times the slow tawny water flows -unbroken. - -The tawny leaves of the plane-trees are fallen, and lie on the cobbles -and in the water. The stems and branches of the plane-trees have black -reflections in the water, with the reflections of crazy roofs and -chimney-pots, and of tatters and rags of colour from windows and walls. - -Sometimes in the mornings, these October mornings of sardius and topaz -and sapphire, I find myself singing as I walk along the edge of my -canal. It is so difficult not to be happy. - - -Hospital - -My hospital was, all of it, built in the time that means lovely things -of red-brick and grey stone and blue gables. The courtyards are paved -with huge ancient cobbles, and there are grass plots that are green and -wet, and big trees and bushes whose leaves are falling slowly in blue -stillness. - -There are more than two thousand sick in my hospital, six hundred -wounded of the war, one hundred and fifty of them in our service. - -I love to write "my" hospital and "our" service. - - -Madame Marthe - - -Hospital, Tuesday, October 19th - -Things had been very bad all day. When night came it seemed dreadful -to go away and leave so much suffering. I thought of the night, with -fever and that special helplessness which belongs to the night. - -I would have been so glad to stay the night out with the ward. - -I said that to Madame Marthe, as we left together. - -She said, "But why?" - -She always has a cold and wears a little blue woollen cape over her -blouse and apron. When she leaves the hospital she pins up the two -black ribbon streamers of her cap of the tri-couleurs and wraps her -arms around in the blue woollen cape. She looks very small and cold and -poor. - -"Why?" she asked. - -The hospital is her world and she is thankful for every minute she can -get away from it. - -I leave my world to come to it. - -I was ashamed to say to her, "It is for my own comfort I want to stay, -to make myself imagine that I really am needed." - - -Hospital - - -Things They Say - -Perhaps in other, different kinds of hospitals, hospitals of the little -good sisters, or of ladies of the Red Cross, hospitals of beautiful -influences, one could not love the men so much. In hospitals where the -beautiful things of the Faith, prayers and tenderness and peace, are -all around about the pain and death; and there are words for praise of -courage and sacrifice, and words for sympathy and for hope, and words -for high ideals; where it is as poets and painters and all people have -always imagined it, perhaps one could not get quite this understanding -of things that are not said, or come in so rough and vivid a way, upon -unimagined things. - -One loves to think of the wounded soldier with the nun beside him, and -of the lady of the great world tending the peasant hero. One loves to -hear of the men saying, "C'est pour la France." - -Here there are no pictures I would dare call beautiful. It is crude and -raw. And things are not said. When there is not too much suffering, it -is rough. And when the suffering is great, it is all very dumb. - -Here there is no one who knows how to word things. The men do not know, -and the nurses do not know how to tell them. They all only just go on. - -The nurses are poor women, of the people. They come, each one of them, -from her own small desperate struggle for life, each from her own -crushing deadening small miseries and cares, without any help of dream -and vision, callously--one, just looking on, might think--to their -work in the hospital. To the great magnificent suffering, each one of -them comes dulled and hardened by some small sordid helpless suffering -of her own. Everything has always been a struggle, and this is just -part of it. They work on every day, and all day long, with no one to -put into words for them, devotion and sacrifice. No one here speaks of -those things, or thinks of them, or even knows. - -When I see my little Madame Marthe, my chief, so very tired, I say -to her, "You work so hard." And she always says, shrugging her thin -round shoulders, "Qu'est-ce que vous voulez, i' faut b'en. Nous sommes -là pour ça." If I dared to tell the patronne, who is intelligent to -bitterness, that I admired this she did or that, she would say, "What -of it, we are paid for that." - -Odd how often it is the same thing that people say. - -When I ask of a man with the Croix de Guerre what he did to win it, he -always says, "Je n'ai fait que comme les autres." - -A man going back does not say to us here that he is glad to have his -life to offer again for his country. But he says that thing which -makes me catch my breath with pride in him. "Je veux b'en. Tous les -copains sont là." - -They go off like that, to those places of death that they know already, -wherein they have seen things we dare not imagine, and all they say -about it is that all the copains are there. - -There are not many of my ward who go back, ours are the very badly -wounded, the men who are out of it. - -The men have done all that they could do. Every one of them did all -that he could do, and kept on doing it as long as he could. And when he -could do no more, why then he was out of it, and it was for others to -take up and go on with. He himself was done with it. He would rather -not talk about it. It had been so bad that he does not want to talk -about it. He does not want to think about it any more. - -He would rather talk about things that used to happen "dans le pays," -about the vines or the corn, or the fishing boat with oars or with -sails, and "la vieille" and "les petiots." - -"It is pretty bad?" I say, perhaps, to this one or that one, when I see -how he is suffering. - -I have never heard one of them say, "C'est pour la France." - -But what they always, always say, all of them, is a thing I think very -beautiful. - -"You suffer much, my child?" - -"Pas trop, Madame." - -Always it is, "Not too much." - -But sometimes it is too much, and they cannot bear it. - -And when I look at the bed that used to be his, I think of him lying -there trying to smile and to say that his suffering was not too much. - -And the new man in the bed says those same words, as if it were a -little formula always an answer to the question I cannot help asking. - -"You suffer much?" - -"Not too much, Madame." - -Sometimes they say, "Ca va aller mieux." - -"Ca ne va pas, mon petit?" - -"Ca va aller mieux." - -There is only one thing that is like the things one reads of. It is -that the men, when they are very, very bad, always, always call for -their mothers. - -I remember reading that somewhere, and thinking it was just something -somebody had thought pretty to write. - -But it is one of the most true and simple and beautiful things that -there can be in the world. - -It is strange too. When they suffer desperately, they keep saying, "My -mother, my poor mother," as if it were she who suffered. They seem to -be grieving for her, not for themselves. - -When they are frightened they call for her. Some of them are frightened -of taking chloroform. They have fought and not been afraid, they would -not be afraid to die, but chloroform is different. - -Joseph opens the double doors of the ward and pushes the stretcher cart -in and calls the number this or that. - -He is all ready and waiting. - -Joseph lifts him from the bed to the cart. I double a pillow under his -head and wrap the blanket over, and follow. - -The doors at the other side of the hall are closed, and I run ahead to -open them, and shut them behind again after the cart. - -If I can make an excuse I go down the corridor and wait also at the -door of the operating room. I know the men hate to wait there alone. -Sometimes there is very long to wait. And Joseph has to go to do other -things. - -Sometimes the door of the operating room is ajar, and one can see in a -little, and that is horrible. People go in and out, the doctors, and -Madame Laure, fetching and carrying things. The stretcher of the man -who has been taken in is left pulled back against the wall, by that of -the man who is waiting his turn. I stand very close to my cart and pat -the blankets. - -The men like to have one wait with them. There is a thing many of them -say. It is a dull thing, and touching, as sometimes dull things are. -They will say, over and over, "If you were not here, I should be alone. -If you were not here, I should be alone." - -But when the doctors come, with the chloroform, it is only of his -mother the man thinks. He says, "Oh, maman! Oh, maman!" and keeps all -the time saying it till he sleeps. - -The adjutant, the new Number 12, says that you can hear them calling -maman all the time when they lie wounded between the trenches, wounded -and one cannot get to them to pick them up. He says it is the last word -they call before they are still. - - -The Patronne - -I take off my cloak and blue veil in the patronne's room. - -The patronne is usually sitting at her desk. Sometimes she says good -morning to me, and sometimes she doesn't. - -She used to be fille de salle in this hospital, she used to clean -these stairs and corridors; then she rose to be infirmière in the ward -where I work now, and then panseuse. She is a huge gaunt raw-boned -sorrel-coloured woman, who looks like a war-horse. She is so alive -and quick that you feel her personality stronger than anything in the -hospital, than anything, you think, anywhere. I have seen her seem -stronger than death--driving death away. - -When Number 17 was so very ill, I think it was she who drove death -away from his bed. She worked and swore, and worked and swore. It was -hideous. I laugh when I remember. Afterwards I found her outside in the -corridor, sitting on the bench. He was going to get well. I cried; and -she swore at me till I laughed. - -Big red blotches come out on her arms when she is excited, and get -purple when she is tired. If you visit the hospital, you do not know -what to think of her. But if you work there you admire her, and are -proud when she speaks to you kindly. It is an illumined day if by -chance she says to you, "Bon jour, ma crotte." - - -Madame Marthe Again - -I don't know at all how it happens that a little white mouse of a woman -of the people, who has worked and worked all her life, and never been -cared for by anybody, should have beautiful hands. But Madame Marthe -has beautiful hands. Her hands are small and quick and absolutely -sure. They tremble when things are bad, but in spite of that they are -certain and sure. They never make a mistake. And they are not afraid of -anything. - -Sometimes my hands are afraid to touch things, and then I am ashamed. -Sometimes I pretend not to see things that are fallen on the floor, and -when she picks them up, I am so ashamed. - -If my two hands were poisoned so that they had to be cut off, it -would not make any difference. But what would the ward do if anything -happened to the hands of Madame Marthe? - - -The Ward--All Souls' Day - -There are twenty-eight beds against the walls of the ward and ten -stretcher-beds down the middle of its long clear bright length. Between -the beds there is no room to push the dressing cart about, it stands -close up against the apparatus of dressings. - -There are some things that make stains on the whiteness of the ward. -When I am away from it, I see those things standing out against the -whiteness. - -There is the blue of the sublimé in the glass tank of the dressing -cart, and there is the green of the liqueur de Labaraque in the big jar -on the apparatus. - -Sometimes there will be the light blue of a képi or the dark blue of a -béret against the wall, hung on the knob at the top of a bed, or the -red of a Zouave's cap. - -There are the black squares of the slates over the beds. I can see, as -if from any distance, the words scrawled in chalk on the slates: "Amp. -de la cuisse gauche et de la jambe droite au dessous du genou." "Amp. -du bras droit à l'épaule," and three "Xs" for the hemorrhages. "Plaie -pénétrante poumon gauche, Op. 20 IX." "Brûlures gaz enflammé visage -poitrine deux bras." "Eclat d'obus dans le ventre." "11 éclats d'obus -côté gauche." And on and on like that, up one side of the ward and down -the other. - -Besides the black slates there are the placards, pale yellow, printed -and written over that something may be known about the man on the bed. - -And there are the pale yellow temperature charts, with the dreadful -lines of fever that zigzag up and down. - -There is exactly room between the beds for the night-tables; the chairs -have been put all out into the corridors and heaped up against the wall -opposite the lift. Madame Bayle is annoyed because they are in the way -when the linen comes up. They are to be sent to the attics as soon as -any one has time to see to it. But now no one has time. - - -Hospital, Thursday, November 11th - -The sparrows were all talking together in the trees of the great -central court of the hospital. - -I met Madame Bayle as usual in the first court. We almost always meet -there, as I arrive and she is crossing to the store-house on the other -side of the entrance. Usually we stop and stand a minute, listening to -the conversation of the sparrows. - -Madame Bayle is the chief of the linen-room of our pavilion. She is -a dreadful fat shining shuffling person, who hates me because I wear -white shoes. Also because once I made her unlock the linen-room for me -to take out some things I thought were mine, and the things were not -mine, and she was angry with me. She is always trying to get me into -trouble to pay me back. But we both love the birds in the courtyard. -When we meet in the courts these days we say to one another, "Voilà nos -pauvres petits pierrots!" and are friends for a moment. - -This morning I ran past. I was afraid if I stopped she might give me -news of my ward. - -The buildings of the second court have not been militarised. It is the -pavilion of the defective children. None of the children were out in -the court this morning. The lights in their rooms were still burning, -it was so dark a morning; I could see some of the children making up -the rows of little cots, and some of them clearing away the bowls and -pitchers from the long table. There are some who always sit with their -hands in their laps and their heads hanging. They have dreadful little -faces. Some of the children can do lessons a little, and some of them -seem quite bright, and play always the same game, hands around in a -ring, in a corner of the refectory. - -The third court is for the wounded of our service. The recreation-room -and various offices and kitchens open on to it, and the windows of the -two storeys of wards look over it. - -The lift was down, and Cordier called to me; but I ran past, and up the -two flights of stairs, away from him as from Madame Bayle. - -Cordier had been given charge of the lift. He is one of the wounded in -the face. It is not his eyes. It is the lower part of his face. They -are beginning to take off some of the bandages. He did not mind so much -while the bandages quite hid it. But now he minds dreadfully. This -morning I hated dreadfully the sounds he made calling to me. They say -he will never be able to speak distinctly again. I was afraid he would -be hurt because I ran by. But I would have known from his eyes if what -I had dreaded had happened in my ward. - -I took off my things in the patronne's bureau, and went across the -passage to the door of the ward where I help every day with the -surgical dressings. - -It is always strange to open the door of the ward when one first comes -on. So much may have happened in the night. - -I stood outside the door. The door has glass panes that are washed over -with white paint so one cannot see through. There are places where the -paint has not held at the edges, and one can stoop and look in. - -I could not see the bed of Number 29 from there, but I would know -from the look of the men in the ward. - -As I stooped, the patronne came out from the chief's bureau. - -I heard her step and turned. - -She said, "He is very bad. If they amputate he will probably die of the -shock. It will have to be the left leg too, at the thigh. It is you who -must tell him. If they do not do it he will die of poisoning certainly." - -She stamped her foot at me and said, "Now don't look like that. You've -got to tell him. He will take it better from you." The blotches of her -arms were very purple. She said, "They are going to do it this morning. -Go and tell him." Then she went back into the chief's bureau. - -I went into the ward. I still could not see the Number 29 because of -the hoop, like a little tent, that keeps the weight of the blankets -from his legs. - -Madame Marthe, the panseuse, was not in the ward. The infirmière, -Madame Alice, was cleaning the night-tables down by the other door. - -Every one called, "Bonjour, Madame; bonjour, Madame!" - -"Bonjour, les embusqués!" - -That is our great joke, that they are all embusqués. - -I went across to Number 29 and looked at him over the hoop. - -He was lying with his eyes wide open. They are like the eyes of deer -and oxen. He is a very big man, very ugly, with an old scar over half -of his face. Such an ugly, funny face; the shadow of death has no right -to be upon such a ridiculous face. His face was made for making people -laugh. He always kept the whole ward laughing. He used to make me laugh -in the midst of his horrible pansements. No matter what he suffered, he -never used to make a sound. I almost cannot bear it when they suffer -silently. If they scream, I really don't care much. He used to try to -wink at me to make me laugh. - -I knew this about him, that his people are woodcutters in the mountains -between the valleys of the Maurienne and the Tarentaise. I do not know -why he went away to strange new countries. He must be thirty-five -years old. In wildernesses he heard of the war three months after it -began. He was wounded seven months ago, and was sent from hospital to -hospital, getting always worse. He is not the sort of creature to be in -a hospital. He looks absurd in a bed. He used to tell me of throwing -one's blanket over a heap of pine boughs and sweet fern. He had much -fever, and he would tell me about the clear, cool, perfect water of a -certain forest spring. - -I thought, standing there, how he would be wanting to drag himself into -some hole of rocks and great tree-trunks, where no one saw. - -The clock was striking eight. They would not begin to operate before -ten. He would have to think of it for two hours, lying there. He looked -at me very steadily. I thought, "It is I who must tell him, it is I who -must tell him." He tried to wink at me, and then he shut his eyes. I -thought, "I will wait a little." - -I went to the apparatus in the middle of the ward and began to get -things ready for the panseuse. - -I tried to talk to the men in the beds near, the 9, Barbet, whose fever -had gone down nicely; and 10, the pepère, who has had his right hand -amputated; and 6 and 7 opposite, who are both young and gay and getting -well fast. But I could not talk. - -He is only one of thousands and thousands. In the hospitals, in the -dreadful fields, along the roads, they are dying. - -Those of the men who could sit up and use their hands were folding -compresses. - -Twenty-one started a song and some of the others took it up. They sing -softly, many of them have very nice voices. - - Père Mathurin - N'a pas de chaussons! - Il en aura; - Il n'en aura pas. - Roulons-le, Père Mathurin, - Roulons-le - Jusqu'à demain! - -I got everything ready on the dressing-table. I kept all the time -looking at the clock. Every few minutes I passed where I could see -Number 29. He lay always with his eyes shut. Madame Alice had finished -her cleaning and had gone to tidy up. Madame Marthe would come back and -we would have to begin the dressings. - - Dans une brouette - Père Mathurin - Roulons-le - Jusqu'à demain. - -When I was unrolling the big cotton, I felt sure, suddenly, that 29 was -waiting for me. It was odd, for I could not see him round the hoop; I -went to him. - -His eyes were open and he tried to say something. His mouth was black -with fever. - -I leaned down close. - -I was thinking, "I've got to tell him." - -But he said, "Don't worry, I know." - -I stood there and I did not say anything. I did not even look at him. -I looked quite away out of the windows to the treetops and the blue -roofs and the wet close sky. - -He lay perfectly still, and I just stood there. - -The men went on singing-- - - Père Mathurin, - Il en aura, - Il n'en aura pas---- - -Madame Marthe had come in and was going about her work. She did not -call me. It was nice of her not to call me. - -She is quick and very clever and nervous and bad-tempered. She is -rather horrid for me usually, but to-day she has been so nice that I -shall always remember. - -She went on with the dressings. I stood quite silently by the bed of 29. - -After a while the chief came in with the patronne and all the doctors. -They came to Number 29 Madame Marthe came, and I left her with them. -They talked for a few minutes with her and then went out. - -I helped her get him ready, and then Joseph came with the stretcher. - -I went with him down the corridor to wait at the door of the operating -room. They give the chloroform usually at the door. It seemed -dreadfully long. - -I said, "You don't mind my waiting with you, do you? I'd like to." - -It was such a silly thing to say that he tried to laugh at me. - -I thought they would give him the chloroform here at the door of the -operating room and that I would run when he was once under. But they -threw open the doors, and wheeled the stretcher cart in, and called -to me to help lift him to the table. And then to help with this, with -that, quickly. And I stayed and helped through it all. They thought he -was going to die there on the table. Afterwards I realized how horrible -it had been. When we got back to the ward, the patronne was there with -Madame Marthe. - -The patronne is a wonderful nurse. If any one can get a man through it, -she can. She is dreadful. She screams from one end of the ward to the -other and stamps her foot, and uses hideous words. But she can storm a -man back into life. And suddenly all the rage will be a coaxing, and -you know that she cares about it. "J'ai cela dans la peau," she says. - -She shouted the "cinq lettres" at me, "What are you staring at? Get on -with your work. He's through that, and he's not going to die." - - -Number 14 - - -Sunday, December 5th - -The mother of little 14, Louis, has come to see him. - -When I came into the ward this morning, I was frightened to see that -there were people about the bed of little Louis. - -I don't know why we always call him little Louis, for he is a great -long boy as he lies there in his bed; he must have stood splendidly -tall and strong before. - -But it was only that Madame Marthe and Madame Alice were standing -there, talking with a tall fine woman, who wore the black shawl and -small black ribbon cap of the country of Arles. The shawl and the cap -gave to the mother of little Louis that special dignity the peasant -costume always gives, oddly touching in the lonely city and in this -huge strange house of grief. - -She was sitting quietly by the bed of little Louis in the corner, -talking to him and smiling, and talking to the nurses. - -Little Louis was smiling with big tears rolling down his cheeks. - -Madame Alice had the pail of dirty water on the floor beside her and -stood leaning on the handle of her mop. She is a big well-built woman, -handsome and sullen. She is sullen even when she does kind things. You -would not believe that she was kind. She had her skirt pinned up to -her knees and wore the huge wooden sabots she always puts on when she -scrubs the floors. - -Madame Marthe stood cleaning her nails with the pansement scissors. She -had not yet put on her cap with the black streamers and the ribbon of -three colours. She has great coils of pale hair. - -Once she said to me, "I suppose you wear a hat in the street?" I said, -"Usually." And she said, "I would not wear a hat if I went to see a -king." - -She and Madame Alice and the mother of little Louis were all laughing -together over our especial joke, that Louis will be very wicked as soon -as he is a little better, and will make us great trouble in the ward. - -Louis' father died two months ago, and Louis does not know. He is so -ill that he cannot be allowed to know. His mother had to answer all his -questions about home, and explain that his father had not been able to -come because it was lambing time. She had to smile, and make it seem -that everything was going well in the house that little Louis would -never see again. She had to make it seem as if the patronne had not -told her that little Louis was dying. - -He would have liked to have had her left alone with him. But she was -grateful when one or another of us found a minute to come and stand -there and smile also. - - -Monday, December 6th - -In the cold, rainy, windy early morning there was a regiment of -infantry, with all its camping things, battle things, marching across -the Place de la Bastille, going out. - -Long blue coat and blue-covered képi, blanket rolled up in a big wheel, -knapsack and cartridge-belt, flask and drinking-cup, bayonet and gun. - -And each man had a bit of mimosa or a few violets or a little tight -hard winter rosebud buttoned into his coat, or stuck in his képi, or in -the muzzle of his gun. - -I think most of one smart young officer, who had three roses in his -hand. They were not the sad little roses that the south sends to the -winter streets of Paris, but great full hothouse crimson roses. - -He carried his roses in his left hand, held a little before him, that -nothing might touch them, stiffly, and looked straight ahead of him as -he marched. - -A woman, standing beside me to watch them go, said to me, "They are so -young." - -She had a grey shawl over her head. - -The band passed. I do not know what it was playing. - -The woman and I stood together to watch those boys go away. - - -Madame Alice - - -Thursday, December 9th - -These last days Madame Alice has been even more sullen than usual. -She arrives in the morning, they tell me--she arrives at six and I am -never there to see--with a long face, and will say good day to nobody, -and grumbles because somebody's handkerchief, or somebody's bag of -raffia grasses, or somebody's package of letters, had fallen from his -night-table to litter her floor. She grumbles about "pigs," and bangs -things. - -When I arrive I find her still grumbling and banging. - -This morning she was washing the face of the new 25. She washed his -poor face very gently, no hands in the world could have been kinder or -more careful than hers, or more delicate of touch, though they are big -and red, but she was grumbling all the time. - -I said, "Good morning," and she hunched one shoulder. - -Madame Marthe came in and said that I had better go and fetch my boiled -water before somebody else emptied the boiler. - -When I was coming back with it from the office, Madame Alice was -standing by the window at the turn of the passage. She had put her pail -down on the floor, with 25's soap and things thrown down beside it. She -stood with one arm against the window-pane and her face buried in the -crook of her elbow. - -I said, "Oh, Madame Alice, are you ill, Madame Alice?" - -She hunched her shoulder. I put my big pitcher down by her pail on the -floor, and patted her shoulder and said, "Please, oh, please." - -She said, not turning or raising her head, "They've taken him to the -children's hospital--Jeanjean, my little boy, you know; he has been -very ill all the week. A neighbour said, five days ago, she would take -him to the Clinique, there is no hour when I can get away from here to -take him. It was the neighbour who looked after him the day they sent -him home from school because he was sick. She is very good, but she has -not much time. She has got her work. She did not know how ill he was. -I told her, the first day, to take him to the Clinique, but that day -she had no time. She did not tell me. She told me that at the Clinique -they said it was nothing. She told me that every day. For five days she -did not take him. I only saw him in the nights, you know. Oh, it is -horrible when you can only see them at night." - -She stopped a minute and was sobbing, but without making any noise. She -rubbed the tears out of her eyes against the back of her hand, and went -on. It was odd to hear her talk so much, like that--she whom I only -knew as sullen and silent. - -"It is nearly eight at night when I get home," said she, "and I have to -leave soon after five in the morning. I was up with him all the nights, -and I was so frightened all the days. Oh, these days here!" - -She stood always with her back turned, and I could only stand there, -patting her shoulder. It was queer how such big sobs made no noise at -all. - -She said, "The neighbour got frightened yesterday, and took him to the -Clinique, and they said it was spinal-meningitis, and sent him then, at -once, to the children's hospital. When I got home he was gone. It was -night, they would not have let me see him at the hospital. This morning -I had to come here. But I shall get off at noon and go to him for an -hour." - -She shook herself and jerked away from me. - -"Now do you see?" she said, "now do you see?" - -And without saying what it was she meant she took up her pail, and 25's -little bundle of things, and went on along the corridor. - - -Saturday, December 11th - -To-day I have been seeing the little old curé of Jadis-sur-Marne. I -found out, after all this time, where he was; and went and sat with him -for an hour, in a pleasant sunny room of the house where they take care -of him. He did not know me at first, but afterwards he seemed quite -pleased. I want to tell this story of him. - -One Sunday, months and months and ages and ages and ages ago, Monsieur -le Curé of Jadis-sur-Marne, began his discourse in a wrath righteous -indeed. It was the Sunday that nobody knew was to be the last Sunday of -peace. - -"My dear brethren," began Monsieur le Curé, in his most angry voice. -He snapped the words out, "Mes chers frères," as if each word were a -little sharp stone shot out of a sling to sting the upturned faces of -his listeners. "My dear brethren," he began in righteous wrath, and -stopped short. - -He stood in a bar of dust and sun motes, up in the old black carved -pulpit, against the grey stone pillar. Then he was a round, jolly, -rosy, busy old little curé, who got into a temper only reluctantly, -after much goading. - -His church was old and beautiful and quite large. There were twenty-one -people in it: ten in the château chapel, opposite the pulpit, Madame -la Marquise and Mademoiselle and two guests in the great red-velvet -chairs, and six of the servants in the benches behind them; old -Ernestine, the curé's bonne, in her round white cap, erect, determined -to stop awake; another white cap or two, here and there, and Père -Pate's black skull-cap; two secularized sisters from the Ecole Libre, -awkward in their black hats and jackets; three little wriggling girls -whom they had managed to capture and retain on the bench between them; -some small boys down by the door; and Madelon, the twelve-year-old -daughter of the château gardener, who forsook the château pew that she -might sit nearer to Monsieur le Curé. - -Madelon sat twisted round in her chair to look straight up at him and -adore, her hands in their Sunday gloves clasped intensely upon her -blueprint lap. - -It was cool in the church after the last day's rain, and dark, except -where bars of sunshine and dancing sun motes struck across, and where -the altar candles were little stars. - -One heard the chickens cackling in the curé's garden, and the locusts -shrilling close at the windows in the acacia trees of the cemetery, and -the children calling and laughing in the street. - -"My dear brothers," began Monsieur le Curé, looking down into the round -blue eyes of Madelon. - -He clutched the edge of the pulpit in both hands and leaned forward. -It was indeed tremendously that he was going to scold. He had a right -to scold. All night, in his little brown room, under the snores of old -Ernestine, he had been working himself up to the pitch for it. - -Next Sunday was the Fête of the Patronage. The Grand Vicaire was to -come, all the way from Meaux. Madame la Marquise was to present a -banner. - -The children romped in the street. The women put on hats and went and -stood and gossiped in the market-place. The men went fishing; the boys -went fishing. - -Every Sunday it was the same thing. - -In a high temper, Monsieur le Curé began, "My dear brothers," and -stopped short. - -He let go of the pulpit edge and stood straight and looked over the -heads of the twenty-one of them. All the light there was in the deep -old church seemed to be upon his face. - -When he looked down at his people, it was with a lovely shining of -kindliness. It was as if, suddenly, he realized how he loved them. He -loved them too much to scold. - -"My dear brothers," he said. All the words became little kind caresses. -They were small humble words, poor little words, simple, like his -listeners. They seemed to have the touch of many little wings across -the faces lifted up, or to fall like showers of blossom petals. - -One day, only so little a time afterwards, Monsieur le Curé stood among -a heap of charred things and broken, blackened stones. - -This is what used to be the pillar of the pulpit, and under all that, -at the end there, must be buried the altar, with the cross and the -candles that used to be stars. There are things that are burned, all -black and charred, and things that are twisted. The curé cannot make -out what they are. He had not known that there was iron in the church. -Queer iron things are twisted and tortured. The new bright window he -had thought so beautiful is all broken, the reds and blues and yellows -sparkle among the stones. - -There are men's boots. What are men's boots doing here, sticking up -straight out of the ruins of altars? - -They are the boots of the dead men. Those things among the stones are -dead men. You go to see what the boots are doing here, and you find -that the blue-and-red heaps are dead men. - -How they sink into the earth! They are trying to get back into the -earth, whence they came. They came from it and are trying to get back, -as fast as they can, into it. - -This was once a church. And once upon a time, ages and ages ago, or -only some days and days ago, Monsieur le Curé stood against the pillar -and began to scold. - -The women used to stand and gossip in the market-place; the children -used to romp in the cobbled street; the men used to go fishing. - -The graveyard about this heap of stones, that once was a church, is -a strange place, full of trampled straw, and of long heaps of red and -blue, that end in boots. The walls of the graveyard are everywhere -pierced with holes, that often those long heaps lie under. Monsieur le -Curé does not know why the straw is there. - -And so Monsieur le Curé has become a little mad. - -In one of those days, it seems, he came across Madelon sitting against -a wall, quite dead. It was in the rue du Château. Much of the wall was -fallen down, but just where Madelon sat the bit of it standing was -radiant with roses. Madelon sat on the grass against the wall, her legs -stuck straight out, her hands on the grass, her head hanging forward, -tangled hair over her staring eyes, and her mouth wide open. - -The curé says he does not know what it was that happened to Madelon. - -By the fire, in a bright room, Monsieur le Curé talked to me of the -church that Sunday morning, and made me see it; and made me see, as if -I stood there that other day with him, the broken things, and black, -twisted things, and the things that the earth was taking back. He -talked quietly, even of Madelon, and said he was so glad that, that -last time, God had not let him scold. - - -The last Sunday of Peace: Remembering July 26th, 1914 - -When they came back from Mass, up through the château woods and the -park and across the gardens, Anne Marie and Raoul walked together, and -Anne Marie knew how happy she was. - -She had been happy every day of her eighteen years, but that day she -realized it. - -Before she was quite awake she had been happy because of birds and -church bells and sunshine and the fragrances of the garden. Snuggled -down in the pillows that smelled of rose petals, she was happy because -of her new white dress and the poppy hat. And as she waked she had -known that she was happy apart from all those things, those lovely -accustomed things, and far, far beyond them, because of Raoul. Because -Raoul would be waking there, under the same roof. Because he would be -waiting for her when she went down the stairs in the white dress and -poppy hat. - -He had been waiting at the foot of the stairs. He had had a huge box of -white orchids sent out for her from Paris. - -He had gone to Mass with her and his mother, and her mother. She had -sat three chairs away from him in the dusk of the château chapel. - -After Mass the two mothers walked ahead together, and she and Raoul -followed close behind, more nearly alone together than they had ever -been before. - -He talked all the time; and she dimpled and blushed and was happy, and -knew that she was happy, but could not say a word. - -They went slowly through the woods, where there were quantities of -orange toadstools after the rain, and all the birds were singing; and -along the avenues of the park, and across the stiff gardens. - -Anne Marie's father was out on the terrace. He was walking up and down -the terrace and gesturing very strangely all by himself as he walked. - -Across the sunny spaces of lawn and gravel, box border and clipped yew -and flowers, the château was all sunlit, its steep blue roofs and old -soft yellow walls. - -Anne Marie's father came down the terrace steps to meet her mother and -Raoul's mother, and, as they stood together he seemed to be telling -them something. - -Anne Marie thought how odd of him to gesture like that. Suddenly a -wonderful idea and daring came to Anne Marie. She stopped and stood -still there in the little gravel path, between the box edges and -beds of roses and heliotrope and petunias that were so sweet in the -sunshine. She found herself possessed of a great courage. She would -stand there, and Raoul would stand there, and they would be quiet, -quite alone together. And she would dare to talk to him. She would -dare to tell him things. There were so many things for her to tell and -ask. Everything of life and of loving. She thought the droning of the -bees was a hot and golden sound. It was the greatest, happiest, most -wonderful moment of all her life. - -But Raoul said, "Shall we not go on, Anne Marie; there is something the -matter, shall we not go on and see what it is?" - -His mother had turned around where she stood at the top of the steps -and was looking at Raoul. - -The grey stone flags of the terrace were scattered over with all the -Paris papers, that Anne Marie's father must have thrown down, and -trampled on as he walked up and down the terrace. - -He said to Raoul, coming up the steps, "Well, this time it is certain. -Whatever they try to show, every word in the papers means it. It will -be inside the week, it is I who tell you." - -"Raoul, Raoul," said Raoul's mother, very white. - -But Raoul, up the steps in two bounds, did not hear her. "If only it -may be! How we've hoped it! Oh, sir, do you really think it?" - -Anne Marie's mother had put her parasol and Mass book down on the broad -stone balustrade of the terrace. She stooped over and took up one of -the papers that lay on the flags. - -"It can't be," she said, reading. She spread the paper out on the top -of the balustrade and stood pulling off her gloves as she read. "It -can't be," she said again, pulling off first one soft grey glove and -then the other. - -"It can't be," said Raoul's mother, always looking at Raoul. - -Anne Marie's father, beginning to pace the terrace again, said, "It -will be, it will be!" - -Raoul said, "It's got to be," standing very straight and looking at -nobody. - -Anne Marie thought, oh dear, oh dear, now they will talk and talk; and -she had so wanted Raoul to stay with her down in the garden. - - -Cantine, Christmas - -All the babies seem to me to be blonde and of exactly the same size and -quite square, about one year old, square, and very adorable. I never -can remember which are the boys and which the girls. - -The mothers come from, we don't know where; and are, we don't know what. - -Last year there was written on a card and posted on the wall by the -door, a thing that I think rather beautiful-- - -"Toute femme enciente, ou qui nourrit son enfant, peut venir tous les -jours prendre ici ses repas de midi et du soir, sans craindre aucune -question." - -They came, at noon and at dusk, sick, ugly, stupid things, twice a day -like that, from two hundred and fifty to three hundred of them. Bearing -the children of soldiers, the children that will be France, they came -without need of more than making each of them her X in the book on the -shelf by the door. - -There is not room for more than forty-five at a time at the tables in -the room that used to be a butcher's shop. They had to wait in turn -outside in the street. - -Outside in the ugly, forlorn street they waited, an ugly, forlorn line, -in wind or rain. - -They all seemed frightened, not of the things that there really were to -fear, like sickness and poverty and war, but of just opening the door -and coming in and making their mark in the book, and finding places at -the tables. - -They would have the door always kept shut. The steam of the soup was -thick and horrid, always, in the room. I hate the smell of the poor. I -hated those deformed, bedraggled, dulled women, as I served their soup. -I hated them, because they would have the door kept shut. But I loved -them, because their children would be France. - -This year we keep Christmas for the babies. - -It is odd how beautiful any woman is with a baby in her arms. -Especially if she has only a shawl to wrap around herself and the -baby, where it lies in the hollow of her arm. The faded, stained, worn -shawl, drawn close about her head, falls in long lines down over her -shoulders, and is gathered up in new folds around the nestling baby, -the little soft shape of it, the little head, round, against her throat. - -Like that each one of the women makes you think of a beautiful, -wonderful thing. - - -Perfectly Well - -The patronne was standing by the bed of little 10. - -I said, "It does not go well, little 10?" - -He said, "Not too well, madame." His poor face was twitching, and his -poor hands on the sheet. - -The patronne said to me, "He has given us a bad night, that sort of a -horror there." She stood with her hands purple on her broad hips and -looked at him, and said, "Espèce d'horreur, veux-tu finir de nous en -m----" - -He laughed and I laughed. - -It is dreadful, but I can bear it better like that. The little good -sisters of other, different hospitals, the ladies of the Red Cross, the -calm and tenderness and prayers, how strange it would seem. - -Little 10 laughed. - -"Oh, you laugh!" said the patronne, "and all the trouble you make us! -Wait till you are well!" She said, "Attends que tu sois guéri, et je te -f----trai un coup sur le citron." - -Madame Marthe came with the hypodermic syringe and tubes and glasses in -a basin. Her hands were trembling. I love her when her hands tremble. - -The patronne said to me, "He is off for another little party of -billiards." - -That meant another operation. - -I said, "You don't mind, little 10?" - -He said, "Not too much, madame." - -I said, "You'll be better to-morrow." - -He said, "I'll be better to-morrow." - -"Name of God," said the patronne, "of course he'll be better to-morrow." - -Next day, when I tried not to cry because his bed was empty, she said -to me, "It was no lie: he is better, isn't he?" - - -Hospital, New Year's Day, 1916 - -What made me dreadfully want to cry was that they all, every one of -them, wished me good health--little Louis, who is dying, and all the -rest of them. - - -The Apache Baby--Wednesday, January 5th--Cantine - -They telephoned from the cantine that the baby of the girl Alice was -dead at the hospital, and that the funeral was to be from there that -afternoon at three o'clock, and that Alice wanted me to come. - -Mademoiselle Renée, the économe, who telephoned, said it was the apache -girl with the ear-rings. - -I don't know why she wanted me to come to the funeral of her baby. Of -the nearly three hundred women who came twice every day to the cantine, -she had never been especially my friend. Her baby had been a sick -little thing, and I had been touched by her wild love of it. It had no -father, she told me. We never ask questions at the cantine, but she had -been pleased to tell me that. She had said she was glad, because, so, -it was all her own. She had rocked it as she held it wrapped in the -folds of her red shawl, and shaken her long bright ear-rings, laughing -down at it, over her bowl of soup. And now it is dead. - -Claire came to me. We had just time, if we took a taxi, to get to the -hospital, stopping on the way for some flowers. It was raining more or -less, and very dark. - -At the hospital they sent us round to the back, to a sort of shed -opening on a street that was being built up, or had been torn down, I -don't know which, desolate in the rain. - -In the room of the shed there were two families in black, two mothers -with dingy crape veils, and two dead babies in unpainted pine boxes -that were open. - -The baby in the box on the right was quite big, the size of the most -expensive doll one could get for a rich little girl at Christmas. There -was a quite fine white tin wreath on the floor, tilted up against the -pine box. The family of the bigger baby was quite numerous, half a -dozen women, an old man, and several children. They all had shoes, and -several of the women had umbrellas, and one of them had a hat. - -In the smaller box was the baby of Alice, very, very small and pinched -and blue, even more small and pinched and blue than when she used to -bring it to the cantine. The family of Alice consisted of a small boy -with bare feet and no hat, a small girl with a queer coloured skirt and -felt slippers and a bit of black crape over her red hair, and a boy of -perhaps seventeen, also in felt slippers, with his coat collar turned -up and a muffler round his chin and his cap dragged down over his -eyes. Alice had a hat and a crape veil and a black coat and skirt, and -down-trodden, shapeless shoes much too big for her. - -There was a small bunch of violets in the pine box with the baby. - -We put our roses down on the floor at the foot of the box. - -Both babies had on the little white slips that the hospital gives. - -The family of the bigger baby, and the brother and sister of Alice, -stared at us. - -The mother of the bigger baby stood leaning against the wall, her head -against the whitewash, her two hands over her eyes. She was making a -queer little noise through her teeth. She kept it up all the time we -were in the shed, a sort of hissing. She never once uncovered her eyes. - -Alice was standing close, close beside her baby in the pine box, just -looking down at it. She never took her eyes from it. She is a tall, -straight girl, but she was bent over, as if she were feeble and old. -Her veil was pushed back from her face. It had been wet, and the black -had run over her face. But it must have been the rain, for she was not -crying at all. All the time in the shed she never moved or cried at all. - -Her little brother and sister stood back as if they were afraid of her. - -Claire and I waited near the door of the shed. - -For a long time we waited like that. - -Then two croquemorts came, in their shining black clothes. One of them -had a sort of hammer in his hand. - -They went to the box of the bigger baby, and one of them picked up the -cover of the box and put it on, and the other began to drive the nails -in. - -When he drove the first nail in, the woman with her eyes covered so she -could not see him, heard, and knew what it was, and began to shriek. -With her hands over her eyes she stood against the wall and shrieked. - -The croquemort drove in all the nails, and the woman kept on shrieking. - -Then the other croquemort put the tin wreath on the lid of the box, and -then both of them came over to our baby. - -Alice had been just looking and looking at her baby. When the men came, -and one of them took up the lid of the box from the floor, and the -other stood with his hammer, she gathered herself up as if she would -spring upon the men who would take her little dead thing from her and -put it away for ever. I thought she would fight over it, quite mad. The -little brother and sister stood away from her, shivering. - -But what she did was to stoop and take up our roses from where they -lay on the floor, and put them into the pine box with the baby. She -put them all in about the baby, covering it with them. She hid it away -under roses and then stood close, close to it, while the croquemort -drove the nails in, all the nails, one by one. - -Then one of the croquemorts took up the box of the bigger baby and -carried it out of the shed and put it, with the tin wreath on the top -of it, into a hearse that there was waiting on the left of the door. -And the other croquemort took up the box of Alice's baby and carried it -out, and put it into a hearse that was waiting on the right of the door. - -The family of the bigger baby followed away, after the hearse and one -of the croquemorts, toward the depths of the city, two of the women -leading the baby's mother, who still kept her hands over her eyes, but -was not shrieking any more, only sobbing. I know no more of them after -that. - -Alice went out of the door alone, and turned to the right, after the -hearse in which was her dead child. - -Our croquemort would have gone ahead of her, but she would not let him -pass. She would not have him between her and her baby. She kept close, -close to the hearse, almost touching it, all the way. - -The croquemort walked behind her, and the brothers and sister walked -behind him, and Claire and I at the end of it. - -We went through, a tangle of poor streets, narrow and crowded. People -drew back out of our way; some of them crossed themselves, and all of -them were silent for an instant as the apache baby passed. - -We went through wide, forlorn streets of coal yards and warehouses and -factories. The carters and labourers in those streets stopped to look -at us and make the sign of the Cross, for the baby passing. - -We went over the canal bridge and the railroad bridges, and along -desolate streets of the outskirts, all in the rain. - -We went by barracks, where many blue coats, going about their duties, -or standing idly about, drew up to salute the baby in its poor little -unpainted rough box. - -At the fortifications many blue coats were digging trenches, and they -all looked up and stopped their work to salute the baby. - -Twice we met groups of blue coats marching along the muddy empty roads, -and both times the officer halted his men to salute the apache baby -going by. - -The bigger brother walked like a true apache, slouching and slinking -along, shoulders hunched up, head sunk down, face hidden between his -muffler and the peak of his cap. The smaller brother and the sister -slouched too. But Alice walked quite straight, her head up, close, -close to her child. - -So we came to the cemetery, in at the gates, and along a street of -little marble houses, to a field where there were only wooden and black -iron crosses, and to a hole that was dug in the red wet earth. - -There was a man waiting for us by the hole. He helped the croquemort to -take the box out of the hearse and put it in the hole. - -Alice stood close, close to the edge, looking down into the grave. - -The rest of us stood together behind her. - -The croquemort gave her a little spade, and told her what to do with it. - -Then she stooped down and dug up a spadeful of earth and threw it into -the hole where they had put the box. - -Each of us went in turn to give earth to earth, and then it was over. - -Alice stood close, close to the edge of the hole, and looked and looked -down into it. - -The croquemort said something to Alice, but she did not move. He then -spoke to the bigger brother, who shuffled up to Alice and tugged at her -sleeve. - -But still she did not move. - -The smaller brother began to cry. - -Then the sister went to Alice and pulled at her other sleeve. - -"Take her away," the croquemort said to me. - -I said, "Dear, we must go." - -Without looking at me, she said, "I--I stay here." She stood close, -close to the hole and looked at the little pine box, and said again, -quite quietly, "I stay here." - -I said, "You cannot stay," stupidly, as if we were discussing any -ordinary coming or going. - -Her little sister, pulling at her skirt, said, "Say then, ask thou the -lady to let thee go to supper at the cantine." - -"The cantine is for those who have babies," Alice answered. Then she -looked at me for the first time, her great wild eyes, in her face that -was stained and streaked where the black from the wet crape had run. - - -Gégène's Croix de Guerre, One Thursday - -When Gégène went to the Invalides to receive his Croix de Guerre, in -the great Court of Honour, there was no one to go with him except -Madame Marthe and me. - -Gégène belongs to nobody. He is an "enfant de l'Assistance Publique." -There is nobody nearer to him than the peasants he was hired out to -work for, somewhere down in Brittany. - -I do not know whether or not they were kind to him, whether or not -they cared about his going off to war, or would take interest in the -honours he has won. We know nothing but what the Assistance knows about -him; and he himself can tell us nothing, for he cannot speak at all. -His wound was in the head; he has been trepanned twice. He may live a -long time, he is such a strong young boy, but he will never be able to -speak. His right side is stiffened, he cannot use that hand, and the -foot drags. Except for that, and not being able to speak, he is quite -well. - -Nobody knows how much he understands of it all, or what he thinks and -feels. Sometimes he looks very sad. His boyish face, refined by pain, -haunts me when I am away from the hospital. But sometimes he seems -quite content, happy to be just well housed and fed and petted by us. -We do not know what will become of him when he can no longer stay in -the hospital. - -Madame Marthe says, "What would you have? he is not the only one." - -But she is very kind to him, and when she has a half-day's leave she -often takes him out with her, for a little treat. - -She and I hurried through the dressings this morning and had everything -done, our cylinders sent to the sterilization, the apparatus in order, -the ward quite neat, in time to go and have lunch, the three of us -together, in a big café of the Boulevards. - -Gégène was too excited to eat, and so was little Madame Marthe, in her -cap of the "Ville de Paris" and her blue woollen shawl. She had to -leave it for me to cut up Gégène's chicken and pour his red wine for -him. - -It rained; the crowd in the Place des Invalides stood under dripping -umbrellas. - -In the Court of Honour the arcades were packed with wet people, and out -in the great central space there was no shelter but umbrellas for the -poor great splendid heroes like Gégène. - -There they all stood together, those who could stand, in all the pride -and tragedy of their crutches and their bandages--one little blinded -officer with his head cocked sideways like a bird's. And those who -could not stand had chairs and benches; two or three were there on -stretchers. - -There was a group of women in deep mourning,--some of them with -children--who had come to receive the decorations of their dead -husbands or sons. - -There were the great men of the General Staff,--maybe the Minister of -War, maybe the President, maybe the Generalissimo himself--with all -their high officers around them, already arrived, near the entrance, -astir with preparation. - -Out in the centre of the Court, grouped almost motionlessly, were the -men who waited to receive their honours. - -We could see our Gégène, standing up very tall and straight among them. - -"Isn't he nice?" I said to Madame Marthe, "Isn't he nice?" - -But Madame Marthe was crying--funny little tears, and her nose very -red. "Oh!" she said, "Oh, what will happen when that man with the gold -braid comes to Gégène? He will speak to Gégène, and Gégène cannot -answer! He will hold out his hand to Gégène, and Gégène will not be -able to take it!" - -We clutched each other in panic, and then the music broke out into all -the splendour of the Marseillaise. - - -Empty Memories - -Seventeen months after the day when he went out for the first time, he -was killed beside his mitrailleuse. - -He had been home in the meanwhile twice on leave, and there had -been nothing changed. He had won many honours, and she supposed the -other woman had been proud of him. For herself she had seen him very -little and always pleasantly. She was glad now that it had been only -pleasantly. - -But it was the day of that first August, the day of his first going, -that one day, that one hour, she kept living again and again through. -It kept being present with her, curiously. - -He had arrived--he had telegraphed--about four of the afternoon, she -did not know from where. He would have to leave again before five -o'clock. She knew, of course, with whom he had been. She thought, -waiting for him, what an irony that it should be like this, after all -the bitterness, he was coming back to her, and to the old house of his -people, in the street of many gardens. - -She thought it would be awkward for them both. What could they say to -one another? - -She wondered if it had been terrible to him to leave the other woman. -Probably the other woman was beautiful. All those women were beautiful. -She thought, perhaps that other woman loved him and cared what happened -to him. - -Her two little boys were playing in the room. - -The great closed rooms, to which she had brought them back hurriedly -from the seaside, fascinated them. - -The bigger little one, in his sailor suit with the huge collar was -saying, "That's the old witch's cave, Toto, in the snow mountain." - -The smaller one, with the curls and the Russian blouse, said, "Oh, -Zizi!" - -"Yes; and, Toto, that big lump is the giant, sleeping." - -"Oh, Zizi!" - -Then their father came. - -The little boys hung back and stared at him; they never had known him -really well. - -Their mother stood up and went to meet him, across the wide room. -"You've had a horrid journey," she said. - -"I've been fifty hours in the train," he answered. "Hallo, small boys, -there!" - -"Toto," said Zizi, "he's going to be a soldier!" - -"Oh, Zizi!" said Toto. - -The bigger boy came over to his father. "I know a chap," he said, "it's -the son of a friend of mademoiselle's, whose father is dead and cannot -be a soldier." - -"Poor chap," said his father. - -His wife said, "Old Denis has got your things together. All the -other men-servants are gone. He has put you something to eat on the -dining-room table." - -He said, "Will you come with me, do you mind? I've things to say to -you, and there is so little time." - -But when they sat together at one corner of the big shining table, he -did not seem to know what to say. He tried to eat, but it seemed as if -he could not eat. He pushed the plate away and leaned his elbows on the -table and his head in his hands. - -She thought she would like to do something for him, but did not know -what to do. Again she said, "It must have been dreadful in the train." - -"It was wonderful," he said. Then, sitting still with his face hidden, -he went on: "We were singing all the time. Wherever the train stopped -people gave us flowers; the whole train was full of flowers, you know. -They were most of them boys of the young classes in the train. We -sang the most absurd things--nursery rhymes, and old cannons, 'Frères -Jacques' and 'Coeur de Lise,' and those, you know. What is the one -about 'Papa Lapin'? None of us could remember the one about 'Papa -Lapin,' you know." - -"I don't know," she replied. It had always annoyed her, his trick of -saying, "You know." She sat playing with something on the table. - -He said again, "The whole train was full of flowers. 'Papa Lapin,' -'Papa Lapin'--how irritating, you know, when one can't remember." - -He sat up suddenly erect, and said, "You'll take the boys and go down -to the old place and look after things. It has always bored you, but -after all it is for Zizi. And be good to my mother, will you, though -you don't like her--she, she remembers '70. And I've not been of much -use to her. I've not been of much use to you, nor to any one." He -stopped short. - -It was odd that suddenly she, who never had thought much about him, -or felt things at all about him, should have known this thing. She -had known as she sat there with him, alone in the dining-room, by the -untouched things on the table, that he never would come back. He was -one of those who never come back. - - -Hospital - -Often I am sad because I cannot worry enough about the 11, Charles. -I forget him even when I am in the ward. His is the bed I see first -when I look through the holes of the paint in the glass-topped door, -opposite, away at the far end of the ward. There he has been, always, -every day, through all the endless months since the Marne, propped up -against a table board and two pillows and a sheet of black rubber. He -breathes always more and more painfully, and coughs always more and -more. The fever lines on his chart zigzag up and down, in long dreadful -points. He has become very cross and exacting. He scolds us in little -feeble gasps, with little feeble gestures. He is twenty-one years old, -and has very long eyelashes. - -Yesterday when I went to say good-bye to him at the end of the day -he was crying there in his corner, quietly, all by himself. His long -eyelashes were all wet. I said, "Oh, little Charles, oh, little -Charles!" and kept saying it over and over, and had nothing else in -all the world to say. I patted his hands, that always lie both of them -together upon the strap which is fastened round the bar at the foot of -the bed, by which he is sometimes able to pull himself up. - -His hands are white and thin and crooked, like the roots of things that -belong in the earth; while I patted his hands I was thinking that they -did not seem to belong in the light and air at all. - -This morning I thought, "How absurd to have brought him a little pot of -cream!" A little pot of cream for a man who is dying. - - -Hautiquet - -Hautiquet has gone back to the front. He would not let them tell me -he was going. I never saw him to say good-bye. Last night, I said, as -usual, "Bon soir, tout le monde, au revoir à demain!" And Hautiquet -said with the rest, "A demain, Madame." He left a little package to be -given to me after he was gone. - -He was one of the older ones. He had been ill in the first winter -with rheumatism and pleurisy. He went back and fought all summer, and -all through the Champagne, and till Christmas. Then he got rheumatism -again, this time in his eyes. He has been nearly blind since then, here -in the hospital. - -He was a clumsy peasant who never talked much. And of what he did say I -could only understand about half. I did not know that he thought about -me at all. - -But in the little package he left for me there was an aluminum heart, -made out of the aluminum from a shell. Madame Marthe says he had been -nearly all the time working at it, because he had clumsy hands and -could scarcely see. He had had much trouble getting the shape right. He -had cut my initials on one side of it and his on the other, crookedly, -because he was so nearly blind. - - -Jean Fernand - -He had curly yellow hair and big blue eyes. He got well terribly fast. -I was wishing all the time that he would take longer about it. He was -so young. - -His eyes were so blue, and round, and had seen all the horrors of the -great retreat. The look of those things had stayed in his round young -blue eyes. - -He told me he was afraid of going back, but that he was glad to go -because "tous les copains sont là." He said he couldn't bear to think -of them there, when he was safe out of it. "It is as if they were -fighting for me," he said, "and being wounded for me, and dying." - -I don't know why I write of him in the past tense, for I have always -the most amusing letters from him, from there. He is near Verdun. This -morning I got from him a little snapshot a copain had made of him, down -on all-fours in the bottom of his trench feeding a baby pig out of a -bottle. - - -Wednesday, February 9th - - -Post Card - -Boinet is very happy to-day. He has news of his people at last. Since -he left them in the first days, all through these months and months, it -has been as if they had been simply swept away out of the world. - -Everything that Boinet loved was swept away by the great black wave of -the war. Into what depth of the end of all things all his life has been -swept away! He has been imagining and imagining. He says, all the time -in the trenches he was tortured by imagining things that might have -happened to his three little sisters. Boinet is twenty-two, and the -three sisters were younger than he, and beautiful, he says. Odd, how -one speaks always in the past tense of people whom the war has taken -into its dark spaces. Boinet tells how he loved his mother, as if it -were a thing of another life. - -And here is his post card saying that they are all quite well, and -signed by every one of them. - -For nearly a year Boinet has been in the hospital, Number 16. He has -troubled about his horrible burns scarcely at all, but we have thought -he would go mad torturing himself with imagining things that might have -happened to his people. - -By means of an agency here, and the Mairie at Tourcoing, it was -possible, at last, for his people to send him a post card of six lines. - -It came this morning; I have had to read it to him about fifty times -over. - -It says that they are all very well, and for him to give news of -Pierre, the husband of his sister Josette, and it is signed with all -their dear, dear names, Père, Mère, Josette, Marie, Cloton. - -Only it was sad, for Boinet knows that the husband of poor little -Josette, married that last July was killed long ago in one of the first -battles of the war. - - -The New 25 - -He is of Morocco, brown and very lonely, and always shivering with -cold. He speaks scarcely any French. His great dark eyes look to one -with all the sadness of the eyes of animals that are dumb. Nobody -understands him. He smiles up at us, with his beautiful white teeth and -his big dumb eyes, and does not understand what we are saying. He makes -me little magic-lanterns out of orange rinds, and tells me long stories -about them, of which I understand not a word. - -Once when I went back, just for an afternoon's visit to the hospital, -I was wearing a bright blue silk scarf, and he took it and held it and -cried over it, and would not give it back to me. I cannot imagine of -what it reminded him, why he cried, or why he loved it. - -He has three tiny little wooden dolls, scarcely bigger than almonds -and wonderfully carved, that he never will let us touch. Madame Marthe -thinks that they are strange gods of his; but I think they represent -three children, far away, in lands where skies are blue, like my scarf. - -He is only slightly wounded; very soon he will have to unwrap himself -from my big white woollen shawl, and go away again to battles. - -And I suppose I shall never know anything more about him. - - -Marketing - -He was standing half turned away from the others, the fat old woman in -the woollen knitted shawl and a girl with a pretty brown bare head. He -was holding a big market basket very carefully in both hands. I thought -there was something odd about the careful way he held it and the way he -stood, his head turned to one side and hanging a bit. - -The old woman and the girl were talking very much about the cabbages, -with the woman of the push-cart, also old and also wearing a knitted -woollen shawl. - -In the stir and noise of the street market the way the tall broad young -soldier stood so still and silent did seem odd. And he was holding the -basket with such very great care. - -There was a live white goose in the basket. It kept stretching its -long neck up over the rim of the basket and peering about, opening and -shutting its yellow bill and hissing at people. - -When the old woman and the girl had finished their discussion and -selected their cabbage, they pushed the cabbage into the market basket -along with the goose, and all the time the soldier held the basket -carefully. - -Then the old woman put her arm through one of his arms, and the girl -put her arm through the other. As he turned to go where they would -take him, I saw that he was blind; the wound had healed, but it was as -if his eyes were closed. He very carefully let go the basket with one -hand, and with the other hand, the girl's rather impatient touch on his -elbow, he made a salute to where he thought the woman of the push-cart -was standing, and then the old woman and the girl led him away with the -basket. - - -Hospital - -The wards of "our" floor get always all the light there is. When there -is sunlight it all comes in and picks the dust motes up and sets them -dancing, down steep slants and ladders. When there is wind it sobs and -sings along the wards and corridors. The rain makes wide sweeps of the -great windows, and mists press very close against them and get into the -wards and drift there. When there was snow, in these few days the rooms -were all full of its whiteness. Almost it was as if its silence were -there, and its peace. - - -Saturday, March 5th - -The night was full of great bells booming, Verdun, Verdun, Verdun. And -yet there were no bells. - -I never saw a darker morning come to Paris. The darkness came into the -room, thick and wet and cold. - -I had my breakfast by firelight. - -The crows are back already in the garden; the bare black treetops were -full of them this dark morning, and not one of them stirred or made a -sound. - -The lamps of the trams were lighted, and the lamps of the streets and -quays and bridges. - -The river is very high, the trees of the margins stand drowning. - -The snow of these last days has stayed on in places, as yellow as fog -and smoke. - -In the old great beautiful courtyards of the hospital the snow is quite -deep, on the roofs and ledges of red brick and grey stone, and on the -huge square old cobbles, and on the black tracery of trees and bushes -and of the vines along the walls. - -The buds, that were soft and green last week, are black now; I was -afraid to go and touch them and find them frozen hard. - -The blackbird was singing. He has been back for nine days. It was -dreadful in the dark and cold to hear him singing. How terrible all -lovely things are become! - - -Same day - -In the half dark I came home along the canal. In these nights, coming -home from the hospital, I have learned always more and more that the -canal is beautiful, curving down between its old poor black tumbling -houses, under its black bridges. - -To-night the few lights of the quays and of windows fell into the water -of the canal, just odds and ends of gold. - -I stopped and stood and looked. - -It had been a bad day in my ward. - -I thought, how beautiful ugly things are become! - - -Saturday night before Easter - -The cool wet fresh smells of the garden, and of all the gardens of the -quarter, come in at my wide window. It is almost midnight, the rain -has stopped, and it is not cold any more. Sometimes the crows talk -together from the top of the trees where their nests are, above the old -low roofs my window looks across. There has been for days now, in all -the rain and cold, a drift of green about the trees, the fine green -mesh of a veil that seems to float, it is so bright and frail, about -the black wintry tree-trunks and boughs and branches. The blackbirds -came back last week to the garden. - -But it is only to-night that one can believe in spring. - -In the wet sky, over the roofs and chimneys, and the treetops, there -are some stars that hang as big and near as lamps. At dawn perhaps the -nightingale will be singing. - - -Easter Day - -It is wonderful that spring should come on Easter Day. - -One waked--and lo, winter was over and passed. There was a moment, in -waking, of not being able to believe at all in unhappiness. - -The nightingale was singing, the sun was coming up out of the filmy -leaves of the garden, the bells of all the churches were pouring out -Easter. - -The river was misty in the early morning, under the sunshine, mauve and -opal and blue. The trees of the quays, in their fragile leaf, seemed to -drift in the mist and sunshine. I could not tell if the trees were gold -or green in the Tuileries gardens. They were quite golden against the -long purple mass of the Louvre, and quite golden up the river, where -there is an especially bright blur of them under the purple towers and -gable of Notre Dame. - -The Halles were full of country and spring. - -My own poor ugly canal had colours and lines of spring about it; its -dingy, dark old houses were lifted into a sky so lovely that they -seemed to have become quite lovely too, and its water, under the poor -bridges, was full of gold and blue and purple and deep shining. - -All the birds were singing in the great courtyards of the hospital, and -all the opening buds sang too, and the green, green grass in its close -bindings of stone. - -Cordier--his face again bandaged, for he has been worse of late--tried -to tell me something. I could make out, "Nouveaux, Verdun, chez vous, -très grands blessés," and then there was to open the door upon the -ward's new tragedies and glories. - - -Frogs - -She, his mother, wished he wouldn't be so sweet. It was what she had -longed for since he was a little boy, an indifferent, cold little -child, and dreamed of. It made it difficult for her not to break down. -And how dreary that would be for him, who was so glad to come home. - -Always he had been very bored at home. He never since he was at all -grown-up--he was twenty-one--had stayed an hour more than was necessary -in the old dark sad castle. Now he had six days, just six days, for his -own, to do with whatever he chose, away from those places of death, and -it seemed that there was nothing he wanted but the old dull things that -always before had so bored him. - -She had been coming up from the village in the soft wet April -afternoon, by the wide central avenue of the parterres between the -little clipped yew trees, when he came out to the terrace. She had an -instant's sick terror of thinking he was killed, and that this was -her vision of him. But he was calling to her, and laughing. She had -stopped, and stood quite still, and he had come eagerly, running down -the steps to her. - -They had six days together. - -Often she had thought of the old strong castle that it was a place -meant for great things to happen in, glories and disasters. Small -things were of no matter in it. There had been no room bright and light -enough for a little child to be gay in. Her baby's room had had stone -walls and a high carved ceiling and windows four feet deep. If ever -he had laughed and shouted, his little voice had been lost among old -echoes. How could any child not have been afraid of the shadows that -trailed and lurked along the corridors and upon the stairs. - -She specially remembered her little son standing with Miss on the top -of the terrace steps, under the great Watch Tower, never running to -meet her as she came up through the garden, the shadow of the stern old -house prisoning him, like some dark spell, in his little white sailor -dress. - -Now, he had come to meet her eagerly, as she had so used to wish he -would. - -In the six days he was all the things to her that she had ever dreamed -of. He was her little boy who needed her. He had wild gay moments, when -his gaiety swept her along, and moments that needed her comforting. - -Then it was their last day together, a softly raining day. - -In the morning they went for a long tramp through their own woods and -on into the forest, deeper and deeper. All the forest ways were full -of wet blue hyacinths and songs of thrushes. The little rain made music -in the April branches, and the wet smells were as incense in the forest -aisles. When they came home he was hungry. Nothing would do but that -they should go down to the village to the Place de l'Eglise and get -spice bread and barley sugar from old Madame Champenot, as he had used -to do when he was a small boy to whom his mother gave five sous for -being good. - -They must go down the terrace steps and along the avenue to the Queen's -Bosquet, where the old statues stood together dressed in ivy, and -through the little stern gate in the rampart walls, and across the moat -by the new bridge, that was so old, to the Place of the church. - -Thatched roofs and tiled roofs were touched with spring wherever moss -and lichen clung to them, green and grey and yellow. - -He had gone into the little shop, and she had waited outside, not able -to talk to any one. - -The great Watch Tower of the castle, and the low square grey tower of -the church, and all the crooked old tall black chimney-pots seemed to -swim in the blue of the sky. - -Waiting there she felt that the coming of spring was sad almost past -bearing. She thought, soon the frogs in the castle moats would be -singing their lonesome song. - -Afterwards they went round to the stables, from which all the horses -were gone, and he was sad to think how long he had forgotten his little -old pony, scarcely bigger than a dog. - -In the afternoon he must go everywhere about the house, to all the -old rooms and corridors and stairways, that he never before had known -he loved. She must go with him, through the great dim attics, and up -the tower stairs, and out on to the battlements, to the sunset; down -into the great stone-vaulted kitchens, and the cellars that had been -dungeons. They went laughingly at first. But afterwards they did not -laugh any more. It had come to have the sacredness of a pilgrimage, -their small journeying. - -He talked quite gaily while they were at dinner in the long dining-hall -under the minstrel's gallery. - -But when they went to her little study afterwards together, they both -were very silent. - -There was a fire burning, but all the windows were open. - -And as they sat there, almost silently together, they heard the first -frogs singing in the castle moat. He laughed, and would have her tell -him the story of the Frog Princess, that he never had cared for her to -tell him when he was a little boy. - -She knew that she would never listen to the frogs again without -remembering that night. - -She wondered if the memory would become an agony to her. It seemed to -her strange that, caring so much, she could not know. - - -Thursday, April 27th - -Under the walls of St. Germain des Prés, and the chestnut trees in -their spring misty leaf of amber and topaz and ruby, a vendor of, I -don't know what, had set up a little booth and shaded it with an indigo -blue bit of canvas. The shade was deep purple under the blue canvas, -and brass and bronze and copper and rust-red things had vague shapes in -the shadow. - -It was so beautiful that I was happy for all of a minute, passing in -the tram on my way to the cantine. - - -The Boy with Almond Eyes - -They tell me that when they suffer I make little growling noises in my -throat. They laugh and say, "Now the little Madame is angry!" - -I am angry, I am furious. I am furious against suffering. I hate -suffering. - -If they scream I do not mind so much, but when they suffer silently, it -is terrible. - -Once the ward doctor thought I was going to cry. - -I was holding the stump of a boy's leg while they dressed it. The leg -had been cut off at the Front, hurriedly, anyhow, and the nerves left -exposed. - -The boy shuddered and quivered all over, and would not make a sound, -and grew rigid with pain, stiff, and quite cold, and never made a sound. - -The doctor, with the probe in his rubber-gloved hands, looked at me, -and said, "You are going to cry! You must not cry before the wounded, -it unnerves them." - -And then I heard myself growling, with dreadful big words of the -patronne's smothered under the growls. - -And the little boy laughed out, through everything, just like a -mischievous bad little boy. - - -Monday, May 1st - -To-day is so beautiful, many people must have been happy for a moment -just in waking. It is so difficult not to be happy. It is such a -wonderful thing to open one's blinds to a sunshiny May morning. And -then there has to be the next moment. - - -May 3rd - -In other years also the spring was sad. There was always that exquisite -lovely poignant sadness of spring. - -These days are too beautiful. It seems as if one could not bear them. - -I think it is because so much beauty makes one want happiness. - -One cannot understand, in such loveliness, why one is not happy. - -Something is asked of us that we cannot answer. - -I remember Roselyne's saying, long before there was war, one sunset, -down by the sea in the south-- - -"So much happiness would be needed to fill the beauty of the day." - - -May 4th - -Yet perhaps in this cruel year spring is less cruel. Not to be happy -is, in this year, the inevitable thing. One is less lonely in each -his own special lack of happiness. And each one may think he would be -happy, perfectly, if only there were no war. - - -Hospital, Friday, May 5th - -They have taken away all my little soldiers. I did not know at all. I -came just as usual, and did not notice any unusual confusion. I heard -much noise as I ran up the stairs, but there is always noise in the -corridors. - -When I got to the top of the stairs, there was the last batch of them, -in their patched faded old uniforms, with their crutches and bandages -and their bundles, all packed into the lift that was just started down. -I could not even see who they were. - -Some one called "Madame, oh, Madame!" - -I think it was Barbet, the little 4. - -I turned to run down the stairs to catch them up at the bottom, as -they would get out of the lift, but Madame Marthe came out of the -patronne's room, with a huge jar, of I don't know what, in her arms, -and called to me, "Quick, the new ones will be arriving. Fetch our -sheets from Madame Bayle!" - -Twenty-six beds and ten stretcher beds all left empty. - -Every one is gone, except little Charles who is dying, and 14, whose -arm has just been amputated. I don't know where they are gone. Some to -the Maison Blanche and some to St. Maurice, some to their dépôts, some -to country hospitals. The patronne has had no time to tell me where -they are gone. When she has time she will have forgotten, and cannot -trouble to look up the lists of them. Madame Marthe does not know. She -does not care. She is used to it. - -But I--I am not used to it. I have loved them. I had nursed them so -long, and done so many odds and ends of things for them, silly things -and tragic things. I had helped them to get well. Really and truly I -had helped them to get well. I had been so happy to have helped them. -And now I do not know what has become of them. - - -Hospital--Arrival, Saturday, 6th - -They are very tired. They want to be let alone. They do not care what -happens to them, or to the little queer odds and ends of things in -their bundles. - -They were bathed in the admission room; Madame Marthe and Madame Alice -were called there. Madame Madeline threw out their dirty torn clothes, -and the boots of those who had boots, to Madame Bayle in the hall. - -Madame Bayle made Joseph take all that away, and gave me each man's -own little things to put on the night table of his bed, his képi and -his béret, if it were not lost, a pipe, a tobacco pouch, perhaps a big -nickel watch, some letters, the photograph of a girl or an old woman, -a purse with a few sous in it. Several of them have medals, the Croix -de Guerre and the military medal, and one had a chaplet that I had to -hide under the photograph of an old woman in her best bonnet. "Number -9," says Madame Bayle, "Number 16, Number 8," and dumps the poor little -handfuls of things into my apron. - -"All your things are here," I say to the men, "look, Monsieur 8, I -have put them so on the table. I will move the table to the other side -because of your arm. Little Alpin, here is your béret hung on the knob -at the top of the bed, waiting for you to go out into Paris. And you, -my little one, here are your two medals, I pin them to the edge of your -chart. How proud you must be!" - -But he does not care at all. He is a little young child, of the class -16. He has a round, boy face and big, round, blue eyes like a child's. -He only wants to lie with his eyes shut. He is the number 3. His right -leg is amputated, and his left foot is in plaster. - -They are all men from Verdun, wounded eight or fifteen days ago, who -have been moved from one to another hospital of the Front. They do not -want to talk about it. They want to just lie still with their eyes -closed--except the one who screams, the 24. - -The 24 screams and screams. He also has had a leg amputated. He is -perhaps twenty years old. He is a big blonde boy. He clutches the bars -of the top of the bed with his two hands, and drags all his rigid -weight upon his hands, and screams, with wide-open eyes that stare and -stare. - -Also the man wounded in the head, the Number 6, lies with his eyes wide -staring open and like glass. He has a colonial medal that I do not -know, and the Croix de Guerre. They do not yet know if he can speak -or not. Madame Marthe told me while she was washing her hands at the -chariot that he may live quite long. - -She said, "The chief is coming to see the wounds, we must cut all the -dressings. Take your scissors, and begin to the right of the door." - - -The Chéchia, Monday, May 15th - -I suppose because to-day the sunshine is happy, Charles, the little 11, -who has been in his bed in the corner since the days of the Marne, has -taken a fancy to have all his things got ready for him in case he wants -to go out. He says that any day now he may be wanting to go out. - -He is of the ler Zouaves, and it is a red cap he must have, a chéchia. -Nobody knows what became of his, it is so long since he had worn it. -He never thought of it himself until to-day. But to-day he thinks of -nothing else. - -Number 10 and Number 12--new these last days--say he waked them up -talking about it. When Madame Marthe came on at six o'clock he beckoned -to her at the door, and when she came, he whispered--did she think he -might ask the American for it? - -He was very red when he asked me, and then very white, and his hands -clasped and unclasped. - -Did I think I could have it to-morrow? Did I think I could have it this -afternoon? And did I think that possibly, possibly I could get a tassel -for it: a big lavender tassel that would hang down all at one side. - - -Monday, May 29th - -I went this afternoon to the Pré Catelan, for the first time in very -long. I went in by the gate near the stone column. - -There were quite a lot of motors waiting at the gate; it did not look -war as it did last year. Last year, in May, the gates were always -almost shut, and when people came they had to push through. Last year -the little park was very empty. We used to wander as we pleased across -the lawns and gather primroses that grew for nobody. But now there were -people in the paths; especially Nounou with her broad ribbons and her -campstool, and the baby, and Monsieur l'Abbé, playing blind man's buff -with the bigger children. - -Green lawns, bright as live green fire, the trees all in delicate -misty leaf, light greens and dark greens and copper and amber and gold, -filmy and drifting, as veils, about the trunks and boughs and branches. - -The flower-beds were full of hyacinths and forget-me-nots. - -Never, never, surely has spring meant so much as in these two years of -war. - -All the birds of spring were singing. All of them. The grass of the -lawns was full of little starry pink and white daisies. - -By the little watercourse there was a bank of blue flowers. They were -reflected in the water, very, very blue. I do not know what they were. -They were of a much more intense blue than the myosotis. I did not go -to see what they were; I thought they might be the blue flowers of -happiness, and that it was better I did not go too near. - -The hideous, huge restaurant is a hospital. The paths and the road to -it, and the lawns and garden beds about it are corded off that people -may not go and look. From the distance, you see vague, white shapes -of things, and figures all in white, moving about inside the great -plateglass windows! - -What wonderful people used to sit at the tables, in those windows! - -What is there now on the raised platform of the music? The music used -to be so gay. Did people ever really dance there? - -How queer pain and grief seem to be, in this place that they have taken -over. Was this really ever a place so gay and brilliant, that no other -place of the world symbolized quite as fragile a thing? - - -Thursday, June 1st - -Verdun, Verdun, Verdun. The great bells, that are not really bells, are -still ringing and ringing. One hears them ringing through the streets -of Paris, up and down, all night long. Out in the country they must be -ringing, and ringing across all the fields and forests, and through the -hills, and along all the roads and rivers, and to all the edges of the -land. - -Even if they were dirges, tolling, they would yet always have been -triumphant bells. - - -The Queen: To her - -A beautiful thing has happened in a beautiful hospital. Going to that -hospital from mine, what seems most beautiful about it, and very -strange, is its peace. It is so quiet. The little gentle nuns move -softly and have sweet low voices. The women who work there are all of -them women who choose to serve, and they serve lovingly. One feels -there quietness and sympathy, and something that I think must be just -the love of God. My hospital seems like a nightmare in that beautiful -place. - -One day there came to visit that beautiful hospital a very gentle lady, -than whose story there is none more tragic in the whole world. - -She is a queen who lives in exile. She has known every sorrow that a -woman can know, and that a queen can know, every one. And she lives, -with the memory of her sorrows, in exile. - -She may come to France at times for visits of which few people are -aware; and those are the times that are most nearly happy for her, for -she loves France, and the France that knows her, that is so truly her -own, loves her greatly. - -The little soldiers of France might have been her soldiers. If they -realized, how they would love to be her soldiers! What would it not -mean to them to have such a queen to fight for? - -The soldiers in the beautiful hospital were not told at first that it -was a queen who came that day to see them. They only knew that it was a -very lovely lady. She understood just how to talk to them, just how to -look at them. They were men who had given everything they had to give -for the country that she loved, that was indeed her country, and she -loved them, every one of them, and her love for them was in her eyes -and on her lips and in her voice. She had known so much of suffering -that she could take the suffering of each man for her own to bear with -him. - -There was a man who was dying. He was not a beautiful young boy, but -one of those older little soldiers who touch one's heart so. The thin, -worn, stooping little soldier type who has his wife and the children -and the old people to be anxious about while he serves his France. The -bearded, anxious-eyed little soldier type who knows just what it all -means, and who has the flame of the spirit of France shining in his -always rather haggard eyes. - -This little soldier was dying; there was no hope at all. He knew -quite well. His wife and babies were far away and could not come to -him. And he was glad of that, he wanted his wife to be spared all she -might be spared of pain. He was glad she would not have to remember -his suffering so. The nurse had promised to tell his wife always that -he had not suffered at all. His nurse had promised him that she would -always keep sight of his wife and the babies, and be sure that no harm -came to the old people. She had comforted him in everything. And she, -and the good little sisters, had so beautiful a faith in God, that he -was sure they knew, and that it all would be quite well. - -He had won his Croix de Guerre and Médaille Militaire; they had been -sent, but the officer had not yet come from the President of the -Republic to give them to him. It seemed very sad to the people of the -hospital that his medals should not be given to him before he died. His -nurse had been very troubled about it, and the chief doctor also. They -had sent messages twice to the authorities, but no one had come. - -Then, when the queen was there the nurse who herself was a great lady -of the world, thought of a beautiful thing and asked the chief doctor -if it could not be. That the queen should give his decorations to the -man who was dying, and that they should tell him, and all the others, -that it was the queen. She knew what pleasure it would give him. She -knew it would be like a dream to him, a lovely dream thing to happen to -him, just at the end. Of course, it would not be official, but what did -that signify--now? The man was dying. - -The doctor and the queen spoke together for a minute. - -The queen had never cried for her own sorrows, but she had tears in her -eyes then, and did not mind that every one saw. - -When all of those people of the hospital who could come were assembled -in the ward, the hospital staff, and all of the wounded who could walk -or be carried, the doctor told them, very simply, his voice a little -hoarse, that it was the Queen of ---- who was there among them, and -that she was going to give his decorations to their comrade. A thrill -passed through all the ward as the doctor's voice dropped into silence. -No one spoke at all. - -The little soldier who was to be so honoured turned his head and looked -at the queen. - -She was crying very much, but she smiled, and said to him, "You see, my -little one, I cry because it is so great an honour for me that I may -give his decorations to a soldier of France." She would not have him -know that she cried because he was dying. She smiled down at him. - -Then she took his papers from the doctor and read his citations out -aloud, quite steadily, to all the ward. - -She bent down over him and pinned the two medals on his poor -nightshirt. "The honour is all mine," she said. - -And then she took his head between her hands, as if he had been a -child--as if he had been her own son who was so cruelly dead--and -kissed his forehead. - -They say that royalty must go away out of the world. But how can -any one say that who knows beautiful things? There is something so -beautiful that belongs only to kingship, something of ideal and dream. -It was there, in the hospital ward, when the great lady in the plain, -almost poor, dress, her eyes full of tears, was honoured by the honour -she might do a little soldier. Only a queen could have made it all -seem so beautiful. Only a queen could have kissed a little soldier of -the people, who really were her people, so quite as if he had been her -child, or have made of kneeling by his bed for a minute quite so simple -and proud and symbolic a thing. - -The little soldier never said one word. His eyes followed her with the -worship that is quite different from any other worship, the worship -that can be given only to a queen. - -Afterwards he said to his nurse--it was the only time he spoke, for in -that night he died--"You will tell my wife, will you not? You will tell -her all about my queen?" - - -Questions and Answers - -The wounds in the road are kept filled up. As the road is wounded, -every day, they fill the wounds up and smooth them over. Because, in -case of an advance or a retreat, the way must be kept open and clear. - -This I have been told, for I cannot go to see. - -They tell me how the work of the fields goes on around the wounds of -the fields. There is no need, of course, to tend the wounds of the -fields. Sometimes in the ploughing the blade of the plough strikes -against an unexploded shell that the grass had hidden, and the old -horse is killed, or the yoke of oxen, and the old peasant. - -Sometimes the soldiers, back at repose, help with the work of the -fields. - -I ask, are the larks singing over the fields? But, of course. And are -there magpies in the road? Why, yes. - -When a shell bursts in the fields, they say, it is scarcely frightful -at all, the spaces are so wide. It seems far from you, and you think of -it as just something of the world's--scream of wind, lightning, that -strikes perhaps; not an enemy thing at all. - -Do the bees drone on just the same in the clover? They say they are -absurd things that I want to know. - -But I think of the clover growing tall and sweet about the little -tilted wooden crosses, of which the fields are so full; and of the bees -droning their golden, sleepy song, there, like that. - - -The Dead Town - -They say that the grass is growing everywhere in the empty streets of -the town. The streets are kept cleared of the ruins of the houses that -fall into them, and their wounds are carefully healed, like the wounds -of the road. The stones of the broken houses are piled up quite neatly -at the edge of the streets. There is no glass left of the windows of -those houses that still stand--except for that--unhurt. Many of the -houses are terribly hurt, the roof gone, great gaps in the walls. - -I ask, do you see the paper of the walls in broken rooms? Are there -pretty little wall-papers, with flowers and ribbons, that you see -through the wounds of the houses? Are there left rags of curtain, -tattered and rain-washed and faded, in some of the windows? Do you see -people's little loved things, abandoned in the broken ruins, betrayed -to strangers? - -They tell me that vines are grown across to bar the doors so long -unopened, or the doors left so long open, sagging; and I suppose that -there are cobwebs also. - -They say that here and there you see a sign scrawled up over a door, or -over the break in a wall, that says, "En cas de bombardement il y a ici -une cave." - -I ask, is the signboard of Monsieur Pigot's, the pastrycook, still hung -out over his door? - - -The Grass Road - -You can keep on for a short distance beyond the town, on the other side -of it. The great road leads on between its poplar trees, white and -straight. Here it has been less wounded because the hills shelter it. -The trees have not been hurt here; they lift their grey-green plumes, -light and proud as ever, above the road. - -I remember to ask: Is there much passing along the road, that terrible -grey passing of war things? Do you see many blue troops along the road? -They say: Oh, yes, of course, as far as the old octroi. - -What is it like now at the octroi under the edge of the hill? - -Just beyond the octroi there is a barbed-wire entanglement across the -road. No one can go farther. There are soldiers in the yellow little -house of the octroi. The sentinel comes out. - -They tell me that the road beyond the barbed-wire entanglement leads -straight on, between the poplar trees, as far as any one can see, deep -grown in grass. Nearly two years deep in grass. It is nearly two years -since any one, yes, any one, has gone a step along that road. - -They tell me a thing the sentinel said, that is a hideous thing. I -do not know why I want to tell it. I know just how he said it, with -bitterness and irony, but as if it were a thing of small matter that -would be soon arranged for. - -He said, "Just along there, about half-way as far as we can see, begins -Germany." - - -Fifteen Days - -Just before the end of the world they were together at the château. - -They thought it was to have been for the last time. There had been -many things they needed to talk over and arrange together, and why not -quietly. They were "done with passion, pain, and anger." They thought -to bid one another good-bye when everything was arranged, wishing one -another well, and go their different ways. - -There were no children, they were hurting no one. They had been hurting -one another too long, for ten years--they were both still so young that -it seemed to them half a lifetime--and now they thought they would -never hurt one another any more. It was an immense relief to each of -them to feel that it was over, quite over, dead and done with. But it -was not over. - -From the first moment of talk of war his one idea was to get himself -taken for the army. When he was a boy, a fall in hunting had hurt his -spine seriously; he had never been able to do his military service. The -trouble had grown worse, and now, with his crooked back and halting -step, there was nothing, exactly nothing, it seemed, he could do. - -She stayed with him through those days of the utmost nervous tension. -How could she leave him then? She understood him so well in his -moods, now in despair, now hopeful, now in despair again; disgraced, -he would say, worthless, ashamed before his peasants, before the -castle servants, who were, all of them, going to join the colours; -angry against everything, he had such need of her to tell it all to. -He exhausted himself with hurried, futile journeys hither and yonder -to find some one whose influence might get him "taken." He spent his -nights walking the wide floors up and down, and writing letters to -people he thought might "do something." But none of it was of any use. -He worried himself ill. He fainted twice in one day, the day the papers -told of the taking of the first German flag. It was a flaming white hot -day in their country of the Aisne. - -There were days of the passing through of their own troops. For days -the valley was one deep, endlessly drawn-out trail of dust, from which -came unceasingly the turmoil of hoofs and wheels and men's shouting, -the horns and rush of motors, bugle-calls, the hot beating of drums. - -Night after night the village took in the men billeted upon it, lodged -them somehow, fed them somehow. The château received the officers, and -did what it could for them. - -Those were days of great enthusiasm. Trains passed full of flowers, -of men laughing and singing. Trainloads of great dust-coloured cannon -passed, covered with flowers. - -Claire started a canteen at the station, the little country station by -the river, in the fields of August wheat and poppies. - -Those were exalted, wonderful days for her. She knew how agonizing they -were for Rémy, and she felt about him very tenderly. - -She was a beautiful, strong creature, her beauty and strength for years -now had annoyed and been a grievance to him. But now he seemed to have -need of her strength and quietness. She pitied him for what she meant -to him in those days. - -But when bad news came, everything changed for him. - -There were so many things for him to do. He was maire of the -village--the village counted on him, he was not useless any more. He -had been really ill with grieving, but now that he was of use, he was -as well as she had ever seen him before. All his small nervous ways -fell from him; she did not understand him any more than if he had been -a child grown up suddenly beyond her; but she was immensely pleased -with him. She was so glad to be able to feel him stronger than she. It -was very good to be able to turn to him now for help and comfort. - -Her canteen at the station served trains that were full of wounded. -Some of the wounded were so bad that they had to be taken out of -the trains. She got a hospital arranged as well as she could in the -château. For days it was so full that the wounded and dying lay on beds -of straw on the floor of the great salons, not a scrap of linen in the -château but was used for dressings and bandages. - -Then the refugees from the villages of the north and the east began to -pour through, telling of ghastly things. And then came the troops in -retreat. - -The hospital had to be evacuated in dreadful haste. It was more -dreadful than anything she had ever imagined. There was a day when the -old town-crier went through the streets, beating a drum, and calling -out the warning to evacuate. All the people who could do so fled. They -fled, and left everything they possessed behind them. - -It was said that when the troops were passed, the bridge at the bend of -the river must be blown up after them, and so the village would be cut -off and left to the enemy. - -Rémy made the villagers give him the keys of their houses, and he put -up a notice in the Grand' Place that any one wishing to enter the -houses must apply for the keys to the château; he wrote the notice in -German. - -Claire was proud that he did not suggest that she should go away, that -he took for granted she was at least as strong as he. - -The explosion of the blowing up of the old bridge was like the final -note of all the things that used to be. The dust of the valley settled -down for an hour, and things seemed strangely quiet. - -All the people of the village who had not been able to get away came -to the château, the very old people and the sick, and some women with -babies, begging shelter for the night. - -Three wounded men, whom it had been impossible to remove, were left -behind in the great Salle des Miroirs. Claire was with them all night. -The curé had stayed, and the sage-femme of the village had also -remained to help her; the doctor and the chemist were both fled. - -One of the men died in the night. - -Another, who was delirious, kept singing all the time, "Auprès de ma -Blonde." - -It frightened Claire. There was a moment when she was uncontrollably -afraid. She was afraid, not of the things that were coming to pass, -but with a nightmare panic of the wounded man, singing, "Auprès de ma -Blonde." - -She could not bear it. She rushed in desperate panic to find Rémy. - -It was in the moment before dawn; the birds in the garden and park -were waking; the halls and stairs were still dark. She thought she -never would find him; then she thought he must be in the kitchen, where -the village people were huddled together. - -She found him there, talking to them quietly. - -There was a girl who had St. Vitus dance; she sat by the big kitchen -table, one of her hands, that would not keep still, thumping and -thumping the table. Claire was afraid to go into the kitchen. - -Rémy came out into the passage to her, and shut the kitchen door behind -him. - -The lamp was still burning in the passage. - -She caught his hands; and suddenly she had buried her face in his -shoulder and was crying. - -"There, there," he said, patting her hair. - -She sobbed, clinging to him. - -"You have been so brave," he said, "poor child." - -She could have cried for a long time with his arms around her. - -But he said, "You must not let them find you like this, you know; they -might think you were afraid." - -They came, very shortly after. - -There was a galloping of hoofs into the château courts, and a shouting. - -Then came the mass of them, surging into the court, greenish-yellow, -with their loud, snarling voices. - -Claire saw them from the windows over the court; Rémy had gone down to -meet them. - -She came down to the great central hall, not afraid any more. She had -dressed carefully, and arranged her hair specially well. Tall and fine, -she came slowly down the curving staircase, and stopped half-way to -look on what was passing below. - -The German officers seemed to her to be all gigantic creatures; Rémy -looked more than ever small and frail among them. They were commanding, -this way and that, roughly. Rémy stood silent, watching them. His look -was so high and cool, so proud in the bitterness of the moment, that -she drew herself up with pride in him. - -The colonel was speaking with him, and moved toward the door of the -Salle des Miroirs. Rémy stepped before him. "Not there," he said, "two -men are dying in that room." - -Claire came down into the hall and crossed between the officers and -went to stand beside her husband. She was very proud to stand beside -him. Something in her bearing seemed to carry weight with the officers; -they drew back, less insistent before her, from the door of the Salle -des Miroirs. - -Again and again, in the fifteen days that followed, she felt that same -effect of her presence upon them, and knew that it was a help to Rémy. - -In the fifteen days he and she had opportunity for very few words -together, the Germans always watching them suspiciously. - -All the days were full of confusion; Rémy was kept constantly about -with the German officers to arrange for the billeting of the men in the -village, the stabling of horses and motors, interpreting, explaining. -No one but he could get the frightened people, the few there were of -them remaining, to go back to their houses and do the things required -of them. No one but he could protect them, and at the same time see to -it that they gave no offence. The least rousing of the Germans' anger -would, he knew, have to be paid for dreadfully. Their demands were made -at the point of the bayonet. They were angry because the bridge had -been destroyed, and only Rémy's cool, quiet strength of insistence kept -them from carrying out the threat to burn the village in reprisal. To -hold his own, the while obeying as he must obey, yielding this point -and that, submitting, and yet faithfully defending all that depended -on him, was no easy matter of accomplishment. He must keep faith and -dignity, and yet he must not give offence. - -There were very desperate moments when the Germans would be asking -for information, about the telephones and telegraphs, and about the -country, the roads, and the marble quarries, the rebuilding of the -bridge. Such help he could not give them, and there were moments when -his refusal to talk, like his refusal to take a cigarette, risked -everything. - -Claire came to have a special dread of the colonel's fat leather -cigarette-case. Rémy must wave it aside saying, so that his meaning was -quite clear and yet courteous, that he had given up smoking for the -time. The little scene of it was repeated night after night. - -At first the Germans would have him always stand up in their presence. -They would send for him while they dined, and have him stand there -while they questioned and commanded. Then they realized that it was his -wish to stand, that few things would have been more hateful for him -than to have sat down with them. - -After that they would have him and Claire dine with them. They sent for -Claire to come down to the dining-room, where they were already seated -at table and Rémy was standing. She must sit on the colonel's right, -and drink a glass of champagne with him. - -One of the officers called to her down the table, "There is yet left -many a toast we can drink together, the brave and the fair!" - -She thought that Rémy's fury would get the better of him, and she spoke -quickly, before he could speak. She moved quickly between him and the -colonel. - -The colonel, sitting at the head of the table, under the portraits of -generations of Rémy's people, glared up at her as she stood, very tall. - -"You will do as I command you, madame," he said. - -There seemed to be no escape. Desperately chancing it, she said, "But -you will not stoop to command so idly. You know that we have no help -but to obey you. Of what value could be forced obedience to you in so -petty a thing? I know you will not command a thing so trivial and poor." - -And he did not ask it of them. - -Her days as well as Rémy's were crowded. The Germans required so many -things, and there was no one left to serve them. She had only a few -peasant servants to help her. The Germans demanded food, and there -was scarcely anything to give them. Very little could be got in the -emptied village; there was no more meat or bread. These people must -eat, or they would become ugly. She must manage it somehow. She had -to get the bakery started again, and make the villagers understand -that they must give what they had in their little gardens, and their -chickens and the rabbits. Old Jantot at the castle was quite unable to -do the work of the kitchen-gardens and dairies. She worked hard helping -him. - -All the day of the arrival of the Germans she had been pitching hay -from the stable loft to make bedding for the men quartered there; she -scarcely left her work that day, except to go to the funeral of the -soldier who had died in the Salle des Miroirs. - -The curé helped old Jantot to carry him, and she followed them out -through the courts, and past the German guard. - -The two other wounded men in the Salle des Miroirs died while the -strange alien life of the château went on. Three or four people of the -village were ill; one woman and her newly born child died; there was no -one but Claire to help the sage-femme. - -The Germans accused the old curé of signalling from the church tower. -They took him into the market-place, with a rope tied round his neck, -to hang him, they said, under the plane-tree by the fountain. Rémy -stood by him, risking everything to make them delay a few minutes. - -Claire found the colonel; she never could remember what she said, -how she pleaded. But the colonel said, "If we find these things true -against him, then it will be your husband who will hang for it." - -In one of the rare moments when they were alone together, Rémy said -something which gave her more pleasure to hear than anything that had -ever been told her before. He told her that but for her he did not -think he could possibly endure it, that only her presence there, so -brave and strong, the one thing left in the world, gave him strength to -go on. - -He had come up to her room, a small tower room she had withdrawn to -when the Germans arrived. It was late in the evening, the room was -almost dark, and she had lighted two candles on the little table, by -the window, where she was having bread and soup on a tray. He had had -scarcely anything to eat all day, and she made him share the soup and -the bread. They laughed because he was really hungry. Cut off from -the world, completely alone together in the most intense isolation, -having no one, nothing, left, either of them, but each the other, in a -world terrible beyond belief, they laughed together because he was so -absurdly hungry. - -They knew nothing but what the Germans told them of things that were -happening in the world. - -How could they believe such things? They did not believe, and yet to -hear them said! - -Fifteen days passed, that they could not have lived through if there -had not been so much for them to do in every moment, and if they had -not had each of them the comfort and support of the other's presence. -Fifteen days passed, of helplessness and dread, almost despair. - -Then, in one day, something was changed for the Germans; there was no -knowing what it was; their mood took on a new ugliness. - -It was that day that some of the men hanged Claire's St. Bernard puppy. -They hanged him on the terrace from the branch of the big chestnut tree -and left him there. Claire came up through the park from the village -and found him. They never knew why the men had done it; it seemed so -small and useless a thing to have done. - -For two days she and Rémy were kept as prisoners, allowed to leave -their rooms only attended by a soldier, and not to go to the village at -all. There seemed to be a great confusion and commotion in the village -and in the castle, but no explanation was given them. - -Then, in one night, the Germans were gone. - -Village and castle were left empty for scarcely a morning, and then -came French troops, in hot pursuit from the victory of the Marne. - -From the victory of the Marne--there had been a victory, a great -victory! What a thing to hear, after their almost hopeless days! -Hopelessness had been so black and close about them. And now it was -lifted, dispersed, in a moment, by a word. Here come their own people -crying victory. In their own tongue, their own men, dressed in blue, -told them of victory. - -Those things the Germans had said were not true. They had never -believed, but now they knew. To think of looking into the faces of -friends, of talking with friends! The humblest little soldier was a -friend, the most wonderful of all things. - -Rémy, who had all his life been distant and cold, was inexpressibly -happy to wring a friend's hand, and sit with him, or pace the floor -with him, and smoke with him. - -What a pleasure to give all one had to friends! - -How happy Claire was to help scrub and cook for friends! - -It was a madness of relief and joy. - -There was little time for thinking about it though. The new possession -of the château was a desperately risky thing. - -But these were friends, to suffer with and die with, if need be. -Nothing could be as terrible as in those past days of isolation among -enemies. Among friends they met what came. - -In a few hours death and destruction were upon everything. And then, -day after day, day after day, the battle raged along the river and -under the edge of the hills; the sound of the cannon grew to be a -familiar part of the nights and days; the screech of a shell was no -longer strange. - -The Germans had withdrawn to the strongholds of the marble quarries, -just above the village. The village was crossed by the two fires. The -poor people were killed in their little houses. - -Men who went up on the château roofs to reconnoitre, were brought back -dead. An officer was killed by a shell on the terrace, under the big -chestnut tree. - -Claire had to leave her tower room, and next day it had fallen with -all the roofs of the east wing of the castle. Two men were killed in -the fall of the east wing roofs, and the chestnut tree of the terrace, -that had shaded generations of pleasant dreaming, was struck down under -falling of tiles and stone. - -They established the staff of the Etat-Major for greater safety in the -cellars. - -More than half the village was destroyed in those days. Claire and her -husband lodged the homeless people as best they could in the dairy, the -ground floor of the château was already crowded with the officers, and -the stables and farm-buildings with the men. - -For Rémy and Claire there was left one room, not too exposed, on the -first floor. - -From the window of it, together, one night, they watched the burning -of a village over across the valley. It was a village of nearly all -thatched roofs: it must have caught fire from the shells, and in that -one night it was burnt to the ground. - -As she and Rémy stood in the window, with nothing left about them but -ruin and death, she remembered how, just before all this, they had -thought they were come to the end of their life together; they had -thought they were nothing to one another any more. And then suddenly -they had come to be everything to each other. How could they either of -them have borne it without the other? - -Now their intense, their desperate solitude, together, was at an end. -Others had come to share with them the burden of these things. There -were others to whom they could turn now for comradeship. All of it was -horrible, but now the world was again about them, life was opening its -ways again. - -She wondered, standing there by him, if, when some day the dreadful -sounds of war were ceased and there was given them a chance to take -up what they might of life again and go on with it--would they go on -with it together? She wondered if he knew of what she was thinking as -they stood there side by side? They had now become used to feeling one -another's thoughts. - -She was thinking that surely, after this, whatever happened they would -have to go on with it together? They had gone through too much together -ever again to break away. She would not have it otherwise, oh, not for -all the world would she have had it otherwise. But she was wondering, -if the great need passed, and life became small again, would they -be changed enough? Would all this they had gone through have given -them greatness enough to face, down length of days, the little things -together? - - -Hospital, Monday, June 12th - -We never see them well. As soon as they are better at all they send -them downstairs to the convalescent ward, and from there they are -marked for other hospitals, and in a day or two, one morning, I come to -find them gone. The men who were evacuated at the beginning of Verdun -did not even make the halt of the ward downstairs. And now those first -Verdun men are gone, all but the very worst of them, to make place for -men from, we don't know where. - -The boy with the almond-shaped eyes is one of those who are left. -He was much better for days, and now he has gone down again. He is -tuberculous, and that is why he never will get well. He lies sunk down -in the bed, a very small heap with closed eyes and one cheek always -bright red. His father and mother have come up from the country, from -somewhere in Normandy; they sit together beside his bed and look at -him. His mother wears a dress of the richest black silk, that must -have been the gala dress of her family for two or three generations, -and a cap of lace that the smartest lady in Paris would be proud of. -His father wears a black satin Sunday smock, of which the yoke is -embroidered wonderfully. They have dressed themselves in their very -best to come and sit by their boy, who scarcely notices them. - -I like to think how happily the new Number 4--we call them all new -since Verdun began--went off, with his one leg. He will have a -wooden stick leg and be able to get about splendidly in his meadows -of the High Loire. To-day he showed me a little photograph of his -wife, in close-bound muslin cap and folded neckerchief. Her face is -like the face of the Madonna in the simple calm pure paintings of the -old masters. I said, "She is perfectly beautiful." He said, "Oh, no, -madame, she is only a peasant, and not young. It is not even a good -photograph. And it is all cracked and rubbed, madame sees, because I -have worn it all the time of the war, sewn in my coat." - -Little Charles is always left--poor little Charles, well used to the -confusion of departures and arrivals. - -As I was leaving to-day at noon, the mother and father of the boy with -the almond-shaped eyes got up from beside his bed and stopped me. The -father, who has almond-shaped eyes too, asked if they might have a word -with me when no one could hear. Their gala finery made them the more -pathetic, confused, and timid, strangers in such strange times and -place. - -We went out into the corridor, the three of us, and stood by the door -of Madame Bayle's linen-room. - -The father asked me, whispering, if I thought that the people of the -hospital were fond of the boy? He said that he and the mother were -obliged to go back that night to the farm, and did I think that these -people they must leave their boy with were fond of him? - - -Saturday, June 24th - -The boy with the almond-shaped eyes is dead. He died day before -yesterday. I have been ill and not at the hospital these days, and I -did not know. I went back to the hospital only this afternoon. - -His father and mother arrived too late, this morning. They had had -scarcely time to reach the farm in Normandy, when one of the house -doctors, a kind man, wrote to tell them to come back. At the bureau -they made a mistake in the address they gave the doctor, and his letter -was returned to him in the post the day before the boy died. The doctor -telegraphed then, but it was too late. - -I do not know who told the father and mother when they came this -morning. I do not know where they are to-day--this day so terrible -for them in the great strange city. I would have liked to find them. -Madame Marthe says they were surely allowed to go and see their boy, -where he is, but not to stay with him. - -I think of them, peasant people, confused and strange in city streets, -frightened, belonging to no one, terribly alone, with nowhere to go in -their grief. Where are they gone in their grief? They, to whom nothing -has ever been explained, who are so unable to tell or to ask. - - -Sunday, June 25th - -I was going to the chapel with my flowers, but I met Madame Marthe in -the archway of our court, and she told me it was not there that I would -find him. We went together around behind the chapel and past buildings -that I had never seen before, of the immense world of the hospital. -What a dreadful world in this June sunshiny morning! - -A steep, dusty road goes up past outbuildings of the hospital, -workshops, and yards, where there were some green things growing, and -at the top there were a lot of our soldiers waiting at the door of a -low, long house. My poor little hobbling, lopsided blue soldiers, with -their bandages and slings and canes and crutches! I think they are so -beautiful. - -The doors of the house were open. Up two steps, and there were the -father and mother, in their black silk and satin, standing beside the -boy. They were perfectly quiet. The strange thing about the grief one -sees in these days, everywhere, is that always it is so perfectly -quiet. The boy looked just as one had seen him so often, sleeping, with -his almond eyes closed. Only there was no fever in his cheeks any more. - -The black hearse came up the road with several croquemorts and eight -Republican Guards; they had two crossed palms for the boy, and the flag -to cover him, and the black wooden cross that was to mark his grave. - -We followed down the road and across the courts and out of the hospital -gates. - -The Sunday morning market was busy and noisy outside in the street, -but a silence seemed to form itself around us as we went between the -barrows and booths of summer country things. Then we went along a wide -avenue that was empty, where the sound of the wheels of the hearse and -of the horses' hoofs seemed solemn and monotonous, and as if it were -something that never would cease. The boy's father and mother trudged -ahead sturdily, with the strong gait of peasants from the fields, and -my wounded dragged along, already tired. It was a long way from the -hospital to the church. - -There were many people in the street of the church, and on the church -steps, and the church inside was crowded. It is the church of an -irreligious quarter, but it was crowded. - -A big Suisse with his mace led us along the aisle, through the throng -of people who stood back from us, to the chapel of Our Lady, behind the -high altar. Many of the Suisses of the churches of this quarter are -gendarmes, needed because the roughs who come into the church would -often make disturbance. The big Suisse had the air of a gendarme, -ordering us. - -But now the boy's mother and father were in a place they understood. -There was no need to order them. They knew just what to do. They had -been uncertain elsewhere, timid and bewildered, in the hospital, in the -streets, but in the church they were at home. - -The boy's mother motioned me into a chair behind hers. She and I were -the only women: Madame Marthe had had to go back to her work in the -ward. I knelt where she told me to kneel. The boy's father helped the -wounded into the chairs across the chapel aisle from us, and took his -place in front of them. In the aisle, between his father and mother, -the boy had his four lighted tapers and his crossed palms and the flag -of his country. - -The priest who said the office was old, and fumbled and murmured. I was -glad that he was slow. It gave a longer time for the father and mother -to rest and be comforted. - -The Suisse was rather in a hurry at the end of it, perhaps there was -another funeral waiting. He would have had us follow the priest out -quickly. - -But the boy's mother would stop to kneel by the boy for a little -moment, there before the altar of the Blessed Virgin. The boy's father -came and knelt also, on the floor of the aisle. - -Two calm figures, they knelt there, the Suisse could not hurry them. -Those who would have carried their boy away stood and waited. We stood -back and waited. The stir up and down of people outside the chapel -gates went on, and all the stirs of the church and the streets and the -world. - -The two calm figures knelt, for the moment they were, with their -sorrow, at peace; not strangers here, but at home in the house of that -which did not confuse or frighten them. - - -The Stain - -The maid, who had been Giselle's nurse so short a time ago, opened the -library door and announced, unwillingly, one could see, "Madame la -Marquise de St. Agnan, Madame la Comtesse." - -Giselle, in her heavy mourning, stood up from the chair by the window. -She did not go forward to meet Paule. - -"It is sweet of you to see me," said Paule, crossing the room to her, -slender and tall and lovely. - -The baby-boy and girl who had been playing with some wooden toy -soldiers on the floor in a corner, both scrambled up and trotted over -to their mother. - -Paule had never seen them before. She wanted to take them both in her -arms and hold them tight. She thought she could never have let the boy -go. - -But Giselle said to the maid, "Honorine, please take the children to -Miss." - -They went out with the old woman, who closed the door. - -"It was very sweet of you to let me come," repeated Paule, because she -had to say something. It was harder than she had thought possible. - -"I have seen no one at all," said Giselle. "But your letter--I don't -know--I wondered----" - -They stood looking at one another. Of course, they did not touch one -another's hands. - -Suddenly the room seemed to swim about Paule, there was a surging in -her ears. She said, "May I sit down?" - -"But I beg you! I am sorry, I can't seem to think of things. Here in -the window?" - -Paule dragged the chair out of the light of the sunshiny June morning -into the shadow of the curtain. She was wearing a heavy white lace -veil, but she did not want to face the sunshine. - -Giselle threw herself into the chair where she had been sitting before. -Her crape and the traces of many tears upon her face only made her look -the more pathetically young. - -"You wondered," said Paule, "if my letter were true, really; if it were -possible that I could honestly write like that of him?" - -Giselle nodded her head, not speaking. - -Paule saw that it would not have been possible for her to speak. She -saw, what she had been sure she would see, that the younger woman was -suffering intensely. She realized, more than ever what the thing meant -to her Bernard's wife; how for her everything of her memory of him, the -memory she was to keep with her all her life, depended on what she -was to learn in this hour. All the memory she was to keep of her dead -husband depended on it. That she might remember him with tenderness -and solace and peace; or that it must be always with uncertainty and -restlessness, and bitter thoughts. To be able to mourn him fully, -fearlessly; or to go on always tormenting herself with doubt. It was of -desperate importance to her. Paule saw that. She knew that the younger -woman kept silent because she could not speak, not because of any -realization she had of the advantage silence gave her. - -Giselle, silent, waited. - -The older woman, braving the silence, took the thing up. - -"You are going to believe what I tell you. I don't know why you should -believe me, but you will. They all talk of it, but I am the only one -who really knows. And I have got to tell you. The things they say -are true, but with such a difference. I must make you understand the -difference. Since the moment Dolly told me that you knew, I have known -that I must make you understand. I cannot let you misunderstand him -when he is dead." - -She was holding her parasol across her knees, her hands in their soft -tan gloves clutching the two ends of it very tight. - -"It is rather terribly hard for me to tell you," she said, "harder -even than for you to listen. Remember that, if I seem to go over it -cruelly." She stopped, and Giselle nodded again. - -"I must go over it," Paule went on, speaking very fast now, "so that we -can have it all clear between us. Don't you see? He came home here for -six days' leave. He told you he had six days' leave. When he went, at -the end of those six days, you thought it was back to the front he was -gone. Then, _three days after he left you_, he was killed in a bayonet -charge. And his colonel, and some of his friends, said, writing to you -and to other people of him, that it was especially sad to think he had -been killed the _very day he came back from his leave_. So you knew -that his leave had been of eight days, that he had had two days' extra -leave of which he had not told you, spent, you did not know where, or -with whom. And then it happened Dolly spoke to you of seeing him with -me in Evreux the _very_ day before he was killed. And so you knew. She -had spoken of it to lots of people--the way people always say, you -know, 'and I saw him only the day before.' And so every one knew. And -you knew. But I have got to make you understand." - -She let go her parasol and, leaning forward into the sunshine, threw -her veil back from her face with her two hands. "I will let you see how -I have suffered," she said, "it is written for you in my face." She was -glad to have the younger woman see how much of her beauty was gone. -"And that I loved him. You know--I must let you know--that I loved him. -I loved him when you were a little schoolroom girl. And he did love -me then." She drew herself up with a sudden flaming of pride. "I will -give myself the comfort of saying that he loved me before he knew you, -Giselle." The flame died down instantly, and she leaned forward, almost -beseechingly. The parasol had fallen to the floor. "But he never loved -me afterwards. From the moment he saw you--I was with him at somebody's -dance the first time he saw you--I knew that for me everything was -finished. Everything was swept away by his love of you. You know that, -don't you?" - -"I believed it then," said Giselle, speaking at last, "then, and all -the time, in spite of all the things that people said, until this." - -"There was one thing I never let go," Paule went on; "it was the -pitying, protecting tenderness a man who is good like Bernard always -continues to feel for the woman he once loved and who goes on loving -him. I kept that alive, I kept him being sorry for me. There's -reason enough in my life for any one to be sorry for me. And I kept -him feeling that he must protect me, protect me from the blackness of -sorrow that, I let him know always, there was in my heart." - -Giselle had turned from her, as if she could not look at her, and sat -staring out of the window to the tops of the trees in the avenue. Her -cheeks were burning, as if the shame of the miserable confession were -her own. - -"Do you not see, oh, do you not see?" begged the other woman. - -There was a dreadful silence. - -Paule took it up again. "And the last thing was the accumulation of the -shame and misery of years. I wish I could make you see, a little, what -it meant to me, that you might not quite despise me. I suppose there is -no excuse. But it had been so dreadful, down there in the country, with -my husband, as he is, you know, ill, needing me, hating me, wanting me -every moment. And all these terrible months of war, nearly two years, -never seeing Bernard, scarcely hearing of him. I made him come. I made -him come by telling him that I was in desperate trouble, that if he did -not come I could not face it. I told him he must tell no one, not even -you: that my trouble was a thing I must keep secret. Against his will, -just by abuse of his kindness I made him give me those two days. I want -you to quite, quite understand that it was only that I loved him, that -he loved you. And that those two days were my theft of time he wanted -to give all to you." - -"Oh, don't, don't!" cried Giselle, breaking into it. "You need not tell -me any more." She covered her face with her hands, as if it were she -who was ashamed. - -"Some day you will wonder why I have told you," Paule said, "why any -woman should so humiliate herself down to the dust. It is because -you have the right to a beautiful memory of him. You must keep that -beautiful memory of him for yourself and for his children. It belongs -to you, and to his home, and to his children. Never doubt him, Giselle, -and let your sorrow be a beautiful sorrow, because he loved you as you -loved him, perfectly. And in death he is yours. That is all." - -She stopped and picked up her parasol. It was a green parasol. She -looked from its bright colour to Giselle's black dress. She shivered a -little and stood up. - -Giselle took her hands away from her eyes and stood up, too. - -Paule would have turned and gone out of the room, but Giselle caught -her hands and held her, and lifted up her young face from which the -tortured look was gone. She was crying, but tenderly. - -For an instant it seemed as if Paule would have drawn away from her. -But then she bent from her lovely height and kissed the younger woman. -Then she went away. - -Giselle did not go to the door with her. Old Honorine let her out of -the apartment. - -She went down the stairs and out into the avenue, where the leaves of -the trees made large shadows. - -As she walked very wearily, she did not know where, she was telling -herself that it was over, that she had done what she could. She had -made poor little Giselle believe her. She had given him to Giselle. - -The avenue ahead of her seemed very, very long. She wondered if she -would ever get to the end of it. Her thoughts seemed confused. She -wondered what there was so cruel about Giselle's black dress and her -own green parasol with the parrot handle. She would manage somehow to -make the world believe that story she had told Giselle. She had given -him to Giselle to mourn for. Perhaps that would wipe out some of it. - - -From Verdun - -He was grown so used to his mud-hole, and the straw, and the mushrooms, -and rats, that when he was come into the salon of the house in the Parc -Monceau, and the butler he never had seen before had closed the door -behind him saying, in odd French, that he would go and tell Madame la -Comtesse, he just stood there in the middle of the room and laughed. -He stood there, just as he had come out of the trenches, a most -disreputable figure that once had been blue, and laughed to think that -it was to this, all this, he really belonged. This was his house, and -his wife would be coming in a moment into the room. - -The room smelled of sandal-wood and amber. Things in it were of black -lacquer and mauve velvet and dull gold. There were lots of books about -on low tables, and Dolly's gold and amber cigarette things, and white -roses, just the heads broken off, floating in flat bowls of smoky jade. -How like Dolly to have cut off the long stems of the roses and their -lovely thorns and leaves! He really must not laugh. There was one -flame-red vase with a white spirit orchid in it. - -Then Dolly came in, as fragile and pale and lovely as the orchid. It -was ten months since he had seen her. How delightfully her hair was -done, and her fingers, rose-tipped like sea-shells! She came to him, -her flower-face lifted. - -He said, "Oh, my dear, I am so dirty." - -Some one had followed her into the room, a woman in deep mourning. It -was the little Juriac, Lisette de Juriac, and she was quite unchanged. -Not even her heavy crape changed her. How was it possible that she was -not changed? How could she still be beautiful? - -She came forward saying, "I was here with Dolly; I could not go, and -not see you. I must stop just a moment to speak to you." - -He took her hand and held it, and did not know what to say to her. He -was seeing again that which he had seen not six weeks ago. He had seen -many men die horribly, horribly. But if he thought too much of how his -friend, her husband, had died, kept too vividly, too long, seeing it, -he would go mad. Why was she not gone mad? She had loved her husband, -who had loved her. They had been happy together. - -He had a sudden hatred of her because she was not gone mad. Because -there was some becoming white thing about her face to soften the -harshness of the crape, and because there were pearls around her -throat; he had a crazy desire to take her, his two hands clutching her -shoulders, and tell her how René died, tell her the horror, burnt, -burnt, burnt, make her see what he could not stop seeing. Because of -the white frill and the pearls, he wanted to make her see it and feel -it, and go down crushed under the realization of it. He would have made -her ugly, as suffering makes ugly. When she was ugly he would believe -she suffered. He could not move or speak, for he would have seized her -and told her. - -She was saying, "You were with him in the attack, you saw him fall, -and you went back and tried to save him." She had her black gloves and -parasol in her hand, and a little black bag, soft, like the gloves. She -was trying to open the little black bag to get something out of it. She -was beginning to cry. - -Dolly, saying, "Poor dear, poor dear," took the gloves and parasol from -her and found a scrap of a handkerchief for her in the bag. "Poor dear, -poor dear." She put her arm around Lisette and patted her eyes with the -tiny handkerchief. "Darling, it was a glorious death, you know, like -that, in action, beautiful, the death he would have chosen. Jacques, -tell her." - -Tell her? He was trying not to tell her. He stood there looking at his -friend's wife and trying not to tell her of the hands that had moved -and moved, beating and beating the air. - -"Tell her how fearless he was," Dolly was saying, "and how proud she -must be of him." - -Oh, yes, there was that. He thought of the words they always use. He -said, "He died for his country." - -She was crying only a little, but with really piteous tears. He knew -that after a while, when he was himself a little farther from it, -he would be sorry for her. Her dimpled chin quivered and her throat -throbbed under the pearls. She looked at him, her eyes big with tears, -and, half sobbing, said, "You were with him just before the attack, the -last to speak with him." - -"Yes, we were together." - -She was waiting for him to tell her something. But there was nothing -to tell her. He had again that other craziness. Now he was afraid that -he would laugh. They had been crouching behind a heap of dead men, in -the terrible dusk of cannon smoke and the noise that never ceased. He -remembered they had been eating something. There had risen a wild, -strange shriek through the noise of the cannon, and they had leaped up, -had shrieked, and been over the sandbags. - -Lisette was waiting, and while he tried to think, she said, "Was he -speaking of me? Were his last words for me?" - -"He was always thinking of you, I know, Lisette." That he could say -eagerly, intensely--only why need she have it put into words? "You were -his whole life, Lisette." - -She lifted her head with a quite perfect gesture, and smiled, her eyes -bright, the tears gone from them. "I was his whole life," she said, -"and he died for his country." There was no more sob in her voice. She -said, "He was so young and splendid, and he had always been so happy. -He had so much to live for. He gave up so much with his life for his -country. He leaves such a beautiful memory. I can say, 'His life was -the woman who loved him, and for his country he died.' It is beautiful. -That is the only comfort of it all, that it is beautiful." She broke -off and began again, "I'm glad I saw you, Jacques, you have helped me, -I'm so unhappy." She put the little handkerchief back in the bag, and -took up her gloves and parasol. "Now I will leave you," she said. "Poor -boy, you must be too tired to talk. How wonderful for Dolly to have -you! Perhaps you will come with her to-morrow--they have persuaded me -to lend my ballroom for just a little music for the blind. Dolly dear, -you'll not fail me? You know I count on you to look after people. I am -going to hide away in some little corner. Isn't it strange," she said -to Jacques, "how life goes on?" - -Dolly and he went to the door with her. There was no one in the big -hall. - -Dolly said, "That man is really too stupid." - -Lisette said, "You are lucky to have a man-servant at all." - -"What a lovely sunset!" said Dolly in the open door. - -"Yes," said Lisette, "isn't it?" - -"Your car is there?" - -"Yes; good-bye, Dolly darling; good-bye, Jacques, and thank you." - -As they turned back from the door, Dolly said, "Poor little thing, -isn't she lovely in her mourning?" - -She put her arm through his as they went across the hall together. "I'm -so glad to have you, Jacques," she said, "you can't imagine, and I'm so -proud of you. You don't forget me there, Jacques; you love me just as -you always did?" - -He was thinking. Six days' leave, perhaps two days extended. In nine -days Dolly might be wearing a little white frill inside a veil of heavy -crape, and just her pearls. And she would say to people that he had -been all her life, and that it was the death he would have chosen. And -in six weeks she would let the salon be used for just a little music -for the blind. - -"Do you know," she said as they went up the stairs together, "it was -most beautiful, that thing Lisette said, her little summing up of it: -'His whole life was the woman who loved him, and for his country he -died.' It made me think, you know, of Dante, those four lines of Pia -dei Tolomei." - -At the top of the stairs she turned to him, a step or two above him, -standing higher than he. "Look at me, Jacques, and tell me I have not -changed, and that you love me. What are you laughing at?" - -"Nothing." He came up the steps and took her hands, and kissed the -fingers of first one hand then the other. "These last weeks I have been -always laughing; you must not mind. And, dear, I'm so glad you do your -hair like that, and remember things from Dante, and play with the tips -of roses, and that you do not understand." - - -Sunday, July 2nd - -Last night Paris streets heard the cannon of the great prelude. The -breeze, that was fresh and sweet from the country, brought in the -sound of the cannon. In the silence of the night the streets listened. -It was a sound regular and even. If Time were a great clock the sound -of its ticking would be like that, on and on. If there were one great -pulse that beat for all the life of the world, its throb would be like -that, unceasing, relentless. It seemed like something that had always -been, that always would be. It seemed as if one were used to it, had -always been accustomed to the burden of sound that, the whole night -through, the sweet fresh breeze brought in to Paris, and would have to -go on bearing it always. - -But when the city stopped listening, and took up its way again with the -morning, the sound of the battle was lost in the small immediate sounds -of the day's life. - -In the trees I look to from my window, there was a great disturbance of -birds, field birds and forest birds, driven into the city by the smoke -and thunder that possess their land. - -My hospital is almost empty. In all the wards there are waiting rows -of empty beds, a nightshirt folded on each pillow. Rows of empty beds -waiting---- - - -Monday, July 3rd - -This is a dark day, the colour of battles, for battles are not of -scarlet and gold, only dark. - -It is as if the darkness of the day and the darkness of the smoke of -battle are terribly mingled together. - - -Tuesday, July 4th - -The people who went to that church were proud, they were very proud of -him, he had died so beautifully. Each one of them was proud to say, "He -was my friend," or "I knew his people," or "I saw him once," or just, -"He was an American." He had died for an ideal they all had sight of. - -It was only a memorial service. There were only the two flags, the flag -of France and the Stars and Stripes, in the aisle before the altar. He -was lying somewhere inside the enemy lines, as he had fallen. - -They of the air, they go so far; and if they fall, it is perhaps a -little more sad and lonely because it may be where no one of their own -can go to them. Perhaps the enemy have laid a wreath there on the -place where he fell, as they do sometimes, those men of the air, to -honour one another's memory. They say on the inscription of the wreaths -sometimes: "To our enemy who died for his country." For this boy they -would need to say another thing, "To our enemy who died for his ideal." -I think that we, in the church, were not sorry, but were glad for him, -that we were envying him--we who only live. - - -Invaded Town, Wednesday, July 5th - -To-day I was shown a letter that came--I was not told by what -means--from one of the invaded towns of the North. It was the letter -of a girl who with her father kept an old book-shop in the Place de -l'Eglise. It was written to her sister, married in Paris, from whom -they had had no news since the war began, but to whom they had managed -to get word through--I do not know how--once or twice. - -The letter, received only yesterday, was dated January 16. It told of -a thing that had been vaguely rumoured here, that the papers had not -mentioned, and that had passed for the most part unbelieved. The girl -supposed her sister would have heard, and would be terrified for them, -and was anxious to let her know that they were safe. I imagine the girl -with a smooth blonde head and grave blue eyes, and the father, thin -and stooping, with delicate white features and white hair, and a black -skull-cap. - -The letter began by saying that they were very well, and that the house -was but slightly damaged. Aunt Emeline was with them, as her house was -quite in ruins: she had been got out from behind the falling of the -stair wall. It was impossible to go to the house of Cousine Thérèse, -but she was safe with the children at the neighbour Payen's. The whole -family had escaped miraculously. The girl said that in the midst of -such terrible suffering they were ashamed to have suffered scarcely at -all. It seemed as if they were not bearing their part of the sacrifice. - -She had thought, that night, it was the house falling, and she had -leaped out of bed, thinking she must go to her father. The shock had -lasted ten seconds. She had had time to get in the dark half-way across -the rocking floor, and to realize it was not only the house but the -whole city that was rent and sundered. She had had time to think, "It -must be an earthquake." - -"That is what _they_ tried, at first, to say it was," she wrote, "an -earthquake. _But we know that it was an explosion brought about by one -of us._ It was the Arsenal and the casemates of the eighteen bridges -full of powder, between the three chief gates of the town, that were -blown up. It was one of their most important depôts of munitions, -where they had stored enough powder and high explosives to feed their -Northern army for ten months. No one knows who did it. They have posted -up offers of high reward for any one who finds the author of what they -now call 'the criminal accident.' - -"In all the towns of the North, where windows were broken and doors -torn out of their frames, and where it was at first thought to be -an earthquake, they have now put up posters on the walls, in their -language and ours, demanding information about the 'criminal.' - -"But even if there are some who know, not one will betray. Moreover, he -is surely safe from betrayal, dead and buried somewhere under the ruins -he himself caused for the sake of his country." - -The letter went on to tell of the town so sacrificed: streets and -quarters destroyed entirely, not a house anywhere but was more or less -injured, the least harmed streets deep in broken glass and blocked with -fallen tiles and stones. The whole town was become a place of homeless -and wounded and dead. - -The young girl kept repeating that no one complained; it was for the -sake of their country. The homeless people in the streets said to one -another, "It is less than our soldiers suffer in the trenches." - -She wrote of things she had seen in that night: a father carrying his -boy, of perhaps fifteen years, in his arms, not believing he was dead; -a woman they could not get near, under the ruins, alive, her child -killed beside her; a woman gone mad, running in the streets, shrieking -a man's name; another woman, running also, with her baby in her arms, -begging every one she met to mend it, for its head had been cut off. - -All the less unhappy people had taken in the homeless; of the -inhabitants of all the ruined houses, by the next night less than fifty -were left to the care of the town. - -The girl wrote: "The people of the town are admirable, the homeless -with the rest; we know that the sacrifice is for our country, and we -make it gladly. The terrible suffering of the town is offered up for -victory and peace." - -She went on to tell of little things: "Your room we have given to a -mother with three babies; I have Aunt Emeline with me, sleeping in -father's room, for mine is not safe--the roof of the next house has -fallen against its roof. Father sleeps in the room behind the shop, -and in the shop we have found place to take in ten of the destitute. -The shock threw most of the books out of their cases, and loosened the -cases from the walls, so that we have had to prop them up. The books -are heaped out of the way of the mattresses of the homeless. I thought -father would worry about the books; you know, he has always felt them -to be live things; but he has no thought for them. He is in the Place -all day, trying to help clear away the glass and stones. The tower of -the church has fallen all across the Place. All the windows in the town -are broken, and there is no glass to be had for mending them. We live -behind paper windows, in a gloom that does depress one." - -The letter went from one subject to another, nervously and rather -confusedly. She told of immense blocks of stone, hurled from great -distances into the streets; of the fronts of houses ripped out, and the -stories dropped or sagging; of Aunt Emeline's poor little belongings -all lost--the portrait of great-grandfather; how the enormous factories -of ---- and ---- had served as a screen to protect the town, or else it -had been destroyed completely; of one of the little homeless children -in the book-shop who kept all the time saying her prayers, "Little -Jesus, stay with us; little Jesus, stay with us," and how her name was -Cecilette; of the bitter cold that made it all more cruel; and, always, -how they were proud to offer up the sacrifice for their country. -She sent her love, and her father's, always more and more tenderly. -It seemed as if their love for Mariette, of whom they had no word, -increased every day. She kept saying over and over how proud the town -was, to have made the sacrifice; and what a brave thing for, perhaps, -one man alone to have brought about. - - -That Naughty Little Boy - -It was that naughty little boy who was killed, to whose funeral she -went this morning in the church of St. Augustin. That naughty little -boy--grown up, wandered far, always a "bad case," come home because -there was war, and gone out with the rest--is dead magnificently. - -He was shot down leading an attack upon the works of Thiaumont; they -say his men would have followed him anywhere. Think of that naughty -little boy, grown up to become a leader men were proud to follow unto -death! - -He used to pull her hair, and pinch her, and make faces to frighten her -until she cried. His Miss never could manage him. His Miss and hers -were friends, as were his mother and her mother, and she was obliged to -play with him. She was terrified of him, but he had wonderful toys that -she adored, especially the popgun and rocking-horses. Sometimes when he -was being punished, she was left alone with his toys, and was happy. -Sometimes he would be nice for a minute, and want to kiss and make up, -and let her ride the big rocking-horse. - -She was remembering it all this morning in the church. - -Through all the years between she had never seen him, and for her he -was still the bad little boy. It was the big rocking-horse she was -particularly remembering in the church. - -There was a crowd in the church. There was a whole firmament of -candles; the church was hung with flags, and full of flowers. The -tricolour and the palms were laid upon his bier. And upon the bier also -there was laid his blue cap and jacket, stained and faded and torn by -shell, and his Croix de Guerre and Légion d'Honneur. - -There were all his people in the church, mourning for him. For years -none of them had seen him or spoken of him. But now they were all come -to do him honour. The world, that had turned a cold shoulder on him, -was come to kneel beside his blue jacket and his medals. - -She remembered vaguely hearing something about some woman he had loved, -and who had loved him, for whom he had been exiled. She wondered if -that woman had been in the church, that woman who could have no place -among his people. If she were there, it must have been in the dusk of -some aisle chapel, apart and alone. - -Naughty little boy, despair of every governess; mauvais sujet, who had -erred so far out of the paths of his world; soldier of France, who -fought and led and fell--there he had lain in state, honoured of all, -under his flag and palms. - -Now it is over, the bad and the good of it, and of all is left only the -blue cap and jacket, and the medals of war. - - -Little Mild Gentleman - -The little mild gentleman of teacups and cakes--so useful when there -were people who simply had to be asked--always ready to fill a place, -considerate of old ladies--of course, they did not want him at the -Front. He had rather bad lungs, or something, and was shortsighted at -that; it was absurd of him even to try to get out--no army doctor would -pass him. - -After months and months of effort, he at last succeeded in getting -himself taken on for ammunition work and the making of poison gases. - -Somebody met him the other day, strutting along in his blue coat and -red trousers. Very hurried and important, he had yet to stop and -tell all about it, his tea-party manner quite vanished away, his -shortsighted eyes no longer mild. - -"It is I who tell you," he said, "I who know well, there will not a -single one of them be left alive within miles and miles of this new -stuff we are making." - - -Gossip - -Since his death she has been nursing in a typhus hospital, somewhere -just behind the lines. It is now more than ten months. No one has seen -her, scarcely any one has heard from her. Some people say that she is -doing "wonderful work" and some people say that it is all pose, and -some people say that she has an affair with the chief doctor of the -hospital, or is it with the maire of the town? No one has seen her, but -every one says she has lost her looks. - -She used to be very pretty, and a great favourite in the world. She -looked absurdly like her two babies. - -The babies are at the château with their grandmother, his mother, who -is an invalid--two lovely cherubs at the age of Russian blouses. - -The house off the Avenue du Bois, that used to be one of the most -charming in Paris, has been closed since the war. - -He enlisted when the war broke out, as a common soldier of infantry. -It certainly was chic of him, for he was réformé because of some grave -enough trouble of the heart, and he might easily have kept out of it -all, or have got something showy but not dangerous. However, he took a -humble place, and his share of great hardship. He had been accustomed -all his life to everything that belongs to wealth and rank, and his -share of the burden must have been very heavy for him. - -People said: How proud of him she must be. He had always been thought a -little dull, a dear boy, but perhaps a little dull; one would not have -dreamed he had it in him. - -People said: They had always been such a devoted couple, an ideal -young couple. How sad it would be if anything happened to him. - -In spite of the difficulties due to his being réformé, he got out at -last to the Front. He was wounded only a short time after, not in any -attack, or with any glory, but in bringing up the comrades' soup to the -trenches. It was a shell wound in the thigh, not especially dangerous. -He was invalided straight through to Paris, to one of the big city -hospitals, and put, of course, in the ward with other common soldiers. - -It was a moment of terrible crowding of the hospitals: doctors and -nurses were overworked; there was necessarily much confusion. It was no -one's fault, perhaps, only the inevitableness of things, that for three -days the Surgeon Major had no time himself to attend to the less badly -wounded. - -The man with the wound in the thigh asked nothing of any one. He did -not even ask, they say, to have his people sent for. - -They were all down at the château; it was only after forty-eight hours -that they got word of what had happened to him and where he was. - -His wife came up to town. His mother, of course, was not able to come, -and it had not seemed worth while to bring the little boys. - -That was when he had been for two days in the hospital. - -Here is a part of the thing that people say they do not understand. - -It seems as if his wife might have had him moved out of the common -ward. It is a little dreadful to think of him there, who had always -been used to so much luxury--among the grey blankets, the coarse grey -sheets, the beds and stretcher-beds crowded together, a bottle of the -hospital champagne on the night-table, the black man in the next bed -screaming. She might, it would seem, have had in their own doctor, or -any one of the big doctors. She surely might have got permission to -stay in the ward and sit by him the night he died. - -He died the night after the operation. They had amputated too late. -It was only the third day that the chief saw him. They amputated next -morning, and he died in the night. - -In that hospital they do not put a screen about the bed of one who dies. - -If only some one had done something while there was time. It seems -such a sad waste of a life, and such a dreary end. You see he had had -no glory. It was for bringing up the comrades' soup that he had died. -There were no medals to be left after him, with his blue coat and his -cap. I suppose there was just one of those coarse grey sheets drawn up -over him till they carried him out of the ward. - -Some people say he did not want to live. But then he was probably too -ill to concern himself much about anything. Some people say his wife -did not want him to live. But then she may have been too confused and -stunned to be able to concern herself about anything. Some people say -she loved another man, and some people say he loved another woman. - -Well, from him no one will ever know. It appears also as if no one were -likely ever to know from her. - -And now, no one sees her or hears from her any more. - -His mother, who for a time would not speak of her, says now only -that her devotion in the typhus hospital is wonderful, and her -self-sacrifice; that she renders incalculable service there, and is -above all praise. - -That much is true. - -And people give all sorts of different, amazing reasons for it. - -They all agree, however, upon one point--that she has lost her looks -completely. - - -Smoke - -Suddenly, as the motor was passing the Place de la Concorde, Valérie -said, "Would you mind if we just went home? I should like to go home." - -Of course Nanette could only say that she did not mind. - -Valérie had invited her to drive in the Bois and have tea at the little -chalet of gaufres, by the gate of the Pré Catelan; she had her mother's -motor car for the afternoon, and they need not take anybody with them. -Nanette had thought it would be such fun, just the two of them, without -governesses or maids. She had been looking forward to it for days. - -Nanette was still in the schoolroom, whereas Valérie, nearly two years -older, had escaped from all that. The younger girl admired Valérie -immensely. They had seen a good deal of one another three years before -in a summer at Dinard. Then the difference between their ages had -mattered less; but now, dividing the schoolroom girl with her hair just -tied back from the girl who would have been going out if war had not -ended the world, it invested Valérie with a glamour of romance for the -little Nanette. The romance, moreover, was heightened by the fact that -people talked rather much of the older girl and coupled her name most -unhappily with that of a man she never could marry, who was proving -himself to be one of the heroes of the war. - -Nanette would have been very proud to have had tea in the Bois with her -beautiful friend. She said she did not mind turning back, but she did -mind rather. She thought it odd indeed of Valérie to change like that. -And Valérie's way of saying it was so odd, as if she had been all the -time trying to keep it back and could not. - -Valérie spoke through the tube to the chauffeur, and he turned the car. - -She, Valérie, talked much and fast as they went back to the rue de -Varennes, but she did not tell why she had changed her mind so suddenly. - -The court of the old hôtel seemed more than usually boring and solemn -to Nanette, and also the dim grave stairway. She would rather have had -tea in the salon of the peacock tapestries, but Valérie told the old -man-servant to bring it up to her little sitting-room. - -She went in at her own door ahead of Nanette, and looked about her as -if for something she expected to find in the room. She seemed so odd -that Nanette just stood back against the door watching her. - -After quite a minute Valérie turned to her and said, "Tell me, does it -not seem to you that there is smoke in the room?" - -The room was full of the afternoon July sunshine. The window that gave -on to the garden was open. There were some arum lilies in a vase, and -their fragrance was heavy in the sunshine. - -"Why, no," said Nanette, "there is no smoke here." - -Valérie began moving about the room aimlessly. As she moved here and -there she was taking off her long suède gloves that Nanette admired. - -"It is very queer," she said, never looking at Nanette, "but for days, -three days, it has seemed to me all the time that my room was full of -smoke. I see it and smell it. At first I thought something must be -burning somewhere. But there was nothing. Besides, it is not that sort -of smoke. It is the smoke of gunpowder." - -She had thrown her gloves down on a chair, and was taking off her hat. -She pulled the pins out of it, one after the other, and took it off, -and thrust the pins back into it. "It is quite different from other -smoke," she said, "there is no doubting what it is." - -"Gunpowder smoke! Oh, but Valérie----" - -Valérie went on, "Sometimes the smoke is so thick in the room that I -cannot make my way about; it burns my eyes most dreadfully, it gets -into my throat and chokes me, it makes me cry." She tossed her hat -into the chair with her gloves, and turned to the mirror over the -mantelpiece, and stood with her hands up, fluffing out her lovely gold -hair. "It is not only that I cry because I am frightened," she said, -"it is also that the smoke actually hurts my throat and eyes." - -Nanette, standing behind her, could see her face in the mirror and -thought it was become curiously stiff and dull. Valérie's lovely face, -usually so full of expression, had become quite blank. - -It was dreadful. The younger girl was afraid of--she did not know what. -She could think of nothing that would have been of any use to say. She -knew the older girl was telling her this thing only because she had to -tell it to some one. - -"You see," Valérie continued, "that is why I wanted to come home. I -cannot bear to be long away from my room, because I am so afraid of -missing the moment." She had turned back from the mirror, and stood -looking past Nanette. - -"The moment?" Nanette repeated, as she did not go on. - -"Yes, the moment when the smoke will lift. It is every time more dense. -There will be a time when it quite, quite blinds me, and then I shall -see." She sat down in the chair that was nearest her. She sat limply, -leaning back against the cushions, her hands lying loosely together in -her lap. - -Nanette had been standing all the time just inside the door. Now she -came nearer, but not quite close, and she did not sit down. It was as -if there were something encircling Valérie and keeping every one and -everything apart from her. Nanette thought of the spells cast about -fairy-tale princesses, a circle of magic drawn around, that no one -could step across. - -Valérie sat rigid, her eyes staring. The clock on the chimney began to -strike five. - -Nanette sprang forward. "Valérie, Valérie, what is the matter?" But -Valérie did not hear her. - -Nanette caught her hand. It was icy cold. "Valérie, Valérie!" She let -the cold hand go, and touched her cheek. - -But Valérie did not feel the touch. - -Nanette flew to the door and opened it and called into the passage, -"Jeanne-Marie, Jeanne-Marie!" - -The old Bretonne nurse came instantly out from her door down the -passage. - -"Jeanne-Marie, quick, something has happened to mademoiselle." - -The old woman passed her, and was beside Valérie. "God and the saints! -It has came again!" she cried. She put her arms about Valérie and the -girl fell stiffly against her shoulder. "Oh, my lamb, my little lamb!" - -"Is she dead?" implored Nanette. "Jeanne-Marie, is she dead?" - -"No, no, it has happened before. Go call Francine, quick." - -The maid was already at the door; she must have heard the excited -voices. - -The old nurse said to the maid, "Help me get her to the sofa." To -Nanette she said, "Go away, mademoiselle; you must go away." - -Nanette besought, "No, oh, no!" - -But the maid said, "Please, mademoiselle, Jeanne-Marie knows," and -pushed her out of the room as if she had been a child. - -Nanette, terribly frightened, waited outside in the passage, walking up -and down. - -After a long while Francine came and told her that mademoiselle was -herself again, but very tired and must rest. - -From her own home, an hour later, Nanette telephoned, and was told that -mademoiselle was asleep. - -The next day Valérie sent asking her to come about five o'clock. - -Nanette was taken first to Valérie's mother, in the drawing-room. - -The marquise was as stately and frigid as usual, dressed for the -street, rather hurried and most difficult to talk to. - -She told Nanette that she was troubled about the fright she must have -had yesterday, and asked her not to speak to any one of what had -occurred. She looked at Nanette through her tortoiseshell lorgnon, and -asked if Valérie had been talking to her of anything in particular -before she fainted. "Had she been agitating herself with any special -confidences?" she asked. - -"No," faltered Nanette, wondering. - -The marquise went on to explain that Valérie was very much run down -just now and nervous, and, in these last days, had had one or two -fainting spells, such as that of yesterday, but less grave. She again -asked Nanette not to speak of it. She appeared more concerned about -people knowing of it, and about something she evidently feared Nanette -might have imagined, than about what had happened to Valérie. - -Nanette was anxious only to get to Valérie, who wanted her. - -She found a little white Valérie snuggled down in the pillows of the -big rose-hung bed. She seemed very quiet and rested, not strange as she -had been yesterday, only tired. Her brown eyes looked bigger than ever, -dark-circled, and her golden hair was very soft and curly about her -face, like a child's hair. - -She made Nanette sit close to her, and held her hand while she told her -strange things, as if they were not strange at all. - -When she spoke of yesterday it was as if she were speaking of something -that happened very long ago. "I ought not to have brought you home -with me," she said, "but you see I was afraid then. I was afraid to -be alone. I knew the smoke was going to lift, I knew I was going to -be shown something, and I was afraid to go through it alone. Old -Jeanne-Marie is a darling, but she is different, of course. And mother -would have been so annoyed if I had spoken of him. Mother has known all -the time how unhappy we were, you see, and was always awfully annoyed -about it." - -Nanette, half understanding, could only say, as Valérie paused, "I am -so frightened about you." - -"Poor Nanette! You must not be frightened, for I am not frightened any -more. It is all going to be well, very soon. Only I have got to tell -you about it, because I am so lonely. I must tell some one. I am not a -bit unhappy any more, but just to-day lonely. I have got to tell you, -though it is selfish of me." - -"I love you to tell me, please, Valérie." - -"I was terribly unhappy," Valérie went on, "when I thought it was only -he who would die. I knew, the moment I realized it was gunpowder smoke, -that he was going to be killed. I knew that the smoke would lift for me -when the moment came, and that then I should see him die." - -"Valérie, oh, Valérie!" - -"But you need not be sad for me, Nanette, because there is a thing I -know that makes it all quite beautiful and right." She lifted herself -up from the pillows, still holding Nanette's hand; the two heavy gold -braids of her hair fell over her shoulders. "You see, we never could -have been happy together, he and I," she said, "there would have been -nothing but unhappiness for us both, always. I must tell you what I -saw. I must have some one know, and you seem to understand things. You -will not speak of it, till afterwards. And now, as I am telling you, -you will not interrupt me, will you? You will not say any of the things -most people would say, to break into my peace?" She stopped and waited, -looking at Nanette intensely. - -Nanette could not speak at all. - -But Valérie must have understood, for she told it. She told it always -quietly, as if she had passed beyond any shock or grief or sense of its -strangeness: "The smoke was all about him, and about them; he and they -had to fight blindly. They fought with bayonets. It was in the street -of a village; I saw the cobbles under his feet, and a broken doorstep. -He fought and fought. It seemed very long; he was quite alone to fight -against so many of them. There were blue heaps behind him on the -cobbles; I could make out just vaguely through the smoke. I think they -were his comrades, wounded and dead. The others, the grey ones, were -too many. I saw their grey shapes and their bayonets, and his wounds. I -saw his face, just as he went down. His face was all alight, as it was -the last time I saw him." Her own eyes were shining when she stopped, -and her voice was like a singing. - -In the quiet of the room Nanette waited, as if there were some spell -she was afraid to break. - -Valérie told her: "The last time I saw him was when he went out, nearly -two years ago. I knew the station he would be passing through, with -just some minutes there; and I went, and waited for him. I did not care -if people knew. I ran to him in the crowd, and he saw me, and he said, -'Why, my Valérie, it is you!' as if there were a miracle. In my vision, -his face was just as it had been then. There was no sound at all in my -vision, but from his face, as he died, I knew he was saying, 'Why, my -Valérie, it is you!'" Her warm, live hand held Nanette's hand steadily. -"I know that I shall go to meet him, that I shall be waiting for him -when he dies; I _know_, Nanette. I know because of the look there was -in his face. I shall be waiting there, and he shall see me. And so I -have no grief or fear." She was patting Nanette's hand to comfort her. -"Is not it strange, Nanette; to-day I have a letter from him, a sad -letter. And I have written him a happy one, and he will not understand -why at all. He does not know how soon we will be together. I cannot -tell him. And I am lonely waiting, now I know. Nanette, I am so glad -that it is I who will go first." - -Perhaps, when she is older, Nanette will have to wonder if there was -something she might have done. - -But nothing would have made any difference. - -In the next days they had many doctors. But none of the doctors knew -what it was, or could do anything. - -A week from the day when the smoke had lifted, Nanette sent arum -lilies for old Jeanne-Marie to put into Valérie's hands. - -And three days after that, the man Valérie never could have married was -killed. - -He had gone down, it was known afterwards, in house-to-house fighting, -in a street of the village of X----. - - -Hospital, Saturday, July 8th - -Some new ones are arrived from the Somme, only ten for my ward, the -orderly told me at the gate. They were brought in at four o'clock this -morning. The orderly, Hamond, said, "They are nothing so bad as the -Verduns." - -When I came to the top of the stairs, Madame Marthe was in the -corridor, waiting for Madame Bayle to come and unlock the linen-press. -She looked very tired already, at the beginning of the day, and she was -walking up and down between the stairs and the door of our ward, not -able to keep still for a minute. - -She told them off on her small fine fingers, stained with iodine: "Two -heads, one of them has a bad leg-wound also; one amputé of the arm, -infected; two of the leg, infected both of them; two faces; a bad -chest-wound, bullet; other two slight. Zut! that Madame Bayle, will -she never come! Run over to the store-house and tell them I have got to -have tubes and funnels to feed the 9 and 14. See that they give them to -you, whatever fuss they make, tell them it is for very bad faces. Quick -now, the chief has been around, and they are going to trepan the worst -head this morning." - - -Hospital, Sunday, July 9th - -The man they trepanned yesterday will not keep still; he worries about -everything. They say he is doing well, but he talks all the time. They -told me to sit by him and try to make him stay quiet. At first he held -my hand and seemed to rest, but he would not shut his eyes, and after a -little he began to talk again. - -He was worried because he thought I had not enough to eat; he thought, -because I was so thin, that I must be very poor. He said he had some -biscuits and some rillettes de Tours done up together in a piece of -newspaper. The package had been in his musette when he went into the -charge. Where was his musette? He would have me go and find it, and eat -the biscuits, and the rillettes de Tours. He worried because he had -fallen back into a trench deep with water, and the newspaper package -might have got wet. But I must not mind that, he said, it was better -than starving. What had they done with his musette? I must go and get -it. And I must not mind taking his biscuits and rillettes de Tours, for -he was not hungry at all. - - -Monday, July 10th - -All day long there has been sunshine, and the sky has been blue. -There were great white clouds that mounted up over the city, and that -one kept imagining was the smoke of battle. The blue of the sky was -wonderful, infinite and near, like something of music or of religion, -and the sunshine was like golden wine. But those soft white puffs of -cloud were terrible. - -At the top of the Champs Elysées, behind the Arch, the clouds were -driven up as if it were from the mouths of cannon. - -It must be just like that the smoke is rising in the sunshine over the -high edge of a field I used to know. They say that field is laid across -everywhere with railroad tracks, along which monster grey cannon crawl -up to their positions, and crawl back across again when their work is -done. Hundreds of horses are corralled in the field, and everywhere -there are dotted little white tents. Sometimes black faces come to the -openings of the tents, and one would think of the Village Nègre people -went to see in Magic City, ages and ages ago. - -It seems strange that when the great white clouds mounted up from -behind the Arch of Triumph, the city did not rock beneath them. It -seems strange that the great white clouds rose silently and really were -only clouds. - - -Thursday, July 13th - -People in the streets go slowly, looking up at the flags, and stopping -to stand. They speak to one another wherever they happen to be standing -together, and say that they hope to-morrow will be a fine day. - -The streets are getting ready for to-morrow, hanging out flags and -streamers and garlands to the breeze that is strong to-day, and to the -comings and goings of sunshine. Grey minutes and gold minutes follow -one another across the city, where the flags of the different nations -are blending their colours and waving all together. - -Many different uniforms, on their way up and down the streets, salute -one another, and stop and linger about together, looking at their flags. - -The streets are full of bandages and crutches, pinned-up trouser-legs -and pinned-up coat-sleeves, steps that halt along with tap of canes, -and shuffling, uncertain steps that must be led. - -One is always coming in the streets upon an especial type of little -group of people, one might indeed think each time that it was the same -little group over again, so much each different one of them resembles -all the others--four or five women, an old man, a young sick-looking -man, and quite a tagging on of children. One knows that they are -refugees. They have the unmistakable look of refugees. It gives them -all that likeness, every little dragging tribe of them to every other. -It is the look of people who are waiting for something, and to whom -nothing in the meanwhile matters. They are indifferent and dull because -nothing else matters. They make no effort and take no trouble--of what -use? It is not worth their while to better things that will not last. -There is always a woman in poor rusty deep mourning who has tied her -little girl's hair with a Belgian ribbon. - -Music comes and goes at odd times through the streets, as pipe and drum -and trumpet of to-morrow's procession are moved this way and that to -their various places. - -You get fragments of strange music, sometimes come from very far-away -strange countries, to these streets. - - -Friday, July 14th: Pink Shoes - -It would be too unkind of it to rain, as if the fête were not already -shadowed enough. - -One was angry waking in the rain. - -It rained when they took their wreaths and flowers to the statues of -Strasburg and Lille, and it rained when the troops were massed before -the Invalides for the prise d'armes. - -But afterwards the rain did stop. - -A girl and a limping soldier, ahead of us as we went to the Nord-Sud, -were sopping wet. I suppose they had been standing for hours on the -Esplanade. Her knitted cape and cotton blouse were quite soaked -through. She had no hat, and she was laughing because her brown curls -dripped into her eyes. - -In the Place de la Concorde people had put down their umbrellas, and -were telling one another that it was really better not to have the heat -of sunshine. - -We waited a little with the crowd in the Place, the friendly, orderly -Paris crowd that used to come to fêtes so gaily, grave now, almost -solemn. The crowd was full of wounded. The men flung back out of -the war, broken, were come to watch their comrades pass between two -battles. The crowd gave place to them, and they were proud in it. - -Then Diane came, with Miss and the babies, both of them tremendously -excited in their little mackintosh coats. - -One of the club servants showed us to the small writing-room, where -a window had been reserved for us. From the window we looked down on -the wide grey stream of the street between banks of people. One way -we could see the great Place kept clear also, in grey reaches, past -islands of crowd, and the other way we could see a heap of people on -the steps of the Madeleine. - -The babies sat on the window-ledge and forgot everything at once -because of another baby, down in the crowd on the opposite kerb, who -wore a pink bonnet and pink shoes, and had a little flag in either hand. - -"Oh, mummy, her mummy has put down a newspaper for her to stand on, so -the wet won't hurt her shoes." - -"Yes, Cricri darling. Don't wriggle so, child; Miss, do watch out for -her." - -"I've got pink shoes, too, haven't I, Fafa?" - -Diane, holding Fafa very tight on the window-ledge--not because he -wriggled, he was too big, but because he might have been grown up, like -the little boys of other mothers, and gone away to war--was telling him -what a wonderful thing it was he had come to see, and how, when he was -a big man, he would always remember it, and could say to people, "On -the 14th of July, 1916, I saw----" - -"Yes, mummy! Oh, mummy, do you suppose that little girl's shoes are -quite new for to-day?" - -"Babies, you are going to see Belgian soldiers; you will always and -always remember what they did for us. And there will be British -soldiers; you know how they are fighting for us, just the same as papa -and Uncle Raoul. And you will see the Russians, who have come from so -far away to help us; and beautiful Hindus, and big Africans, and the -little Anamites, and our own men." - -Her voice thrilled when she said "our own men." - -Her voice has that curious quality of drawing darkness: it made me feel -the shadows when she said like that, "our own men." - -She said, "There will be the fusilliers marins, and the cuirassiers, -and the artilleurs. You may see the 75', Fafa. And there will be the -chasseurs à pied, from Verdun, with their fourragère." - -"Mummy, was it her mummy who gave her the little flags?" - -"I think so, Fafa darling." - -"Is it her mummy there with her?" - -"I think so." - -"Is her papa gone to the war, like my papa?" - -Diane put her cheek down against the top of his little fuzzy head as -she stood with her arms around him. - -"Is her papa gone to the war too, mummy?" - -"I think so." - -"She has to stand up all the time, mummy, will she not be tired? I am -afraid she will be tired before the procession comes. When will the -procession come, mummy?" - -Diane said to me, "To think it is the first day of flags and music we -have had since the war began----" - -I was thinking all the time of the day when the troops will come home. -I was thinking that this day was a promise of that day. I knew that -Diane was thinking of that also. Her eyes filled with tears; I saw -them through the tears that were in my own eyes. We both knew so well. -The men look forward fearlessly to that day, but the women know fear. -Every woman in the crowd was thinking how this day promised that day, -gloriously; and every one was thinking--but if _he_ does not come home. - -The people were come to their day of flags and music almost as if it -were to some religious ceremony. They waited in the grey morning to see -their troops go by; coming from battles, going back again to battles, -and always with the war so close that, if it were not for the sounds of -the city, we could have heard its thundering. - -Diane said, because she did not want the children to think she was sad, -"The little pink girl must have come very early to have got so good a -place." - -"Mummy, did she have a nice breakfast before she came?" - -"Oh, yes, a lovely breakfast." - -"Will the procession never come, mummy dear? That little girl must be -so tired. Why doesn't the procession come, mummy?" - -"Oh, there's the sun," Cricri sang out, wriggling in Miss's arms, and -clapping her hands. "There's the sun come out!" - -The sun shone straight into our eyes for a few minutes, and then the -soft grey settled down again. - -We heard the sound of music and of marching, from a long way off. - -The crowd stirred and thrilled. - -"They are coming," cried the babies, "they're coming!" - -"Yes, yes, they're coming. What is that the band plays? There's the -Garde Républicaine, and the music--listen, babies! And now it is -Belgian music. There are the Belgians--see the people run out to give -them flowers! There are the mitrailleuses and the Lanciers and the -Cyclistes!" - -"Mummy, I've got a bicycle too, haven't I; and I can ride it well, -can't I?" - -"Now the English, with their music! Cricri, do keep still and let Miss -see. How beautifully they march! Aren't you proud, Miss? There are the -Ansacs, Fafa; and look at the Indians! The street is carpeted with -flowers: they cannot pick them up, they walk over them. There are the -Russians. Look, babies, the little boys and girls from the crowd run -out and pick up the flowers to give them! Listen, the Russian music -sounds like great seas and winds in forests. It will be our own men -coming now, Fafa." - -"Mummy, oh, mummy! I can't see the little girl any more!" - -"Now it will be our own men coming! Look, look, babies, to see the very -first of them! There's our own music--listen." - -Holding Fafa close against her shoulder, she leaned out past him over -the window-ledge, her eyes lighted with that flame one knows in -soldiers' eyes. - -"They will be our own men, who have fought for us, who will go back to -fight for us. Fafa, think of it! Here they are, their music--oh, oh, it -is the Chant du Départ!" - -"Mummy, do you think we'll never any more see the little girl with the -pink shoes?" - - -Monday, July 17th - -Twenty-eight beds and ten stretcher-beds, the ward is full again. They -are all from the Somme. They are not nearly so bad as those from Verdun -and the Champagne. There has been only one of them, so far, who died. - -He was brought in on Wednesday, they operated next morning, and he died -in the night. The wound had become gangrenous. - -He was twenty-five years old. He was from the invaded countries, and -had no one, no one at all, who could come. He had had no news of his -people since the beginning of the war, nor had he been able to send his -news to them. He had never been out of his little commune, except to go -to the trenches. He had no name to give of any friend. - -The patronne told me to go to the funeral, for there was no one else -to go. None of the real nurses could be spared, and very few of the -men from downstairs would be able to walk so far. It was to be at -Pantin. We would go first to the church. We would leave the hospital at -half-past three. - -I tell of so many funerals. But there are so many, and they impress me -so. Those men die for us, and we, who may not die--how could it be but -that their dying means more to us than other things? There is nothing -we can do for those who fall and lie on the battlefield. But with -these, here, we go a little way. - -And what else is there? - -I have got some decent clothes, and I go sometimes to see some one, and -we pretend we are amused by bits of gossip. We say, "Oh, that's a hat -from Rose-Marie!" and, "Where did you get your tricot?" But it is as -if we went on a journey, and we come home tired from it, to the dark -shelter of our thoughts. - -One rests better following through endless poor streets after a -pine-box with the flag upon it and the palms. - -The people stand back, the men salute, the women make the sign of the -Cross, and we keep our own small perfect silence with us as we pass. -The piquet d'honneur walked with arms reversed, four on either side of -him. - -There was no one but me to bring him flowers, but he had a big fine -tin wreath from his comrades of our service, and his palms from the -Ville de Paris, and the spray of zinc flowers with the ribbon marked -"Souvenir Français" that, Madame Bayle said, is always sent from the -Ministère de la Guerre. - -Madame Bayle came with us. She is fat and always ill, but she could be -spared from the linen-room. I never had seen her before "en civil." -She had a large black hat from which, she told me, she had, for the -occasion, taken off fourteen red roses. I thought, as we walked -together, "Why, she and I are bitter enemies! For nine months we have -quarrelled every day!" - -We walked together, close behind the boy, who had no one but we two and -five of his comrades to follow him. - -It was hot, there was no air at all. There was a terrible odour of -disinfectant. - -Madame Bayle said, "It is because of the gangrene," and quite worried -for fear I could not stand it. - -And I worried about her bad knee. Was it bad to-day? I was afraid she -would be very tired. - -We felt most sympathetically about each other. - -She kept saying, "It is all the same sad, it is all the same sad." - -One of the wounded said, "Not so sad as to lie out for the crows in -no-man's-land." - -The Garde Républicaine, standing at attention, formed an aisle for him -and for us to pass through into the church. Of course, they never come -into the church. - -Madame Bayle, kneeling stiffly beside him, went on whispering, "C'est -tout de même triste," as if it were a sort of prayer. "C'est tout de -même triste d'être seul comme ça." - -An old woman appeared from somewhere and put a little bunch of -marguerites on his flag, and went away again. The stems of the -marguerites were done up in white paper. Some women came and stayed; -and some little girls, and a troop of small boys, in black blouses, -just let out from the school opposite. - -When it was over, they all filed out, past Madame Bayle and me, as we -stood in the place where would have been his people. - -On and on we went, through streets always sadder and more sad as they -frayed out at the edge of the city. - -Madame Bayle always shuffled and panted, and the wounded followed more -and more slowly. - -The city gate, and the ramparts, and longer, wider, even sadder streets -to pass along, over the cobbles; then an avenue of limes in fragrant -blossom, and the entrance of the great cemetery. - -The piquet d'honneur left us at the gate, and we were just ourselves to -go on with him to the place where the soldiers who are lonely like him -lie, so many of them together. - -It is a beautiful place. When his people can come to him I think they -will be proud to find him in so beautiful a place. - -We put our flowers with him, and went away Madame Bayle always saying, -"C'est triste tout de même, d'être comme ça, tout seul." - -The wounded went so fast ahead of us out of the cemetery that Madame -Bayle could not keep up at all. - -She panted, "They are so glad to get out of it, poor boys, poor boys. -They will wait for us at the entrance; We will go all of us together to -the café on the right of the entrance for our 'little glass.'" - - -Thursday, July 20th: Little Florist - -Very early this morning, on my way to the hospital, I stopped at the -little florist's shop round the corner, near the church, to get some -blue and purple larkspur and crimson ramble-roses. - -It was so early, I was afraid Jeannette would not yet be back with the -day's flowers from the great central markets. - -It is Jeannette, the younger, pretty sister, who goes every morning to -choose the fresh flowers, and Caroline, who in the meanwhile puts the -little shop in order to receive them, washing their window and filling -their bowls and vases with water, and scrubbing out the floor. - -Caroline is not yet twenty-five years old, and Jeannette is eighteen. -They are quite alone now to keep the little shop. - -Their father is paralyzed, helpless, and they must take care of him. - -The brother, who used to take care of them all, is at the war. - -Just two years ago, in the early summer, before the war, I remember -that Caroline, who is not really pretty at all, suddenly came to be -quite beautiful. Her small dark thin face was aglow, as if her heart -were full of sunlight, and she moved about the shop in a way so glad -that it seemed as if every little humble thing she had to do were -become for her part of a dance. She gave away to one then more than one -bought of larkspur and ramble-roses, and Jeannette and the big brother -looked on leniently. - -All that seems now very long ago. - -So few people can bear happy colours in these days, that Jeannette -brings back from the market little else but white and purple flowers, -and green leaves for wreaths and crosses. - -I was very early this morning, and Jeannette was not yet come back from -the Halles. - -Caroline was down on her knees, scrubbing the floor. She was crying as -she scrubbed the floor. - -She had not expected any one to come so early, and she was crying just -as hard as she could cry, while she was alone and had the time. - -She got up from her knees and rubbed her bare arm across her eyes. - -I thought of her brother at the war, and of the some one because of -whom, perhaps, she had been happy, two years ago. I scarcely dared to -ask, "Is it bad news, Caroline?" - -"No, Madame," she said, still rubbing her eyes, "No, Madame, it is -nothing special. It is only as if there were nothing but tears in the -world." - - -Trains - -Two trains are side-tracked in the fields, beyond the little country -station, where the wheat is already bronzed and heavy-headed, and -the poppies flame through it, and where there is all the music of -grasshoppers and crickets and birds. - -One is a train of men coming back from the Front on leave, and very -gay. They are all laughing and singing in the carriages. They are all -getting themselves tidied up, for shortly they will be in Paris. The -officers in several of the carriages have managed to get some water, -and are scrubbing luxuriously, with tin-cups and soup-plates for -basins. Soapy faces appear at the windows. The men have opened the -carriage doors all along the train and got out to tumble about in the -grass at the edge of the train. They pick buttercups that grow close to -the rails, and some of them have wandered off into the tall wheat to -gather poppies. - -The second train on the siding is full of wounded, who must wait, like -the permissionnaires, to let pass the munition and troop trains going -out. The wounded are quite comfortably arranged on their tiers of -stretchers; the doctors and orderlies have all the needed things, and -move about competently, up and down the train. It is strange how quiet -the train of wounded is. It is only here and there along it that one -hears moaning or a cry. - -A munition train crawls by, all grey. It is nothing that the -permissionnaires or wounded need notice. - -Then, after a time, that seems very long, comes a troop-train going -out. The men in the troop train hang out of the windows and look -silently upon all the things they are passing in the fields, that seem -so full of peace and so kind. - -They wave to the permissionnaires, who are silent for a moment, -watching them as they go. And then they pass the train of wounded, some -of whom look up at them. - - -Monday, July 24th--5.30 of the morning - -Pérot has just gone. - -He was noiselessly creeping down the outside stairs from his attic -room. But I was waiting at the door on the landing, and made him come -in for a minute to the apartment. - -He sat, loaded down with all his campaign things, in the little yellow -chair, and I sat in the big yellow chair, and we looked at one another. - -It is odd how one never can say any of the things to them; and how, -always, they understand perfectly all the things one would say if one -could. - -He looked very ill, poor boy. Ten days' leave of convalescence after -five months in the hospital has really not given him enough time to -pick up. And he worries so. He can try to eat, but he cannot sleep at -all. All night he thinks and thinks. - -I know so very well just what he thinks. - -He has never had many words with which to tell me, for he has had -all his short life to work so hard that he could get little time for -learning to express himself. But sometimes he says, "If I knew they -were dead----" - -They are his two little sisters. The mother died five years ago, the -father several years before that. He helped his mother when he was -still a schoolboy to take care of the little sisters, Célestine and -Marie; and when the mother was dead he took care of them alone. Now he -is twenty-four years old, and Célestine is seventeen and Marie sixteen. - -Since the day he left, two years less just eleven days ago, he has had -no word of them at all. - -Others from those invaded countries have had perhaps messages, a postal -card, some sort of a letter; but he had had no word. - -An application we got through for him to the maire of the nearest large -town has had only the answer that the farm exists no more and that -nothing has been known of the two young girls. - -It was the "le mauvais sang qu'il faisait," as Madame Marthe said, -that kept him so long from getting well. His wound in the shoulder was -pretty bad, but what was worse was his unceasing grief and dread. He -would have died, of the wound and that, if he had not been so young and -northern and strong. - -His wound got itself well. The new ones needed his place in the -hospital. He was given ten days' sick leave, and came to spend it in -the room upstairs, because he had nowhere else to go. - -Now his leave has come to an end, and he is going back to his depôt, -and then to the Front. I may never see him again, my poor boy, whose -face goes white and red, and white and red, and whose blue northern -eyes fill with tears if one speaks kindly to him. - -He sat in the little yellow chair and I sat in the big yellow chair, -and we looked at each other in the wet grey early morning. - -I said, "They gave you a good breakfast?" - -"Oh, yes, madame." - -"And your little package, for lunch in the train?" - -"Oh, yes, madame, and the cigarettes." - -"Some letter-paper to write to me on?" - -"Yes, madame." - -"You have all the money you need, you are sure, my child?" - -"Oh, yes, madame, much more than I need. I still have that twenty -francs." - -"You promise to let me know if I can do anything for you?" - -"Yes, madame." - -"And you will take care of yourself, please, Pérot." - -"Yes, madame." - -The clock struck once, the first quarter hour past five. - -"You must go, my child." - -He stood up. - -I went to the door with him. - -"You would not have liked me to come to the train, Pérot?" - -"No, madame, because I should have cried; I am so stupid, madame." - -"I would have cried too. And so, my child--until a less sad day." - -"Madame--thank you." - -"No, I thank you, little soldier." - - -Wednesday, July 26th - -This morning, at the hospital, one of the Verdun men came up from the -convalescent ward downstairs, where he was sent when they evacuated for -the Somme, to say good-bye to us. He is well enough, and he is going -back. He is one of the older men, one of those who have the look of -worrying about wives and babies. He has been twice wounded. The first -was a bad wound; he had taken long to get over it in some hospital of -the provinces, and to be able to go back and be wounded again. Now he -is going back for the third time. - -I remember his having told me, at first, when he was quite ill and -talked with fever, that he was terribly afraid of Verdun. He said he -did not mind what they did with him if only they did not send him back -to Verdun. He said he was afraid of the bayonet. He could kill with the -gun, he said, but not with the bayonet. He said he stood paralyzed when -it was the moment to strike with the bayonet, and could not strike. - -It was after he left my ward that his wife had come up from the -Limousin, and brought the two little girls to visit him. I never saw -her, but I remember how happy he was. He told me his wife could not -stay long because she had to go back and take care of the cows. They -had two cows, he said. - -Now he bade good-bye to Madame Marthe, who was washing her hands with -sublimé after a dressing, and who gave him a sharp red elbow to shake. - -He said good-bye to the men in the ward, each one in turn, and stood a -minute looking at his old place and said, "One was well off there." - -I went to the door with him. - -It was very hot in the ward, and there were flies buzzing. - -I thought: To be going back to that, when one knows it already; -to be going back to that, when one has no longer youth's élan and -carelessness; when one has to worry over labour and poverty left behind. - -I suppose he saw something in my face of what I felt, for he said, in -a kind, pitying way, as if to help me, "Do not be sad, madame." And -he said the thing they all say, all of them, "I' faut b'en, tous les -copains sont là." - -"All the others are there." - -And then, this afternoon, I heard another soldier say that. - -It was in the rue de la Paix. He was giving an order to the chauffeur. -His little boy, in a white piqué dress with a big lace collar, was -standing beside him, dancing up and down and hanging on his hand. - -His wife leaned out of the window of the motor and called to me as I -passed, and he turned. I stopped, and we talked for a minute. - -He has been home on a six days' leave and is going back to-night. - -He is a captain in the chasseurs à pied. Before the war he was an -officer in a smart cavalry regiment, but he had himself transferred -into the infantry when the war began. I have heard the men in the -hospital talk of him. They say, "C'est un type épatant, celui-là." They -say he never sends his men to reconnoitre, but goes himself, always. - -He looked very young and splendid in his smart uniform, standing at the -door of the motor. - -The little boy, always dancing up and down beside him, said, "We've got -his picture taken! We've got his picture taken!" - -His wife tried to laugh but I saw her eyes in the shadow of her white -lace hat. "It's true," she said, "we dragged him to it, poor boy. We -had nothing decent of him at all, you know." - -She was very lovely in her lovely things, with a heap of red roses -beside her on the seat of the motor. - -Somehow, that it was all so pretty made it sadder. In the bright street -I thought: To go back to that, when one has so much, when one has -everything in the world, and is young and full of radiant life. - -His wife and I looked at each other. - -He smiled down at her, as if it were only for her one need be sorry. -"We have had six perfect days," he said, "and you know it must be--the -others are there." - -I have written those words many times over. But they are the words one -hears every day. As the men go back, each one of them from the however -different circumstances of his life, that is all they seem to find to -say about it. It does not make a fine phrase, but it has come to mean -for me a beautiful thing. Behind the great sweep of battles it is one -of the things I shall always be glad to have known. - -I find myself wanting to put each saying of it away with other memories -in this book that for two years has kept me company. - -Two years ago--so long ago that I find myself saying, once upon a -time--there was a small square tower room that had three windows, -narrow and deep-set, the loopholes of ancient defences. Once upon a -time the three windows stood open to the night and the garden, and to -a sense, somehow, of the friendly crowding up of the little town about -the rampart walls, and to the country lying away beyond, sweet in the -dark with forest and field. - -I know that where war has passed strangers can look into broken houses -and see all that was intimate and small and dear betrayed with ruin -of stones and lives, and that, like that, people who do not care may -glance in passing into the wreck of the north tower room. - -The tower had stood for so long, keeping watch over that road to -Paris--how strange to think it will keep watch no more! It had looked -down, in its long time, on much of war, and held its own through three -besiegings--and now it is fallen. - -Now it is fallen, the strong tower, in a land that is laid waste, from -which peace has been taken away, and joy, out of the plentiful fields. - -Already that night was passed beyond the end of the world. - -In the morning of that day, the morning of that last Sunday of peace, -I had stood in my window over the garden and seen the sunshine, thick -and golden after rain, on wet sweet things, lawns and little formal -stately paths and box edges and clipped yews, roses and heliotrope and -petunias. And I had not known. I had seen the close, soft dream-sky of -France full of white clouds above the tops of trees that were green and -golden, or sometimes as dark as purple and black. And I had not known. - -The white peacocks were spreading their dreams of tails below the -terrace, between the crouching sphynxes that years and years of moss -and ivy and rose-vines had grown over. - -There had been church bells ringing to the voices of the garden, its -birds and bees and grasshoppers. And I had not known. - -Against the rampart walls I could see, between the trees, the town -roofs gathered close, rust-red ancient tiles and thatch that time and -weathers had made beautiful, and crooked chimney-pots and blue smoke -rising straight and high in the still, blue air. - -I could hear the little sounds of the village, together with the garden -sounds and the bells. - -I could smell hearth fires and fresh-baked bread, together with the -new-cut grass and heliotrope and roses. - -Every sound had been part of the stillness; all the lines and colours -of things belonged together in that soft harmony which is so especially -of France. I had thought, how it was France! And I had not known. - -I had gone to Mass in the little ancient, dusky church of the village. -I had gone down across the parterres, and along the avenue of limes, -through the summer woods that were so happy and alive, out at the -little green gate in the rampart walls, and down the street of big -square old cobbles, between the nestling houses. - -And in the church there had been incense and candles, and the white -caps of old women, and the wriggling of the children in their Sunday -clothes. - -When I came back, there were the papers arrived from Paris. And nothing -again was ever, ever, to be the same. - -That night, not knowing why, I wanted to write down for my own memory -notes of just those little things that seem so small, and that went all -together to the making of a mood we can no more find to turn to. - -I wanted to write of the fragrance of delicate years that abode -in my tower room; of the dim, cloudy mirror over the mantel that -had reflected so many stories; of how the writing-table stood in -the north window, and had nothing but a bowl of sweet-peas and my -travelling-desk things on it; and that the window was open, and how -all the wet, sweet, quite cold night came in; and that, over the tops -of the dark trees, and between the dark cloud masses, I could see all -the stars of the Lyre, Vega, blue-white, very big and near, all more -brilliant, I thought, than ever I had known them before. I wanted to -explain how, somehow, one felt the village, down under the rampart -walls, though it slept and made no sound, and how friendly its presence -was as it lay so close, protecting and protected, about its ancient -burg. - -Now the houses are roofless, and the rampart walls are broken. The -tower is fallen. Nothing is left unchanged there, to-night, but the -shining down of the August stars. - -I had dreamed of the hoofbeats of galloping horses and crash of great -wheels and of thunder. And all that came, and does not cease. I had -dreamed of blood on the castle stairs, dripping and dripping. And they -say that there was one night especially, when the castle was so full -of wounded men, that there was nowhere left to lay them in any of the -rooms, or in the lower halls. They carried them as they were brought in -up the stairs to lie on the floor of the Long Gallery. And the blood -ran down the stairs. - -There was fighting, over and over, up and down, those big square -cobbles of the streets and of the market place, and from the doors and -windows and roofs of those little houses. - -The people of the streets and houses are gone, who knows where, with -their poor small bundles, fled long ago, before the hoofbeats and -wheels and thunder. - -Across these things, how absurd to remember the sweet-peas there were, -that Sunday night, in a bowl on a writing-table! - -It was very hot in the ward to-day; the flies buzzed horridly up and -down the window-panes. - -It was a very bad day in the ward. Thirty-four was very low. He had -a hæmorrhage yesterday, and all day he seemed to be sinking. It was -to-day he received his Croix de Guerre. The captain came up to the ward -with another officer and gave it to him, and read his citation out, -standing by the bed. But he seemed scarcely to know. - -Several other decorations were given also to-day, downstairs in the -Salle de Jeu. We had much to do in our ward, and I could not go down. - -Our little 17 received his Cross and also his Military medal. He -managed to get downstairs and stand up with the others, most of them -like himself on crutches. Yesterday he had news of his mother's death. -He told me he had never had a father. "Il du être un salaud, ce -type-là," he told me. His only brother had been reported missing since -more than a year. He kept calling me over every few minutes--when he -was back in the ward, and in his bed, very tired--to show me his medals -in their two green boxes. He had no one of his own to whom to show them. - -There was much big work to be done, and the ward was so clouded all -day with the choking blue smoke of iodine from the hot washings and -dressings. - -Madame Marthe was very nervous, and Madame Alice seemed especially -sullen. - -I wondered--was it that her poor little Jeanjean is worse again, there, -where he has been all these months, in the children's hospital, cared -for by others than she? - -I was thinking all the day of it, and never dared to ask her. - -Madame Marthe stood all day by the bed of 34. She would say to him, -"Now breathe, breathe. Now breathe." If ever she stopped saying it, -for one instant, he stopped breathing. It was as if the only thing he -understood was that he must obey her. - -Madame Alice did all she possibly could of her work for her, sullenly, -together with her own hard work. - -It was a very bad day; I am proud to belong in such days. - -I was thinking very much of the garden of the sphynxes and white -peacocks, that is in ruin, and of the tower room given over to bats and -swallows. - -It was beautiful, that mood which is gone, but this is more beautiful. - - - - -Transcriber's Notes - - -Obvious errors of punctuation and diacritics repaired. - -Inconsistent hyphenation fixed. - -P. 23: may loose those memories -> may lose those memories. - -P. 32: next the carriage of the British officers -> next to the -carriage of the British officers. - -P. 105: the slates over beds -> the slates over the beds. - -P. 118: rafia grasses -> raffia grasses. - -P. 162: trror of thinking -> terror of thinking. - -P. 228: Cousin Thérèse -> Cousine Thérèse. - -P. 247: stange things -> strange things. - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Journal of Small Things, by Helen Mackay - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JOURNAL OF SMALL THINGS *** - -***** This file should be named 51245-8.txt or 51245-8.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/1/2/4/51245/ - -Produced by Brian Coe, Moti Ben-Ari and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by the Library of Congress) - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law 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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