XXI
February 16, 1916
Well, we are beginning to get a little light—we foreigners—on our situation. On February 2, I was ordered to present myself again at the mairie. I obeyed the summons the next morning, and was told that the military authorities were to provide all foreigners inside the zone des armées, and all foreigners outside, who, for any reason, needed to enter the zone, with what is called a "carnet d'étrangère," and that, once I got that, I would have the privilege of asking for a permission to circulate, but, until that document was ready, I must be content not to leave my commune, nor to ask for any sort of a sauf-conduit.
I understand that this regulation applies even to the doctors and infirmières, and ambulance drivers of all the American units at work in France. I naturally imagine that some temporary provision must be made for them in the interim.
I had to make a formal petition for this famous carnet, and to furnish the military authorities with two photographs—front view,—size and form prescribed.
I looked at the mayor's secretary and asked him how the Old Scratch —I said frankly diable—I was to get photographed when he had forbidden me to leave my commune, and knew as well as I that there was no photographer here.
Quite seriously he wrote me a special permit to go to Couilly where there is a man who can photograph. He wrote on it that it was good for one day, and the purpose of the trip "to be photographed by the order of the mayor in order to get my carnet d'étrangère," and he solemnly presented it to me, without the faintest suspicion that it was humorous.
Between you and me, I did not even use it. I had still one of the photographs made for my passport and other papers. Amélie carried it to Couilly and had it copied. Very few people would recognize me by it. It is the counterfeit presentment of a smiling, fat old lady, but it is absolutely réglementaire in size and form, and so will pass muster. I have seen some pretty queer portraits on civil papers.
We are promised these carnets in the course of "a few weeks," so, until then, you can think of me as, to all intents and purposes, really interned.
It may interest you to know that on the 9th,—just a week ago—a Zeppelin nearly got to Meaux. It was about half past eleven in the evening when the drums beat "lights out," along the hillside. There weren't many to put out, for everyone is in bed at that hour, and we have no street-lights, but an order is an order. The only result of the drum was to call everyone out of bed, in the hope "to see a Zeppelin." We neither heard nor saw anything.
Amélie said with a grin next morning, "Eh, bien, only one thing is needed to complete our experiences—that a bomb should fall shy of its aim—the railroad down there—and wipe Huiry off the map, and write it in history."
I am sorry that you find holes in my letters. It is your own fault. You do not see this war from my point of view yet—alas! But you will. Make a note of that. The thing that you will not understand, living, as you do, in a world going about its daily routine, out of sight, out of hearing of all this horror, is that Germany's wilful destruction is on a preconceived plan—a racial principle. The more races she can reduce and enfeeble the more room there will be for her. Germany wants Belgium—but she wants as few Belgians as possible. So with Poland, and Servia, and northeast France. She wants them to die out as fast as possible. It is a part of the programme of a people calling themselves the elect of the world—the only race, in their opinion, which ought to survive.
She had a forty-four years' start of the rest of the world in preparing her programme. It is not in two years, or in three, that the rest of the world can overtake her. That advantage is going to carry her a long way. Some people still believe that advantage will exist to the end. I don't. Still, one of the overwhelming facts of this war is to me that: Germany held Belgium and northeast France at the end of 1914, and yet, all along the Allied fronts, with Germany fighting on invaded territory, they cried: "She is beaten!" So, indeed, her strategy was. At the end of 1915 she had two new allies, and held all of Servia, Montenegro, and Russian Poland, and still the Allies persisted: "She is licked, but she does not know it yet." It is one of the finest proofs of the world's faith in the triumph of the Right that so many believe this to be true.
You are going to come some day to the opinion I hold—that if we want universai peace we must first get rid of the race that does not want it or believe in it. Forbidden subject? I know. But when I resist temptation you find holes in my letters, and seem to imagine that I am taking no notice of things that happen. I notice fast enough, and I am so interested that I hope to see the condemnation, already passed in England, against Kaiser, Kronprinz and Company, for "wilful murder," executed, even if I cannot live to see Germany invaded.
This is what you get for saying, "You make no comment on the overrunning of Servia or the murder of Edith Cavell, or the failure of the Gallipoli adventure." After all, these are only details in the great undertaking. As we say of every disaster, "They will not affect the final result." It is getting to be a catch-word, but it is true.
Germany is absolutely right in considering Great Britain her greatest enemy. She knows today that, even if she could get to Paris or Petrograd, it would not help her. She would still have Britain to settle with. I wonder if the Kaiser has yet waked up to a realization of his one very great achievement—the reawakening of Greater Britain? He dreamed of dealing his mother's country a mortal blow.
The blow landed, but it healed instead of killing.
This war is infernal, diabolical—and farcical—if we look at the deeds that are done every day. Luckily we don't and mustn't, for we all know that there are things in the world a million times worse than death, and that there are future results to be aimed at which make death gloriously worth while. Those are the things we must look at.
I have always told you that I did not find the balance of things much changed, and I don't. I am afraid that you cannot cultivate, civilize, humanize—choose your word—man to such a point that, so long as he is not emasculated, his final argument in the cause of honor and justice will not be his fists—with or without a weapon in them—which is equivalent to saying, I am afraid, that so long as there are two men on earth there will always be the chance of a fight.
Thus far February has been a droll month. I have seen Februaries in France which have been spring-like, with the chestnut trees in bud, and the primroses in flower, and lilacs in leaf. This February has been a strange mixture of spring awkwardly slipping out of the lap of winter and climbing back again. There have been days when the sun was so warm that I could drive without a rug, and found furs a burden; there have been wonderful moonlit nights; but the most of the time, so far, it has been nasty. On warm days flowers began to sprout and the buds on the fruit-trees to swell. That made Père sigh and talk about the lune rousse. We have had days of wind and rain which be- longed in a correct March. I am beginning to realize that the life of a farmer is a life of anxiety. If I can take Père's word for it, it is always cold when it should not be; the hot wave never arrives at the right moment; when it should be dry it rains; and when the earth needs water the rain refuses to fall. In fact, on his testimony, I am convinced that the weather is never just right, except to the mere lover of nature, who has nothing to lose and nothing to gain by its caprices.
The strange thing is that we all stand it so well. If anyone had told me that I could have put up with the life I have been living for two winters and be none the worse for it, I should have thought him heartless. Yet, like the army, I am surely none the worse for it, and, in the army, many of the men are better for it. The youngsters who come home on leave are as rugged as possible. They have straightened up and broadened their chests. Even the middle-aged are stronger. There is a man here who is a master mason, a hard-working, ambitious, honest chap, very much loved in the commune. He worked on my house, so I know him well. Before the war he was very delicate. He had chronic indigestion, and constantly recurring sore throats. He was pale, and his back was beginning to get round. As he has five children, he is in an ammunition factory. He was home the other day. I asked him about his health, he looked so rosy, so erect, and strong. He laughed, and replied: "Never so well in my life. I haven't had a cold this winter, and I sleep in a board shanty and have no fire, and I eat in a place so cold my food is chilled before I can swallow it. My indigestion is a thing of the past. I could digest nails!"
You see I am always looking for consolations in the disaster. One must, you know.