FLOCKING TO READ THE COMING COMMUNIQUÉ IN A LITTLE FRENCH CITY
Jean-François, the engineer; Philippe, the architect; Honoré, whom we dubbed "Deshonoré," because he used always to return empty-handed when we went hunting together. Gone, gone forever!
Aunt Rose picked up one of the smaller packages.
"These were from little Jacques." And two bright tears trembled on her lashes.
"You remember him, of course, my dear. He was an orphan, he never knew his mother. I always supposed that is what made him so distant and reserved. Jean, his guardian, who is very severe, used to treat him as he did his own children—scolding him often about his indolence, his lack of application to his studies.
"I used to have him here with me during his vacations. He loved this old house—and I knew it. Sometimes when you would all start out for some excursion I'd see him coming back towards the gate:
"'You're not going with them then, Jacques?'
"'No, thank you, Aunt Rose, it's so nice in your drawing-room.'
"When he was just a little baby I often wanted to take him onto my lap and laugh and play with him. But he was so cold and distant! A funny little mite, even with boys of his own age. Nobody seemed to understand him exactly; certain people even thought that his was a surly nature.
"He spent his last furlough here, and I found quite a change in him. He was more robust and tanned. A splendid looking fellow, and I was so proud of him.
"'Aunt Rose,' he asked even before we embraced, 'is there any one else stopping with you?'
"'Why no, child, and I'm afraid you'll find the house very empty. If only I'd known you were coming I most certainly should have invited your cousins.'
"'Oh, I'm so glad you didn't! I much prefer being alone with you.'
"He came and went in the house, but never could be persuaded to go outside the yard. I should have loved to have taken him with me and shown his War Cross to some of my old friends. But he wouldn't hear of it.
"'Pooh!' he would laugh when I would suggest such a thing. 'If ever they come near me I'll tell them I've got "trench pest"—and then you'll see them clear out.'
"He went down in the kitchen and I'd hear him pottering around. I never knew him so gay and happy.
"'Tante Rose, I'm going to sing you "La Madelon" and the "Refrain de la Mitraille." It was Planchet, the tinsmith, who composed it!'
"He'd sit for hours in that big blue armchair, blinking at the fire, and then suddenly he'd come to earth and explain:
"'Aunt Rose, what a pleasure to be here.'
"When finally he had to go back, he caught me and whispered in my ear, as I kissed him:
"'Next time, Tante, you promise me not to invite any one, won't you?'
"Poor child, he will never come back, and his friend Planchet, the tinsmith, saw him fall with a bullet through his heart. It was he who wrote me the sad news.
"Well, my dear, what mystery the soul hides within itself! In one of the cupboards of the room he occupied I found two note books and a diary filled with verses he had never shown to any one, never admitted having written. How little we guessed what he was about when we scolded him for his indolence and inattention. If you only knew what accents, what harmonious phrases he found to depict the shades of our trees, the rippling of the river, the perfume of the flowers and his love for us all.
"There is a whole chapter devoted to the old homestead. He seemed to feel everything, divine everything, explain everything. None of us understood him. There is no use pretending we did. Not one among us would ever have guessed that so splendid and delicate a master of the pen lived and moved amongst us."
Aunt Rose looked straight out onto the sun-lit court, the great tears trickling down her cheeks.
For a long time neither of us spoke.
Like its mistress, Aunt Rose's home lives to serve the war. The culinary realm is always busily engaged preparing patés and galantines, rillettes and sausages. "For our boys," is the answer almost before the question is put. "They're so glad to get home-made dainties, and are always clamouring for more—no matter how much you send!
"Since they must eat preserved food, we might as well send them something we make ourselves, then we're sure it's the best. Why, I'd be ashamed to go out and buy something and send it off without knowing who had handled it." This was the cook's idea of patriotism, which I shared most heartily, having at one time had nothing but "bully beef" and dried beans as constant diet for nearly a fortnight.
The coachman and inside man sealed the crocks and tins, prepared and forwarded the packages.
"Oh, there's one for everybody! Even the boys of the city who haven't got a family to look after them. They must be mighty glad Madame's alive. We put in one or two post cards, views of the town. That cheers them up and makes them feel they're not forgotten here in R——."
One afternoon on descending into the kitchen we beheld two sturdy looking fellows seated at table and eating with ravenous appetite. One was an artilleryman who had but a single arm, the other a chasseur, whose much bandaged leg was reposing upon a stool.
"They are wounded men on convalescent leave," explained Armandine. "The poor fellows need a little humouring so that they'll build up the quicker, and an extra meal surely can't hurt!"
This was certainly the opinion of the two invalids who had just disposed of a most generous bacon omelet, and were about to dig into a jar of paté.
Armandine and Nicholas watched them eat with evident admiration, fairly drinking up their words when between mouthsful they would stop for breath and deign to speak. Their rustic eloquence was like magic balm poured onto a constantly burning, ulcerated sore.
"Your son? Why, of course, he'll turn up!" the artilleryman assured them.
"But he hasn't written a line!"
"That's nothing. Now just suppose that correspondence is forbidden in his sector for the time being."
"I know, but it's three months since we heard from him. We've written everywhere, to all the authorities, and never get any returns—except now and then a card saying that they're giving the matter their attention. That's an awfully bad sign, isn't it?"
"Not at all, not at all," chimed in the chasseur. "Why, some of the missing have been found in other regiments, or even in the depots, and nobody knows how they got there.
"Three months? Why, that's not long. After the battle of the Marne my poor old mother had them say Heaven knows how many masses for the repose of my soul; for four months and three days she never heard a thing of me, and I'd written her regularly every week.
"Yes, and what are you going to do if the letter carrier gets killed, or the Boche locate the mail waggon on the road every other delivery? Nobody's going to inform you of the accident."
"And that does happen often?"
"Almost every day."
"Quite a common occurrence; there's nothing for you to worry about yet, really now."
So "hope springs eternal" in the breasts of the bereaved parents, whose smile gradually broadens out into a laugh when the artillery-man recounts some grotesque tale, and gives his joyous nature free rein.
The convalescents who came to this particular city must have recuperated in the minimum of time, if régime had anything to do with the re-establishment. In every house the cloth was always on the table, the door open in sign of welcome.
"Come in and have a bite with us," people would call to them as they passed by.
Certain among them were being treated for severe cases and had been in the city a long time. The townspeople were proud of their progress and their cure, almost as proud as of their notary, who on leaving for the front was only a second lieutenant, but now had command of a battalion of chasseurs. Nor must one forget Monsieur de P.'s son, cited for bravery among the aces, and least of all ignore Monsieur Dubois, who having lost both sons, shut up his house, settled his business and without telling any one went off and enlisted as a simple private at sixty-two years of age.
In coming to this distant little city I had sought to find repose for my somewhat shattered nerves; dared hope for complete rest beneath this hospitable, sympathetic roof. But the war was everywhere. Yes, far from the sound of the guns one's eyes are spared the spectacles of horror and desolation, but there is not a soul who for a single instant really escapes the gigantic shiver that has crept over all the world. Out here, far removed from the seat of events, life necessarily becomes serious and mournful. The seemingly interminable hours lend themselves most propitiously to reflections, foster distress and misgivings, and one therefore feels all the more keenly the absence of the dear ones, the emptiness due to the lack of news.
There are but two moments when real excitement ripples the apparent calm of the little city; one in the morning when the paper boy announcing his approach by blowing his brass horn, runs from door to door distributing the dailies, while people rush forth and wait their turns impatiently.
The evening communiqué arrives at 8 P. M. An old white-haired postman pastes it upon the bulletin board outside the post office. Long before the hour one can hear steps echoing on the pavement, as men, women and children, old people on crutches, cripples leaning on their nurses' arms, hasten in the same direction, moved by the same anxious curiosity. When the weather is inclement one turns up his trousers, or removes her best skirt. It is no uncommon sight to see women in woollen petticoats with a handkerchief knotted about their heads standing there umbrella in hand, patiently awaiting the news.
A line forms and each one passes in front of the little square piece of paper, whose portent may be so exhilarating or tragic. Then some one clears his throat, and to save time reads the bulletin for the benefit of the assembled group.
Here again the strategists are in evidence.
Monsieur Paquet, the jeweller, having served his three years some three decades ago at Rheims, has a wonderfully lucid way of explaining all the operations that may be made in that region, while Monsieur Morin, the grocer, whose wife comes from Amiens, yields the palm to no one when that sector is mentioned.
Each one of these gentlemen has a special view on the subject, each favours a special mode of combat, and each, of course, has his following among the townspeople. But the masses give them little heed.
Monsieur Paquet's persistent optimism or Monsieur Morin's equally systematic pessimism do not touch them in the least. The French soul has long since known how to resist emotions. Sinister rumours shake it no more than do insane hopes and desires.
"All we know is that there's a war," exclaimed a sturdy housewife summing up her impressions, "and we've got to have victory so it will stop!"
"Amen," laughs an impudent street gamin.
Slowly the crowd disperses, and presently when the gathering is considerably diminished a group steps forward, presses around the bulletin board and comments on the communiqué in an incomprehensible tongue.
By their round, open faces, their blond hair and that unspeakable air of honesty and calm resolution, one instantly recognises the Belgians. Yes, the Belgians, come here in 1914, the Belgians who have taken up their abode, working anywhere and everywhere, with an incomparable good-will and energy. But they have never taken root, patiently waiting for the day when once again they may pull out their heavy drays that brought them down here, whose axles they have never ceased to grease, just as they have always kept their magnificent horses shod and ready to harness, that at a moment's notice old women and children may be hoisted into the straw and the whole caravan thread its way northward towards the native village; that village of which they have never ceased to talk, about which they tell the youngsters, who scarcely remember it now.
"Ah, Madame," exclaimed one poor old soul in a phrase that might have seemed comic if it hadn't been so infinitely profound and touching. "Ah, Madame, even if there isn't anything left, it will be our village just the same!"
Alas! I know but too well the fate of such villages at the front, occupied by the enemy, crushed beneath his iron heel, or subjected to his gun fire.