The woman who came to the door of the inn was one of those thin, dark pale, quiet women about whom there is always something sympathetic and sad. She said, she feared the inn could do us little honour; we must forgive, because of the war.
The stone hall was narrow and cold, the stairs went straight up from the farther end of it, and two doors opened from it on either side of it.
The woman took our wraps, and put them down on a table that there was by the entrance door.
Before the door to the right, down by the stairs, there was a small, fat, blonde baby standing, a little round-headed boy baby, in a black blouse, knocking on the door and crying and calling "Georgeot." He did not turn to look at us at all, but went on always knocking and crying.
The woman said, "You see, we never expect any one now, but if Monsieur and Madame will be indulgent—this is the dining-room, Madame," she opened one of the doors on the left, and went ahead of us into the dark room, and groped to the window to throw back the blinds.
We went to one of the bare tables, and she arranged it for us, not talking to us any more. And after a while fetched us potatoes and cheese, and sour bread and red wine which tasted of the roots and stems of vines.
Whenever she left the door a little open behind her, we could hear the baby in the hall sobbing and calling for "Georgeot." We asked her, "But the poor little soul, what is the matter that he calls like that?"
She told us it was his father he was calling. She said he had been hearing her call his father "Georgeot." His father had been home for six days' leave, and was gone back just this morning. "You understand," she said, "my husband had not seen his baby in eleven months, and he had him every minute in his arms; and since he is gone the baby will not go away from his door, or stop calling for him."
She did not seem to want to talk any more about it, and we pretended to find our lunch most excellent.