To what are we coming?
The next day I found my little German soldier decidedly worse. He had received a letter from the Mutter, which he asked me to read to him. I tried my best to overcome the difficulties of the writing and spelling, and made many mistakes, causing the poor little fellow to smile. He corrected me every time very conscientiously.
I did feel so sorry for him; he seemed so gentle and never complained of his sufferings, which must have been intense. The nurse, feeling his pulse, announced an increase of fever, and thought he had better rest, When I said, in as cheerful a voice as I could assume; "Well, good-by for to-day," he said, "To-morrow you will come?" Alas! there was to be no to- morrow for him.
My other patient, Mr. Parker, appeared very comfortable, and immensely pleased to see that I had not forgotten to bring the newspapers and pictures. I also took a chess-board, thinking to amuse him. The doctor looked dismayed when he saw me carrying a chessboard under my arm. "Madame," he said, "I think that chess is too fatiguing for an invalid; perhaps something milder would be better. I have always understood," he smilingly added, "that chess is a game for people in the most robust health, and with all their mental faculties."
I felt utterly crushed. This was the way my attempts to divert the sick and the wounded were received! I thought how little I understood the character of hospital work. Mr. Parker, evidently feeling sorry for my discomfiture, told the doctor it would amuse him to play checkers if he would allow it. The doctor consented to this, and I sent Louis off to buy a box of checkers. Mr. Parker and I played two games, and he beat me each game, which put him in splendid spirits, and I think did him no harm.
Mrs. Moulton and I drove out to the Bois after the ambulance visit. I had not been there since last August. How changed it was! The broad Avenue de l'Impératrice, where the lovely Empress drove every day in her calèche à la Daumont, surrounded by the magnificent Cent Gardes, is now almost impossible to drive in. The trees are cut down, and the roads full of ditches and stones.
Rochefort, who was in power while the siege was in progress, suggested some medieval methods too childish for belief—to annihilate the whole German army if they should enter Paris. He had ordered pitfalls in the Avenue de l'Impératrice—holes about three feet deep—in which he intended the German cavalry to tumble headlong. He thought, probably, the army would come in the night and not see them. Rochefort had also built towers, as in the time of the Crusaders, from which hot oil and stones were to be poured on the enemy. Did you ever hear of anything so idiotic? He little dreamt that the German army would take possession of Paris, bivouac in the Champs-Élysées, and quietly march out again.
We visited the Pré Catalan, where last year fashionable society met every day to flirt and drink milk. That is, as you may imagine, minus cows. These had, like all the other animals, been eaten and digested long ago. Thick hides not being at a premium, the hippopotamus and rhinoceros had been kindly spared to posterity.
March 29th.
To-day I went to the ambulances as usual. The doctor greeted me with his usual kindness; he said there was an invalid for whom I was needed, and conducted me to his bedside.