And then came a soldier wounded in the leg, and, in spite of his sufferings, he hobbled on with a stick. In admiration, he indicated Antoinette with a movement of his chin, and declared in his Lorraine brogue:
"That girl there, she has dressed my wound much better than a trained nurse."
A little linesman moved our pity still more, and even now we cannot talk of him without emotion. He was very young, with a childish face; his motionless features expressed an immense stupor, a grievous surprise. What! that war! That was war! This wonderful thing we had so often heard of! It was this retreat, these toils, these sufferings! For three weeks he had not taken off his shoes, and his blistered feet were so swollen that the poor fellow could hardly walk. Geneviève washed his poor feet, and Colette, the over-fastidious Colette, wiped and bound them up with tender care. We got him fresh socks, and the little foot soldier, after a comfortable breakfast, went on his way again. As he left us, he looked around him with amazement depicted on his face, and said:
"The Germans will punish you for that."
In these busy hours we had many opportunities to wonder at the energy and vitality of our race. As soon as the soldiers, spent with fatigue and disheartened, had rested a bit and swallowed something hot, they renewed their vigour and even recovered gaiety enough to tell us their adventures, to laugh at the German shells, which often do not burst, and whose fragments run over the cloth of their uniforms, they assured us, without doing any harm.
"But"—and there they dropped their voices to a whisper—"we have been beaten, because there are traitors among the generals...." This opinion drove us to despair. We did not give credit to it, but what would happen if the men reposed no trust in their chiefs? And what could we answer to the poor fellows? I recalled to Geneviève's memory Captain Vinchamps' saying: "Beaten soldiers always call out treason, and they are not wrong; a traitor is not merely a man who basely and selfishly sells his country; he is a traitor too when he is not equal to his duty."
We did our utmost to hearten our guests of a moment, to cheer them physically and morally; and then one after another they resumed their journey. A touching detail: every lame soldier was attended by a comrade, who took charge of him, carried his knapsack, held him up, and was as careful of him as a mother of her child. About noon, when all had gone away, Yvonne and Colette, who kept a watchful eye upon the street, cried out: "Something is happening towards the pond," and set off running thither. They found that a soldier had suddenly gone mad. Half-naked, up to his waist in water, he shrieked and gesticulated, and four men had a hard struggle to master him.
Trifling as it was, this incident brought the people's excitement to its highest point.
"He is a Prussian," said one. "He is a spy," retorted another. This time the people snatched at their luggage, were off in an instant, and came back an hour after. The level-crossings were not open to civilians for the present, or at least to carriages. Our state of mind was that of a fish caught in a net. Terror spread amain, and won complete power over the public mind. None knew what he dreaded, and all men reasoned themselves out of reason. Our arguments were proved absurd and grotesque by the event. A mist was over us; it was no more the pillar of fire; it was the pillar of cloud. It was no more the shadow of approaching glory; it was the black shadow which impending invasion casts before.
News kept coming.