They say that the grass is growing everywhere in the empty streets of the town. The streets are kept cleared of the ruins of the houses that fall into them, and their wounds are carefully healed, like the wounds of the road. The stones of the broken houses are piled up quite neatly at the edge of the streets. There is no glass left of the windows of those houses that still stand—except for that—unhurt. Many of the houses are terribly hurt, the roof gone, great gaps in the walls.
I ask, do you see the paper of the walls in broken rooms? Are there pretty little wall-papers, with flowers and ribbons, that you see through the wounds of the houses? Are there left rags of curtain, tattered and rain-washed and faded, in some of the windows? Do you see people's little loved things, abandoned in the broken ruins, betrayed to strangers?
They tell me that vines are grown across to bar the doors so long unopened, or the doors left so long open, sagging; and I suppose that there are cobwebs also.
They say that here and there you see a sign scrawled up over a door, or over the break in a wall, that says, "En cas de bombardement il y a ici une cave."
I ask, is the signboard of Monsieur Pigot's, the pastrycook, still hung out over his door?
The Grass Road
You can keep on for a short distance beyond the town, on the other side of it. The great road leads on between its poplar trees, white and straight. Here it has been less wounded because the hills shelter it. The trees have not been hurt here; they lift their grey-green plumes, light and proud as ever, above the road.
I remember to ask: Is there much passing along the road, that terrible grey passing of war things? Do you see many blue troops along the road? They say: Oh, yes, of course, as far as the old octroi.
What is it like now at the octroi under the edge of the hill?