VII
THE THREE-YEAR-OLD WITNESS
Two persons came in the room at Lunéville where I was sitting. One was Madame Dujon, and the other was her granddaughter. Madame Dujon had a strong umbrella, with a crook handle. Her tiny granddaughter had a tiny umbrella which came as high as her chin. As the grandmother talked, the sadness of the remembrance filled her eyes with tears. Her voice had pain in it, and sometimes the pain, in spite of her control, came through in sobbing. The little girl's face was burned, and the wounds had healed with scars of ridged flesh on the little nose and cheek. The emotion of the grandmother passed over into the child. With a child's sensitiveness she caught each turn of the suffering. Troubled by the voice overhead, she looked up and saw the grandmother's eyes filled with tears. Her eyes filled. When her grandmother, telling of the dying boy, sobbed, the tiny girl sobbed. The story of the murder tired the grandmother, and she leaned on her umbrella. The little girl put her chin on her tiny umbrella, and rested it there.
Madame Dujon said:
"I will try to tell you the beginning of what I have passed through, Monsieur, but I do not promise that I shall arrive at the end. It is too hard. The day of the twenty-fifth of August, which was a Monday——"
As she spoke her words were cut by sobs. She went on:
"When the Germans came to our house, my son had to go all over the house to find things that they wanted. I did not understand them, and they were becoming menacing. I said to them:
"'I am not able to do any better. Fix things yourself. I give you everything here. I am going to a neighbor's house.'"
She went with the tiny grand-girl, who was three years old, her son, Lucien, fourteen years old, and another son, sixteen. The Germans came here too, breaking in the windows, and firing their rifles. The house was by this time on fire. The face of the little girl was burned.
"My poor boys wished to make their escape, but the fourteen-year-old was more slow than the other, because the little fellow was a bit paralyzed, and he already had his hands and body burned. He tried to come out as far as the pantry. I saw the poor little thing stretched on the ground, dying.
"'My God,' he said, 'leave me. I am done for. Mamma, see my bowels.'
"I saw his bowels. They were hanging like two pears from the sides of his stomach. Just then the Germans came, shooting. I said to them:
"'He has had enough.'
"The little one turned over and tried to get the strength to cry out to them:
"'Gang of dirty——' ("Bande de sal——")
"Every one called to us to come out of the fire. The fire was spreading all over the house. I did not want to understand what they were saying. I went upstairs again where the little girl was, to try to save her (see still the marks which she received). I succeeded, not without hurt, in carrying away the little girl out of the flames.
"I had to leave my boy in the flames, and, like a mad person, save myself with the little girl.
"I have two sons-in-law, of whom one is the father of this little girl here. Look at her face marked with scars."
"Yes. They burned me," said the tiny girl. She held up her hand to the scars on her face.
"My other little boy escaped from the fire. He was hidden all one day in a heap of manure. He did not wish to make me sad by telling how his brother had cried out to die."
Madame Dujon sobbed quietly and could not go on for a moment. The little girl put her chin on her little umbrella, and her eyes filled with tears. The Mayor of Lunéville, Monsieur Keller, said to us:
"Madame has not told you—the Germans finished off the poor child. Seeing that he was nearly dead, they threw him into the fire and closed the door."