"Look here! Isn't it a shame? For a single man, two boxes! five bags! portmanteaux! Well, if he wants so much to go and fight...." Crafleux was more modest, but Barbu had certainly imported a whole dressing-room from Germany. The day after his arrival he showed off heaps of small brushes in small boxes, small creams in small pots, small scents in small bottles, and photographs and photographic apparatus, electric lamps and re-fills for these lamps, sporting guns and india-rubber cushions, soft blankets and uniforms without number. But he was chiefly remarkable for his befrogged pyjamas of sky blue or Chinese flesh colour! The sight of him must have been affecting when he had on his helmet by way of nightcap! So Barbu and Crafleux installed themselves downstairs, and we upstairs. Yvonne settled down in a tiny attic, and Colette slept on a couch in Antoinette's room. I gave Geneviève a share of my own bed in the room which already sheltered the youthful Pierrot. We were not very comfortable, and what was worse, we suffered from the cold. This requires an explanation. Some time ago a direful rumour had spread about: "They have requisitioned a great number of mattresses in Vivaise." Now Vivaise is a village not far from Morny. "You may be sure they will do the same here," said the well-informed. And so, in all houses, the beds were only half as high as before; and he was cunning indeed who could say what had become of the missing part. We, for instance, have plenty of mattresses: large, soft, elastic mattresses which would make you wish to be ill and keep your bed—and should the enemy of France rest upon them? That shall never be, we declared. By the unanimous exertion of the whole family, climbing, pulling, pushing, toiling, we succeeded in hoisting up most of these useful objects, and hiding them in the loft under the roof. Every bed was left with one only. When Barbu and Crafleux intruded themselves into the house, we were hard put to it. One of us made shift with a palliasse, while Geneviève and I slept on a hair mattress. This plan is not to be recommended unless you choose to mortify your flesh, or to copy the fakirs of India. We could have put up with our uncomfortable bedding if, to add to our misfortune, the cold had not seized upon us. Our present guests laid their hands upon heaps of blankets, their predecessors had stolen two, and so we had just enough, and nothing to spare.
We went to sleep as straight as arrows, one on each side of the bed; we woke up in the morning twisted into knots, one against the other, like two shivering cats. Despair drove Yvonne from one extreme to the other; either she lay half-smothered with heat under an enormous eider-down, or benumbed with cold under a thin cotton blanket. The authors of our hardships tasted the honey-dew of sleep upon beds of down; they knew not that threatening fists were shaken at them upstairs, and that bitter invectives vowed them to execration. Yet I think that when logs unexpectedly tumbled down, and pieces of furniture joined the dance, they gave a start and felt uneasy. But on the whole, as quiet as Vert-Vert at the Visitandines, they led a happy life, got up between nine and ten, saw about their convoy, fed well at the village inn, often went shooting, or, if they had a mind, drove out to Laon, came back home to rest a while and dress for dinner, and then about ten, eleven, or midnight, got back into their rooms and their comfortable beds.
I hinted that war, conducted in this fashion, was not disagreeable. Barbu knew that I was laughing at them.
"But our comrades ... who are fighting...."
"Do not lead such a pleasant life ... I am sure of it."
"And I think ... French convoys take their ease too."
"Well, I hope so."
But really, Barbu, it was only right that you should live in comfort, for none knew better than you how to appreciate it!
One day, going in to return a newspaper he had lent me, I surprised this lover of comforts seated in an arm-chair, his feet on the fender, his head resting on a cushion, his back on another, a book in his hand, a lamp behind him. He looked a perfect picture of self-satisfaction. But such delights cannot last for ever. "The present convoys are going to the front," some people said. Do you hear, Barbu? You will go to the front. You will change your carpet for the mud of the trenches, your pleasant fire for an icy fog, the studious light of your lamp for the red glare of the shells! You will go to the front!
They did not go to the front. They were to pass one or two nights in our house, and they stayed a month!