CHAPTER V
We were at home again! This was a set-off for the misfortunes with which a wretched fate had loaded us. The house was as snug as we had left it, and we had but to return to our old habits. So we did and exactly! The cake we had left, at our flight, was still lying on the table. As we were hungry we each snatched our share, and ate it with ravenous appetite. It was a bit hard, but all the same delicious. We wandered through the house with joy. We were at home again! How many of those who had fled from the invasion had renounced the pleasures of home for months or even years? Some of out friends at Morny had not yet come back. Yet could we pity them? A thousand times no; at least they would never endure the trials to which the conquered are exposed, and which, after a momentary calm, once more had depressed us. The presence of the Germans, quartered in the village, seemed unbearable.
Ah, poor, poor snails that we were! In spite of our efforts, the flood had overtaken and submerged us. The tree we tried to climb was too low; the inundation covered everything; and we could not foresee the end of the nightmare. How long should we have to groan and struggle in that all-devouring water? We besought God to deliver us, and God seemed deaf to our prayers and blind to our tears. We called to you who were on the mainland over the mountains, insurmountable as the great wall of China. Our hearts called to you, and no one answered. For a fortnight the floods had been out, and already we were losing patience.
Morally drowned as we were, we still had a physical need of food. A household of seven persons and two dogs must furnish its larder and cellar with abundant provisions. The grocers of the village had but empty shops; our neighbours were unhumbled, because each was the owner of a plot of ground. Less favoured than the poorest of the poor, we had no crop at all. What would become of us? I have said we had no crop. I was wrong. We even had a superb crop. The pear trees, even those which these last fifteen years had yielded no fruit at all, had deemed it a point of honour to do their best, in hard times, and were all laden with huge plump pears, which made your mouth water. They were not ripe yet; but, determined not to tempt the green-uniformed marauders, we made up our minds to gather them. For two days we picked them, and filled basket upon basket with pears, long or round, green or yellow.
Then there was the problem to solve, where to hide them? We laid our heads together, and by unanimous consent decided upon the deserter's attic. On one side, the attic was full of faggots; on the other, behind the chimney that comes up from the wash-house, there was a floor-space, about eight feet square, and there we laid our beautiful pears amid shreds of paper instead of straw. To conceal their retreat, we heaped up at the entrance old boxes, hen-coops, and a garden roller in elaborate disorder. Nobody would ever have thought that this innocent pile of rubbish was a treasure-hoard. But we, who knew, put one foot here, another there, and at a bound we were on the floor in the very abode of the pears, where cunning paths allowed us to visit our friends and choose the juiciest among them. We never made these visits without a groan, for we always forgot the existence of a big cistern, fitted up in the roof, and constantly knocked our heads against this iron ceiling. But the shock itself kindled our imagination, and struck out a flash of genius.
"Suppose we put the wine into the cistern!"
We thought we had given all our wine to the French soldiers, and then we discovered in the bottom of a box about thirty bottles, which we resolved to hide from the Germans' thirst. I must admit that our sobriety equals the camel's. We drink hardly anything besides water. A bottle of wine a week satisfies the needs of the whole family. But, all the same, we did not want our wine to moisten German throats. So through the yard, up the ladder, over the boxes, the bottles went their way. Not too well poised on a tottering scaffolding I wriggled into the narrow space between the beam and the cistern. I held out a groping hand, into which was placed the neck of a bottle, and little by little the receptacle was filled. We went quickly to work. My sister-in-law carried up the bottles with care; I laid them down with a gentle hand. For it is well known that a Prussian ear detects the clinking of bottles a mile off, and of course the Prussian, contiguous to the ear, being forewarned, rests not until he has secured the too imprudent bottles. But all of a sudden I was aroused by a loud shout, instantly hushed to a discreet silence.
I jumped down from my scaffold, leapt over the pears, scaled the boxes, tumbled down the ladder, and found myself in the midst of a perplexed group.
"Grandmother, what is the matter?"
Yvonne and Colette, prying in the cellar, had discovered a fair-sized keg, which gurgled when it was shaken.
The treasure-hunters thrust in the bung with an effort, inserted a tap, drew out a glass of the liquor and brought it to me.
"What is it?"
Unctuous, yellowish substance. Was it oil, or syrup? I looked at it, shook the glass, smelt it, even tasted a drop with the tip of my tongue, and then announced:
"It is glucose."
Glucose! glucose! and we had no sugar left! Every morning we drank milk and coffee unsweetened by honey. Mme. Valaine declared my diagnosis right, and we leapt for joy like marionettes.
There was no more meat, no butter, and eggs were uncommonly rare, but sweetened dishes take the place of everything. Baskets full of pears! A keg of glucose! Thirty bottles of wine! Who talked of dearth? For truth's sake I must say glucose did not answer as well as we expected. When I tried to sweeten the milk with it, the milk turned sour, and with it the experiment turned also, to my shame.
On the other hand, by stewing the beloved pears with glucose and wine, I obtained an unforgettable dish, over which a jury of cooks greedily licked its lips. And every other evening, for two months, our scanty menu was thus composed: soup, stewed pears, bread at discretion, fresh water at will. The glucose went to keep the wine company in the cistern, except for a few bottles of either liquid, which we craftily concealed in the garden, and in case of need we had but to cry out:
"Pierrot, go and fetch the bottle that is in the reeds or in the blue fir ... or in the big yew...."
It was much more amusing than simply to go down into the cellar.
Thus our life was not uninteresting, but our chief occupation was to watch the horizon, east and south, where our soldiers were fighting. The guns were coming sensibly nearer; we heard them growl day and night, and when it grew dark we saw shells burst above the hills. We spent many hours in the garden looking out for these illuminations, hoping we might understand something from the way they went. Then came the gleam of an explosive, striping the sky with a flash of lightning or with a slow trail of light. The better to observe, we got up the ladder, and sat on the wall. To the casual passer-by we might have resembled a flock of crows at roost waiting for gossip's tales. Mme. Valaine had no taste for these perilous exercises, and contented herself with the stories we told her. For us the only spectacle we thought worth while was that very one which almost rent our hearts. How eagerly we wished for the shells to burst nearer, nearer, to set the house in a blaze so that we might be set free from our chains!
About the 25th of September took place the first shock between us and the German army. It was nearly eight o'clock in the evening. The supper over, I went into the garden, and was peering at the dark sky, heedless of the cold wind which caused my hair and my shawl to flutter, when a frightful uproar broke the silence. Gruff voices cried out vociferously; heavy boots kicked at the gates; the angry dogs barked till they choked.
"Good Heavens! what is happening?"
I threw myself down the ladder, fled through the garden—those days were full of wild races—got to the house, and saw Geneviève hasten forth, a key in her hand.
"They want us to open the gate," she said, "and we must."
Yvonne seized the dogs by the collar and dragged them in. The gate was hardly unlocked when those without threw it open, and at the same time overran the yard. They were furious, and one of them shouted out in bad French:
"When the Germans knock at a door, it should be opened immediately."
"You think so, do you, you Boche!"
On hearing us speak fluent German they softened, and looked at us in amazement.
They all had the same round faces, which the lantern of an under-officer lit up.
They wanted a lodging: barns, stables to shelter men and horses. All that was difficult to get!
"There is room but for one horse in the stable."
"Well, that will do for two horses and two men."
"And here is the wash-house."
"Six men will sleep there."
The others withdrew to look for a lodging somewhere else. The remainder, who seemed to be harmless blockheads, were convoys. We heaved a deep sigh, but hardly had a mouthful of air reached our lungs, when the yard was already swarming with a new mob. Standing on the steps I engaged in parley with the Feldwebel.
"The house is chock-full, and eight soldiers are already lodged in the outhouses."
He was young, big, and stout, and his hard-featured face was deeply scarred.
Of course he did not allow himself to be prevailed upon.
"It is all the same to me," he answered; "make room for me if you have none."
He ordered me to open the coach-house, but when he saw it crammed up with all sorts of things, he made a wry face.
"And up there?" he asked, pointing at the deserter's attic.
Good Heavens! the pears! the wine! I was trembling with fear, and was at a loss how to answer when the man altered his mind:
"I would rather have a bedroom to myself," and so saying he opened Antoinette's door.
"That will do," said the person, and waving back the silently waiting soldiers he kept but two of them with him. We began to remove a few things from the room, which Antoinette had always kept for herself, and before the sergeant's taunting eyes we carried away clothes, books, and knick-knacks. The door we had left ajar was suddenly thrown open, and a little coxcomb of an officer came in and cried out in a cheerful tone:
"Oh! oh! Two at a time!"
That was more than we could stand, and leaving blankets and coverlets we ran away.
At the corner of the house a brutal arm stopped me, and a soldier I hardly saw in the night muttered something I did not understand about money—five francs. I tried to break loose from the man's hold, and answered at random we were no shopkeepers and sold nothing.
"If you are busy," he said, "another lady would do."
In the dim light of a glimmering window I caught sight of a Slavonic-featured, black-bearded, sneaking-eyed face that belonged to one of the stable-dwellers—a perfect brute. He looked so strange, his voice was so peculiar that I suddenly understood the meaning of his words. Frightened, I shook my arm to get it free, set off running, and got so quickly out of sight he might have believed I had been swallowed up by the night. I rushed into the house, banged the door, turned the key in it, pushed the bolts, and even then I was not sure I was secure. I wished for padlocks, bars, chains, to protect us against such creatures. We thought we would never dare go to bed.
With Mme. Valaine I went through the house to test the wooden shutters. In the street the carts of the convoy stood close to the house; here and there we saw a lantern glimmer. Lying under the awnings the drivers tumbled and tossed, and from time to time uttered heavy groans. Those carts reminded us of monstrous beasts, hunch-backed and mischievous, which squatted at our door to watch and threaten us. The yard was pitch dark, all seemed to be in a sound sleep, but for the horses, which kicked and pawed the ground of the narrow stable. The men were snoring; the dogs shut up in the lobby whined gently. We talked in a low voice and went on tip-toe. In our own house we felt beset with dangers and cares. Without taking off our clothes, we laid ourselves down, our eyes wide open, our ears attentive to all outside sounds, our nerves on edge. So we waited for the break of day.
The Germans got up at the first glimmer of a misty sun, and we watched them through the trellised shutters. They had cooked a potato soup, a grey and sticky stuff, to which they added some brandy, and which they ate without conviction.
For hours together they peeled vegetables, hummed tunes, whistled, dawdled up and down; but they never drew a drop of water from the pump, and they seemed wholly unacquainted with the fact that a human being ought to wash. Then they began cleaning their arms most carefully, and deluged them with petroleum and oil. Our amazement was the same which the sight of wigwams or niggers' cabins might have roused, seen for the first time. Their guns, leaning against the gate, confirmed this impression. Real savages' arms, the bayonets were about a hand's breadth, and notched like a saw. At the mere thought of the wounds such teeth would make in the flesh, an icy chill ran through our veins.
About nine, after half an hour's monotonous shouting, the convoy filed off, and soon after vanished from sight. As soon as they were gone we rushed out. The street swarmed with people, like an ant-hill which a clumsy foot has trodden on. Well! well! German boots leave traces. The High Street of Morny had never before witnessed such filth. On all sides lay dirty straw, muddy rags, formless scraps of iron. The horse-dung looked clean compared with the rest.
As to ourselves, we cried with horror at the sight of our poor yard, into which we could not put our foot. Oily pools stood here and there; the pavement, bespattered with mud, was covered all over with dirty rags, greasy papers, vegetable peelings, and, overtopping all the rest, what Antoinette pompously called "human dejections." And yet in a corner of the garden was a closet formerly intended for the gardener.... But such people....
Disgusted and bewailing, old Tassin spent the whole afternoon in cleaning the yard, and made more than one unpleasant discovery, such as about 40 lb. of rotten meat concealed in the straw. The "small room" was in a sorry plight. The pandours had emptied the ink-pot into a work-table, scribbled the walls all over, broken a vase, taken away a woollen blanket, an eider-down, and a door-curtain. As to the mattress and the spring-mattress, we could not have touched them with a pair of tongs, covered as they were with spots of grease. It is agreeable to receive Germans!
Antoinette instantly made up her mind to change her room, and easily transformed one of the attics.
We went roundly to work, and the "small room" was soon as empty as a Pomeranian's head. We had made up our minds that the creatures should bring straw with them if they required hospitality a second time. To the King of Prussia himself we would have grudged a bed, lest he should leave it in as bad a condition as his men.
The convoy came back that very evening. Our guests of yesterday went back to their lodging. Only the inhabitants of the "small room" did not return. Perhaps what was left them of conscience reproached them with theft.
Early in the morning the carts went off, and after three hours' work old Tassin declared he had removed all traces of their second visit. The whole village complained that the rascals had not only dirtied whatever they approached, but had stolen what they wanted, wasted provender and oats, and had thrown down whole sheaves of wheat for their horses to lie on.
In the first weeks of the occupation the invaders bled the country to death. In Morny they took thousands of fowls, hundreds of pigs and sheep, and I don't know how many horses and cows. M. Lantois' black bull, which his ravishers had tethered to a cart, and then abandoned in the middle of the road, protested in a wild, fierce, and fitful roar that he repeated every other minute for hours together. The farmers dreaded marauders still more than official requisitions. For what was requisitioned they obtained, if they insisted, a note of hand, often scribbled in pencil and almost illegible, but at least proving they had been deprived of something. The soldiers of course took an unfair advantage of their victims, who knew not German, and cheated them in every way. We were often asked to translate such I.O.U.'s as had been composed according to the writer's own fancy. "Paid and carried away a horse," wrote one requisitioner who had but paid with lies.—"Exchanged two horses of equal worth," another pretended, when a broken-down hack had supplied the place of a good mare.—"Received 40 lb. of bacon." And the honest customer knew he had gained 450 kilog. on the pork-butcher.
In spite of all, the country people attached great importance to these notes of hand, and the marauders gave them none. They went two or three together, got into the houses when the people were working out in the fields, searched them from top to bottom, and laid hands on what pleased them. They stripped the hen-houses and dovecots; they would drop in unawares when the people were about to sit down to dinner, and then divert themselves by seizing and feasting upon the dishes before the balked peasants' very faces. Thus eaten out of house and home, the village would soon be starved. The Mayor of Morny and M. Lonet resolved to go to Laon and seek some protection against the raiders. The answer they got from the Germans was that, first, rural matters were no concern of theirs, and secondly, that the people were expected to give everything the soldiers asked for.
A word to the wise is enough.
Those who have not known the evils of invasion cannot imagine the rage and despair which filled our hearts at being thus enslaved and ground down. Impotent wrath, overwhelming despondency took hold of our souls, at once humiliated and revolted. Like true civilised people, we could not understand why we were forbidden to claim justice, to seek redress; why we were expected to yield to brute strength. And there was no use to cry out for help, to crave assistance. It seemed to us that we were forsaken by God and men.
But was the trap shut tight? Were we, for instance, whose interests, life, and dearest affections lay on the other side of the front, without means to break through the enemy's barrier? Were we actually prisoners?
My mother-in-law made up her mind to go to Laon in order to consult competent judges. I was to accompany her. This poor Laon, which I had seen but a few weeks ago bright with French animation, in what state did we find it! We saw a few civilians only, with hard and hostile faces. On the other hand there were a great many grey-clad Germans in the streets with their helmets on, bustling about in the best of humour. They seemed at home everywhere, and masters of all the houses. Most shops were shut up. I tried to get into the only one I saw open, but nobody was in it. Only in the recesses of the back-shop a big hand was busy about a saucepan, and heavy steps shook the spiral staircase. It is easy to understand that I had had enough of it, and that I hastened out with all possible speed. The sight of their forsaken shops would have rent the hearts of the owners had they been gifted with second sight. One of them, I suppose it was a grocer's, had been smashed to atoms. Glass jars, drawers, looking-glasses were but things of the past, and the floor was covered all over with a litter twenty inches high, of biscuits, sweets, macaroni, rice, and odds and ends of all kinds. We went to see the Mayor, and asked him the questions which we were anxious to have answered. Were the Germans to settle in the country? Was it possible to go to Paris? His answer was like a death-knell.
Nothing was to be done. The Germans were not likely to clear out. He deemed it folly to try to go away. I left the room heart-broken.
We arrived in Morny just in time to see some German infantry march through the street. They came from the front, and their ill-looks filled us with joy. They trudged along with weary faces, and were all muddy, and bent as if with old age. "Just look at them," we said. "Where do they come from? Surely they are beaten men. Is the French army advancing?"
Colette, hidden behind the curtains, never failed to throw her wishes after the Germans as they passed through the village.
"Die, die, die. Die, you nasty red-haired fellow. Die, you fat brute. Die, you young whipper-snapper. Oh, a wounded man! Die too, poor wretch; die, die, die"; and the litany drew to a close only when the regiment had filed off.
"That is to help the French," said she.
Many an adventure befell us in the month of October. I can merely refer, for instance, to a certain officer who at eleven o'clock one night wished to lodge "twenty horses in our barn"; or to four requisitioners who dragged us out of bed at five in the morning, and forced us to dress in haste, merely to prove we had no pigs. These same soldiers delighted to talk German with French women; tried to convince us that England was responsible for the war. "The whole world is against us," they said in a sulky voice; "the French, the English, the Russians, the Belgians...."
"But you are so numerous."
"Not so numerous as all that."
I remember also that we were once awaked by two drunken soldiers, who insisted upon our opening the window, and who at our refusal threatened and vociferated for an hour, promising to come back and set fire to the house.
On the other hand, listen to the tragical, horrific history of one afternoon—it was a washing day; the charwoman had forgotten to close the gate. Two or three of us were in the yard, when a sergeant and four men made their appearance. Horses were waiting in the street. The sergeant was of lofty stature, stupid, grave, blue-eyed, and dark-bearded. He asked us if we could furnish lodgings for "Herr Mayor and his ten men." The honour was not tempting. We pleaded want of room, we wrapped up our obvious ill-will in a mass of words. Antoinette carelessly pointed at the "small room," and hinted that we had no other left. The men withdrew, the horses rode away, and we sang songs of victory.
But the following morning, about seven, I heard a noisy knock at the door. I hastened out, and reluctantly admitted the visitors of yesterday. From the top of his head the sergeant announced that "Herr Mayor was very cross, furious even, that we declined to receive him." He had sent the ruffians now to see how many rooms we might place at his disposal. I felt sure anxious ears were listening behind every shutter in the house. The alarm had been given, and the sluggards were making what speed they could. The fellows entered. The family gathered together, scared and haggard. A few of them were dressed; the others were in dressing-gowns. The Germans examined the rooms whose morning disorder had been hastily concealed, went up to the attic and down to the cellar. The sergeant then pronounced judgment in a solemn voice. We might have offered five bedrooms to the German army.
Five bedrooms! And we had but five rooms, containing five beds! Where should we have slept? On straw with the dogs! That was a happy thought!
"And you would have offered Herr Mayor that small room overlooking the yard! Herr Mayor!"
As a matter of fact we had offered Herr Mayor nothing. But the poor wretch was as much shocked as if we had proposed to lodge the Crown Prince in a pig-sty.
Well, then, to punish us and to teach us the respect due to German officers, we were condemned to take into our house Herr Mayor and his ten men.
Death-like silence. A thunderbolt had fallen and struck us dumb. The soldier went on:
"Get dinner ready at half-past twelve—a table for one in the dining-room, for men in the kitchen."
At last we found our tongues.
"You talk of dinner! But we have no provisions to cook. Meat is not to be had at the butcher's...."
"You will be provided with meat. We want wine—champagne."
"Champagne!" We laughed in the face of the man.
"There is no wine in our cellar. We drink nothing but water."
"Anyhow, mind you do things properly."
This was said in a threatening voice, and we made no reply.
The sergeant had executed his mission, but he thought fit further to admonish us on his own account.
"Are you aware that the Germans are unwilling invaders? They did not want to make war. Who wished it? Can you doubt? It was England."
"Was it? Oh, really!"
"And the civilians should be kind to the soldiers, who are very well-behaved. For instance, we ourselves all come of distinguished families. A private soldier is not necessarily a scoundrel."
"I know that," Geneviève answered. "My brother is a soldier. But as patriots yourselves, you should understand that we are patriots too, and that it is painful for us to receive the enemy."
"The enemy! The enemy!"
The sergeant, bounding with rage, struck the pavement with the butt-end of his gun.
"No, we are not the enemies of women and children; we know how to behave ourselves...."
While he discoursed, one of the young men of "a distinguished family," standing on the staircase, caught sight of my husband's shoes on a shelf. He seized a pair and put one shoe into each pocket. Turning round he encountered Yvonne's looks, and hastily replaced his spoil. Twice, thinking himself unobserved, he recovered the shoes. But being too carefully watched he gave it up as a bad job, and his superior officer concluded his speech in these words:
"If the French went to Germany the civilians would receive them kindly."
Indeed! I was pleased to hear it. But if the German women are ready to give a hearty welcome to our soldiers—and that is quite easy to understand—it does not follow that we ought to deal in like manner with their sons and husbands. We have never pretended to govern ourselves by the fashion of Berlin!
At length they went away, and we had but to yield and prepare our saucepans. We would rather have given a dinner-party to Gargantua and his family than prepare food for a German officer and ten men just as German. We went to Mme. Tassin in our extremity. She would surely come to our help, in spite of rheumatism. The meat—about half an ox—was duly brought; half of it was for soup, half to be roasted. In the wash-house, Mme. Tassin made a gigantic soup, flavoured with a thousand vegetables. In the kitchen we peeled mountains of potatoes, and prepared two bottles of French beans, which a soldier had brought in, stolen I know not where. Antoinette, uncorking one of the bottles, broke its neck, and cut her finger. Her blood poured upon the beans. Hurrying to help her I tore off a bit of my finger.
"Never mind! get on with the potatoes!"
At length the work was finished.
Huge and lean, wall-eyed and mouthed like a pike, Herr Mayor arrived with happy nonchalance, and seated himself at the table. His attentive servant for very little would have served him on his knees. Dinner done, Herr Mayor required tea, and, being presented with a teapot, he demanded a liqueur, to flavour the tea. A few drops of rum were all that was left of an old bottle which happened to be in the dining-room. I took it in. As distant as Sirius I saluted the intruder. With a smile Herr Mayor made a low bow. Something like intelligence lit up his pale eyes. He cleared his throat, and faltered out:
"The ladies ... would be ... safer in Paris ... than here...."
I gave the rum-bottle to his servant, removed a hundred miles off, and answered:
"Certainly, sir."
I withdrew.
In the kitchen the ten men seemed to be rather constrained; they talked in a low voice, but did not lose their appetite for all that. My mother-in-law stood by, thinking that too many things might have led them into temptation. At last they went away; Herr Mayor too. His servant informed us that he would come alone to supper, and that he desired eggs and pancakes. With slow steps the officer went down the street. Behind the buckler of our blinds we burst out into bitter invectives:
"Be off, you old cut-throat! you old scout! You grind the weak; you bully women! You have eaten my finger-tip and have drunk the blood of Antoinette! Cannibal! Man-eater!"
The cannibal came back in the evening, ate a small pâté, was pleased with the poached eggs, and satisfied with the pancakes. Then he smoked his cigar at leisure, and all the while remained unconscious of severe eyes watching him from the garden. Yvonne and Colette made a wry face. "The sight of him is enough to make you sick. Fancy! I saw him put a whole egg into his mouth! His glass was covered with grease when he drank. Ugh!"
The next day after, another tune was played.
At twelve, precisely, Herr Mayor arrived, and calmly declared that, as his servant was out on urgent business, we must have the kindness to wait upon him ourselves.
"A pretty request, truly!"
Mme. Tassin was nowhere. The omelette, done to a turn, was getting cold in the kitchen. Meanwhile Herr Mayor was waiting in the dining-room. It was high time that the dish should make the guest's acquaintance. I made up my mind.
"I will take his dinner to the man."
"Never! You wait at table!"
"And upon a Prussian!"
"He did it on purpose, of course."
I persisted.
"I assure you I shall not deem myself degraded. And I promise you the man will feel uneasy sooner than I."
So beneath Herr Mayor's haughty nose I put the omelette aux fines herbes.
To the same nose I presented the roast veal with boiled potatoes, which is dear to all German hearts, and thought I might rest on my laurels. Then I saw that I had forgotten the sauce. Herr Mayor was chewing dry veal, sunk in melancholy. I put the sauce-boat on the table within reach of his hand.
"I had forgotten this; I am not in the habit...."
What did I say? Herr Mayor looked uneasy. He nearly begged my pardon.... "Indeed, I am afraid I disturb you...."
Ah! you deign to notice it? And you might as well have dined at the village inn? But you don't think that you and your ten gormandisers have reduced our stock of vegetables to nothing, and swallowed up our last egg!
But you have not always an officer at hand to give you information, and so I thought I might improve the occasion. "What is the cannon," I asked, "which thunders day and night in the south?"
"We have been fighting in Craonne for the last ten days," said he; "the battle is said to be coming to an end. Just before we were in Fismes."
Herr Mayor pronounced Fismesse. In a doleful tone he bewailed the evils of war.
The regiment he belonged to had suffered forty per cent losses since the beginning of war. He himself felt very ill. He had slept in the open air seven rainy nights running. Had I any kinsman in the war?
"Of course, my husband; and I get no news at all from him. That is the worst of all privations."
Herr Mayor nodded assent. These partings were cruel. Frau Mayor, too, would have given a good deal to accompany her Mayor. As to ourselves, our situation might change for the better. It was, for instance, to our interest that the Germans should advance. The front would then be removed farther from us. I answered that we should welcome no such change for the better. But suppose that just the reverse happened? If the Germans were driven back, the front would also remove farther? Wouldn't it?
"Oh! no, no.... Really, this war was stupid. England delights in making mischief, and the French are mad to enter into an alliance with the English, when another country was so eager to come to an agreement with them. France and Germany would get on well with each other. What, then, prevents a thoroughly good understanding?"
"A mere nothing, sir; a grain of sand.... Alsace-Lorraine, sir."
Herr Mayor shrugged his shoulders. He had forgotten Alsace-Lorraine.
His lunch was over. I asked if he intended to come and dine at our house.
Again he seemed at a loss what answer to give.
"H'm, h'm ... I am not sure. I will let you know."
His grey cloak streamed in the air, and Herr Mayor went away never to return.
Some days after I met him on the road. He bowed very low, and with a smiling face inquired after my husband. The double-faced fellow knew only too well I had not heard from him, but in common politeness I was fain to inquire also after his health. Herr Mayor was better, much better. In a week he would be back at the front, and if he happened to hear from my husband's regiment, he promised to send me the news.
And with many a bow Herr Mayor smiled himself away. His face was not ever smiling. The peasants were terrified at his way of carrying out requisitions. On the other hand, it was rumoured that he believed himself sprang from the thigh of Jupiter—I beg your pardon—of Wotan, and spoke to no one.
The family did not fail to exercise its flippancy at my expense. They asked for the recipe of my philtres to charm Prussians; they urged me to write a treatise on the art of training Germans, and prophesied a fine future for me as a tamer of tigers.
I did not mind being scoffed at. Too many cares claimed my attention. Besides, Barbu and Crafleux had just appeared in our orbit. But I am anticipating. Our chief anxiety was commonplace enough. The food problem was hard to solve. Fortunately, in spite of direful predictions, bread did not run short at the beginning of the war. Milk we had every day. Though Mme. Lantoye had been robbed of several cows, and though children were provided for first, she always gave us some. We had almost forgotten the taste of meat. Butter and cheese, hard to discover, were extravagantly dear, and eggs were as scarce as in Paris at the end of the siege. We had laid by a small provision of rice and macaroni, articles of food no more to be found in the shops; but we had decided to keep this reserve for extremities, in case, for instance, a bombardment kept us in the cellar. We all agreed to live from hand to mouth upon what we could come by. My reflections were profound when, after half a day's search, I found one egg, from which I had to concoct a dish for the whole family. You laugh? A proof that you lack imagination. With a single egg, as a base of operations, you can make pancakes, or apple-fritters, flower-fritters, or bread-fritters, or any fritters you like. By the way, I advise the use of nasturtiums. Rose leaves, on the other hand, are rather tasteless. But here is something better. You make some pastry, then beat up your one egg with a glass of milk, a few crumbs of bread, a bit of cheese, if you have any; then you pour the mixture on the pastry, put the whole in the oven, and when it is baked you will find a dish that will feed six women. Oh! we made no complaints; not yet, at least. Really when a menu consists of a potato fricassee to which laurel and thyme have given a zest, artichokes with melted butter and chervil—butter, replaced by grease, alas!—fresh salad, and juicy pears, who would not pronounce himself satisfied with such a meal? Marmontel, who loved good cheer, Marmontel in the Bastille, where he so highly appreciated the fare, Marmontel himself would have been delighted with it.
The want of light was the worst of our evils. Petroleum was no more to be had, and candles were hard to come by. Linseed oil and modest night-lights grudged us a glimmer by which we gloomily went to bed. Therefore as soon as the night fell the fiend of melancholy seized upon us. The dull light spread a gloom over the room we sat in, and from the black corners dark thoughts seemed to rise and grow upon us. So we would rather walk in the garden, or even look out of the window, when night fell, than sit at our work or our writing-table. How many hours have I spent leaning out of the window in a nightgown, and watching the shells burst. In September and October, just after the Germans' arrival, there were beautiful moonlit nights, worthy to be worshipped on bended knees; yet I felt an inclination to imitate Salammbô and cry to the moon with arms uplifted:
"O moon, I hate you. You are deceitful, unrelenting, and cold, and even the pale glimmer you send us you steal. There is nothing true but the warm and cheerful sunbeams, which give us light and life. You fling your silver arrows where you please, and throw what you choose into the shade. You slip your sly rays into closed rooms, through cracks and chinks; no secret escapes you. You favour illicit love, unpunished crimes, acts of violence, and foul deeds. All those things you feast upon, O moon! But your light is never so pleasant, your caress never so soft, as when you shine on a battlefield, on places where men kill one another. You take pleasure in the sight of dead bodies, shrivelled limbs, wide-open mouths, features distorted in the weird horror of death. You play on bloody weapons, on dark-mouthed cannon; you pass by the wounded, crying for help, by dying men whose death-rattle is unheard, and you smile yourself from the charnel-field, glad to leave the victims in the unfathomable shades of night."
Moon, I hate you! Everywhere and always you have looked on murderous battles, unbrotherly contests, man maddened against man. You saw the formidable army of Xerxes contend with the Greeks; you saw the Roman Empire quivering at the onslaught of the Barbarians. But can any sight you have ever witnessed be compared with that which you look down upon to-day? Europe in arms, cannon spreading death everywhere, thousands of men killed in the marshes of Poland, on the hills of Galicia, in France, on the plains of Flanders? Are you pleased, O moon?
Moon, I hate you!
To shun the moon, to shut out the sound of the guns, I close the wooden shutters, pull down the window, draw the curtains. The cannon are not silent. Chilled with cold and horror, I fling myself on my bed, bury my head in the pillows, creep under my blankets. The cannon still roars, and shakes my bed. I wake up, and the cannon roars louder than ever. To have lived, and have been sometimes careless and merry, we must have been as mad and as blind as the moon herself. But we cannot attain to the moon's insensibility, and that is why our laughter often turns to tears, and humour ends in a sob.