In comparison with them my fittings are palatial. I have a large square low-ceilinged room with stone floor, and French windows with big wooden shutters to enclose the light. The walls are concealed by the big presses or Armoires so dear to the housewives of Lorraine. The one old lady who occupies this house has lived here for all of her 70 years (a German officer occupied the high canopied bed in 1870) and she has never let any single possession she ever had get away from her. They are all in the Armoires, old hats, bits of silk, newspapers—everything. She is very pious and very pleased to have M. l’Aumonier, but she wouldn’t give me a bit of shelf room or a quarter inch of candle or a handful of petit bois to start a fire in the wretched fireplace, without cash down.
“Monsieur is a Curé.”
“Yes, Madame.”
My landlady has been quizzing me about the Regiment, my parish and myself. She doesn’t understand this volunteer business. If we didn’t have to come, why are we here? is her matter of fact attitude. She was evidently not satisfied with what she could learn from me herself, so one day she called to her aid a crony of hers, a woman of 50 with a fighting face and straggly hair whom I had dubbed “the sthreeler,” because no English word described her so adequately. I had already heard the Sthreeler’s opinion of the women in Paris—all of them. It would have done the hussies good to hear what she thought of them. Now she turned her interrogatory sword point at me; no parrying about her methods—just slash and slash again.
“Monsieur has three vicaires.” “Yes, Madame.”
“Then why has M. l’Aumonier come over here? Why not send one of the Vicaires and stay at home in his parish?”
“But none of the vicaires was aumonier of the Regiment; but myself, M. le Curé.
“Oh, perhaps the Germans destroyed your parish as they did that of our present curé.”
“No, the Germans have not got to New York yet so my parish is still safe.”
“Ah, then, I have it. No doubt the Government pays you more as aumonier than the church does as curé.”