[Original]
Up the village street comes the funeral. Gusts of wind, bearing fog and rain on their wings, roar up the roadway, tossing the branches against the low sky, tearing the last Autumn leaves from the trees, whirling the skirts of the women and the white garments of the priest, as the mournful little band struggles towards the church.
The bell is tolling in long, heavy notes; the funeral cars, alas! three in number, move slowly along; the "tricolor," wet and draggled, whipping above the heads of the little troopers who have lain down their lives that it may float free and unsubdued over France.
What a sad little procession it is! First, a chorister bearing a cross; then two others chanting, with the priest, the dirge for the dead.
On either side of the three hearses limp a few soldiers, their red trousers the only spot of color in the black and gray landscape.
A group of the Red Cross nurses follow, their dark cloaks and white head-dresses straining in the gale, and then the crowd of sorrowing people. Poor, humble folk they are, in sabots and heavy black peasant costumes. Old women tottering along together, bending their white-coiffed heads to the blast. Young women, white and broken-hearted. Tragedy written in changeless lines on their faces, innocent victims of this unspeakable war, bearing their last poor little offerings in their red hands, a few rain-beaten bunches of chrysanthemums, the only tribute they can offer to their dear ones.
The bell still tolls mournfully; the bowed, black figures grow fainter in the mist. In from the Atlantic sweeps the storm, raging above the piteous mourners. Shrieking! Whistling! Howling! Where now the sunny France sung by the poets? Where the gaiety and life, so typical of the charming French?
Gray clouds, wind-swept roads, black skeleton branches, straining away from the sea. Rain in gusts. Cold, sorrow, desolation in all the land!