One Sunday Herbert and I went chestnutting. Despite the swarms of excursionists around Paris, there are lots of places to pick up on the road all the chestnuts you can carry. We walked from Saint-Cyr across country, skirting Versailles, to Marly. With heavy pockets, knotted kerchief bundles, and the beginning of stiffness in our backs, we stopped for lunch at a little country hostelry whose cave still has a big stock of Chambertin of golden years. The critic and I are agreed upon the wisdom of censoring the name I unthinkingly put in the first draft of this chapter. Why spoil a good thing? Life is short—and so are stocks of Chambertin. And there are so many roads and so many hostelries between Saint-Cyr and Saint-Germain-en-Laye that the little I have said is a challenge to your love of Burgundy.
Madame told us how history did not repeat itself until the end of the story. What starts the same way does not always end the same way. We hope German professors of history will impress this truth upon the next generation of their close-cropped, bullet-headed students. They are at liberty to use this illustration if they want. Why limit their Paris vistas to the provoking sight of the Tour Eiffel in the distance?
"In Soixante-Dix," said Madame, flipping teamsters' crumbs off our table with a skilful swing of her serviette, "I saw my father bury our wines out there in the garden. It took several days, and he had only my brother and me to help him. I remember how he mumbled and shook his head over the possible effect of disturbing the good crus. 'They will never be the same again,' he said mournfully. Much good it did him! We had our work for nothing. The Germans came. Right where you are sitting, M'sieu-dame, the brutes thumped on the table and called for the best in the cellar. My father said he had no wine. They went to the cave. Empty. Then the officer laughed till the tears rolled down his cheeks. He sat in a chair—sprawled in a chair that cracked under his swinging—smacked his thighs, and when he could speak, he told his men to go out into the garden. With their picks and shovels they unearthed all—all, M'sieu-dame.
"So this time I remembered—and I thought hard. My husband was off the fourth day of the mobilization. Even if I had help, would not the garden cache a second time be foolish? And the old crus ought not to be shaken—you are going to taste my Chambertin, and you will agree that it ought not to risk being shaken. It really ought not. What was I to do? When the Germans come, will they know the difference? I asked myself. So I took vin ordinaire. I put it in bottles. I sealed it red. I worked two days to put it on the outer racks and the under racks with the good wine between. Then I cobwebbed it and moistened it with dust. I built a fire to dry it. If the Germans were in a hurry they would take the top. If they had leisure, they would fish in the bottom rows.
"But the Germans never came. I had my work a second time for nothing. Do you think, M'sieu-dame, they will be fooled? I want to know what is best for next time."
"Next time," cried my husband. "Next time! Do you think there will be a next time?"
"Bien sûr, Monsieur," the woman answered without hesitation. "The Germans will come again. They will always come. We are not as big, hélas! They will come—unless your country—?"
Suddenly we realized that not the keeper of the inn, but France, France through a wife and mother, was speaking. A shadow fell upon us that Chambertin and the crisp autumn air could not dispel.