To-night we all sit out on the terrasse at the little white tables. The whole family are here. M. and Mme Job-Lepouse, Floribert, Alfred, Louisa, Irma, and Rosa. M. le Précepteur and his wife come over from the post office. The postman and the picturesque poacher lounge against the wall. In the distance the old Maids of Manhay are enjoying their evening chase after the elusive pig, and the skeleton dog is giving a series of infuriated yaps at his own enforced detention. The fair unknown comes out of the red doll’s house opposite and waters the rosier with rather tremulous grace. This will be our last night of peace....
HOW THE UHLANS CAME
“It never rains but it pours,” is as true of the Ardennes as of more distant lands. It has been pouring all night. It is pouring now. In the silence between the pitiless showers, we can hear the roar of the siege guns already bombarding Liège.
More trees have been cut down during the dark hours. A great wall of wood bars the road opposite the Gendarmerie leading to Vaux Chavannes. Numberless recumbent tree-trunks are making great dark tracks across the long and tortuous route towards the frontier. We have done our share. We can but wait events.
Everything is curiously quiet this morning ... in the village. For rustic sounds one only hears the Manhay pig grunting as he wallows with a furious enjoyment in the churned-up mud of a distant field, and the yapping of the miserable imprisoned dog from his box-kennel chained to an old wall. I sit out on the terrasse and begin to sew. Germaine is brought along in her nurse’s arms and looks at me nervously. It is ironing day, and her mother is busy collecting the washing from the garden hedge. Victor plays the good old game of follow-my-leader up and down the street with little René.
Madame Job comes out of the inn and leans one hand for a moment on the back of my chair. The other steals up to her eyes.
“I can’t help thinking of Albert,” she says apologetically, “my Albert in the forts there below.” She gazes in the direction of Liège, which is hidden behind the distant wooded hills.
“Why fear for him?” I ask. “Is he not lucky to be in the forts, the forts-which-are-so-strong.”
I know the comforting phrase by heart now.
“The forts-which-are-so-strong.” She repeats the words after me like a child. A gleam of hope dawns for an instant on her kindly face, then fades away. “Supposing he is not fed!” she says with bitter emphasis. To the Walloon mind, hunger is almost worse than death.