(What dream was that of Julien, and of a summer spent in Charleville! The noise of England burst upon her ears. She heard the talk at parties—faces swam so close to hers that she looked in their eyes and spoke to them.)
And how the town is filling with men in new black coats, and women in shawls! Every day more and more arrive. And the civilians come first now! Down in the Co-operative I asked for a tin of milk, and I was told: 'We are keeping the milk for the "Civils."' 'For the "Civils"?' I said, for we are all accustomed to the idea that the army feeds first."
"Oh, that's all gone! We are losing importance now. It is time to go home."
As they spoke there came a shrill whistle which sounded through
Charleville.
"Ecoute!" said a man down the street, and the Section, moving to the window, heard it again, nameless, and yet familiar.
Unseen Charleville lifted its head and said, "Ecoute."
The first train had crawled over the new bridge, and stood whistling its triumph in the station.
As spring became more than a bright light over the mountains so the town in the hollow blossomed and functioned. The gate bells rang, the electric light ceased to glow in the daytime, great cranes came up on the trains and fished in the river for the wallowing bridges. Workmen arrived in the streets. In the early summer mornings tapping could be heard all about the town. Civilians in new black suits, civilians more or less damaged, limping or one-eyed, did things that made them happy with a hammer and a nail. They whistled as they tapped, nailed up shutters that had hung for four years by one hinge, climbed about the roofs and fixed a tile or two where a hundred were needed, brought little ladders on borrowed wheelbarrows and set them against the house-wall. In the house opposite, in the Rue de Clèves, a man was using his old blue puttees to nail up his fruit-trees.
All the men worked in new Sunday clothes; they had, as yet, nothing old to work in. Every day brought more of them to the town, lorries and horse carts set them down by the "Silver Lion," and they walked along the street carrying black bags and rolls of carpet, boxes of tools, and sometimes a well-oiled carbine.
"Yes, we must go home," said the Englishwomen. "It's time to leave the town."