MY FRIEND
My char-woman woke me by bringing me the papers, which I read in bed.
To think that it had not come yet! It was true that all intercourse had been broken off between Berlin and St. Petersburg, and even on our frontier there had already been some deaths, the Samain brothers and the Curé de Moineville. Provocations and outrages were multiplying and increasing in severity. Our forces nevertheless were still kept back two miles from the frontier. M. de Schoën was still about. They were talking!
The papers did not cover more than a page now, and were quickly read. They all contained the same incoherent communiqués and the rare telegrams which were allowed by the censor (already!) to trickle through.
Details in plenty on the manifestations in Paris and in the provinces. The same old story! In one of them there was a technical article headed "The Defence of Nancy." This title interested me. I, like most other people, felt so certain that this town was doomed; at the mercy of the first masterly move.
What baffled me was the placid, docile attitude of my friends the socialists. How little one heard of them! It was true that the censor ... but never mind! Jaurès, as he was dying, had left them the order to go on, and they were going on. Closed ranks and obedience and confidence were the orders of the day. Arguments were left for another time! and on my honour, it was very fine!
My purchases of the preceding day were delivered. I asked the boy who brought them, if he was going to fight.
"Of course!"
He was a cheery soul. He liked the idea of knocking the Bosches on the head; he had no great opinion of them chaps. And then besides that, it was worth takin' a bit o' trouble to get a breath of fresh air, for him whose week had been spent in running errands, and his Sundays as assistant in a picture palace, for how long...? Blowed if it wasn't five blooming years—yes, ever since he was a nipper of seventeen—he'd never set eyes on the country....