I walked along the street between them, my little daughter and my little son, their warm soft hands in mine. The sparrows chattered in the bare trees above us, the sparrows who even in this keen air felt the coming of spring which was foretold by the greening of the grass in the public squares. My children chattered incessantly, like the sparrows. Perhaps they felt the spring too. I did not want to feel the spring. We turned away from the Seine and walked on one side of the open square before Notre Dame.
"Mother, I caught my ball twenty-three times to-day without missing."
"Muvver, I see a white horse, a big white horsie!"
"Mother, do you like arithmetic as well as history? I don't."
"Muvver, I have a little p'tend doggie here, trotting after me, a little brown p'tend doggie."
"Mother, O mother, let me tell you what happened at school to-day, during recess!"
Through the half-heard ripple of clear little voices, there came upon me one of those thunder-claps of realization which, since the beginning of the war, have brought wiser and stronger people than I to the brink of insanity—realization for an instant (longer than an instant would carry any one over the brink) that the war is really going on, realization of what the war really means, one glimpse of the black abyss. I felt very sick, and stood still for an instant, because my knees shook under me....
But those wiser and stronger ones had not little children of their own to draw them away from that black gulf.... I was pulled at by impatient little hands, lucid, ineffably pure eyes were turned up to mine, the clear little voices grew louder, "Muvver, muvver, I'm losing my mitten!"
"Mother, why are you standing still? This isn't a good place to play! There! A little nearer the big church is some sand. And a bench for you."
How could I go on this everyday commonplace life, eating, drinking, sleeping, caring for the children, cheering them ... in such a wicked and imbecile world! I looked up and down the bare, sun-flooded square. All about me were other women, caring for little children. And for the most part, those other women were in mourning. But they were there under that cruel, careless sunshine, caring for their children, cheering them....