(A Story of France)
In the old house, heavily garlanded with ivy and climbing roses, at the end of the village, lived the old maid. Through vistas of thick foliage, the broken sky-line of tiled roofs appeared. In the west, the church tower showed dark against the sunset skies.
Here she had lived in seclusion these many years. Her pigeons feeding on the green lawn. Her rose garden, fragrant and sunny, facing the Eastern hills. Her peulailler (poultry yard), her dogs, her cats, filled the long hours of her austere life.
In solitude she ate her well-cooked meals. By the stone fireside (in other years the center of family life and gaiety) she sat in the evenings reading her Figaro, with her knitting in the recesses of the Louis XVI "tricoteuse" close at hand in case the print became blurred, which so often happened of late. Meditating, her pure thoughts far from the world and its stormy passions, her judgment became, perhaps, too severe; her charity a trifle too customary and censorious. All her actions were the result of axioms and precepts laid down years ago by long-dead parents. To her the past shone with a glorious light of Humanity and Youth, full of kindly people and cheerful pleasures and gay days. The present, so solitary and sad, had crept upon her unperceived, to find her with wrinkling brow and graying hair, more and more lonely.
Every morning at early mass she looked with noncomprehension into the faces of the elderly women—her comtemporaries—mothers these many years. Long ago they loved and married, leaving "la Mademoiselle" to her patrician seclusion up at the "great house." Lusty youths and strong, fresh-faced girls clustered about these contemporaries; sweet-faced young women, holding babies against their rounded breasts; boys touched their caps in awe as she left the church; girls smiled, blushing and demure; children sucked their thumbs and bobbed courtesies; but to none was she vital or important. To them the world was full of busy pleasures and activities, of warm summer days and young joys; to her, bending over her endless tapestry-work in the silence of the old manor, the world seemed trite indeed. Her home was so orderly, so clean, so proper, so remote from life. No muddy footprints on the wax floors, no child's toys forgotten in the corner, no cap or jacket thrown carelessly on disturbed furniture. Her apartments were sweet with lavender and roses, but tobacco smoke was a stranger to their antique propriety.
Now, suddenly, all these quiet ways, these time-honored habits were destroyed. War broke over France and she, with countless of her countrywomen, donned the white linen gown embroidered with that cross-of-red emblem of so many sacrifices and devotions. The hastily-installed hospital became her only thought; all her energy, care, and patience must be brought to the aid of the broken men as her tribute to the defenders of France.
In the long whitewashed hall, on whose blank walls the crucifix hung alone, stood the double row of beds, where lay these valiant fellows. Young boys of eighteen and twenty, arms and legs in plaster or bound in bloodstained bandages; forced, poor chaps, to the sight of such horrors on the battlefields as to remove forever their youthful joyance of life. Older men, bearded and bronzed, talked to her of their family life; of their wives and children; of the little humdrum everyday experiences, so unknown to her, so commonplace and vital to them. Gone for her the tranquil days of yester-year, her collection of laces, her bibelets, her books, her revues—all her souvenirs of years of sedate living and tranquil seclusion.
Only the maps of the battlefields interested her now; the long, hard duties of the Red Cross nurse were more entrancing than her most delightful journeys in Italy, or her summers in Switzerland. Many things she saw, heard, and was obliged to do, she was often shocked and horrified, but courage, patience and skill were daily demanded of her. A great endurance necessary for such arduous work, and her compassion ever inspired renewed effort. Life and death were there in frightful reality before her eyes, so to the round-shouldered, gray-headed woman these great facts became the motive power of her life. She became the willing, compassionate servant of this army of cripples. What surprises she received! What human misery she witnessed! What confessions she heard! She must write a last message to a distant mother from her dying son. There a strong man, now a cripple, implored her to tell his wife of his misfortune; again an ignorant, faithful creature begged for news of his family. Since the war began, nearly two years ago, no word of them had reached him. To all these little duties she added the care of their injured bodies, the dressing of wounds, the feeding of the helpless.
To her, who so short a time ago lived in lonely luxury, to whom the world and life were as a closed book; to her, who last year was satisfied with her dogs and chickens, her cats and pigeons, who looked with a half-scornful, half-indignant commiseration on the vibrant life around her, had come a great illumination! From these big children, the rough "poilus," soldiers she nursed so tenderly, she learned instinctively! They opened their hearts to her, they showed her their anguish and suffering! They called her "La Petite Mère," turning to her in all hours for consolation and help. So when the "Demoiselle" went home after 12 hours' work for these wounded ones, her heart was filled with a great rejoicing; a warmth and satisfaction such as she had never known stole through her weary body; aching feet were forgotten, and to God she sent up a prayer of thankfulness that she had been allowed "to serve."
It was a lovely June evening. The night breeze, fragrant with new-mown hay and the perfume of sleeping field-flowers, stole through the open window, fluttering the "Veilleuse" as it cast its feeble light and shadow over the still form lying in the white sheet, so soon to become its shroud. The old "Demoiselle" sat there in pious thought, her eyes fixed on the boy she had nursed so many months, now so near to death; the boy whose soul had been washed clean by the Holy Sacrament and whose body was so soon to disappear from the world of men. Poor fellow, so far from all who loved him, his white features showed pinched and thin in the light of the crescent moon, looking over the black masses of trees into the desolate white room. From time to time his stiffening lips murmured "mother." He turned his head feebly from side to side seeking her, who, in a far-away province, knew nothing of her son's agony. The hours dragged on, the young moon disappeared behind the trees, the moribund moaned gently from time to time. A cooler breeze, fore-runner of morning freshness, swept through the wood. The "Demoiselle" still kept her vigil, changing her patient's pillow, holding a cup of water to his lips. Suddenly he gave an agonizing cry: "My mother! My mother! Where art thou? I cannot see! It is growing dark! Hold me, my mother, hold me!"
Then to the old maid came her great moment. Taking the poor, trembling form in her arms, she pillowed the rolling head on her bosom and pressing her lips to the dying boy's forehead she whispered: "I am here, my son! Do not fear. I, your mother, hold you. You are safe in my arms, my little one. Rest in peace."
The sun rose in glorious June splendor; the birds were singing their morning matins; the dewy flowers cast forth a ravishing fragrance—only in the sickroom was there silence, but also a holy peace, for the old maid—she who had never lied, who had scorned and reproved those who did so—had lied eagerly to comfort the passing spirit of a boy.
Dinard, June, 1915.
[Original]
THE SONS OF FRANCE
1915
To you, in God's country, safe and sound, far removed from the conditions existing over here, a few notes of our daily existence may not come amiss.
First, let me quote the lines found on a dead boy in Champagne, his "Feuille de route" (diary), which shows eloquently how the little "piou-piou" feels these sorrowful days of 1914.