These new arrivals had twenty-four hours' rest, and then, on Thursday, they acted as escort to the second division, and with that division went the Aspirant, and the men they relieved arrived Friday afternoon, and now we are settled down for three weeks.
Before the Aspirant left he introduced into the house the senior lieutenant, whom he had been replacing in the command on my hill, a man a little over thirty—a business man in private life and altogether charming, very cultivated, a book-lover and an art connoisseur. He is a nephew of Lêpine, so many years préfet de police at Paris, and a cousin of Senator Reynault, who was killed in his aeroplane at Toule, famous not only as a brave patriot, but as a volunteer for three reasons exempt from active service—a senator, a doctor, and past the age.
I begin to believe, on the testimony of my personal experiences, that all the officers in the cavalry are perfect gentlemen. The lieutenant settled into his place at once. He puts the coal on the fire at night. He plays with the animals. He locks up, and is as quiet as a mouse and as busy as a bee.
This is all my news, except that I am hoping to go to Paris for
Christmas, and to go by the way of Voulangis. It is all very uncertain.
My permission has not come yet.
It is over a year since we were shut in. My friends in Paris call me their permissionaire, when I go to town. In the few shops where I am known everyone laughs when I make my rare appearances and greets me with: "Ah, so they've let you out again!" as if it were a huge joke, and I assure you that it does seem like that to me.
The soldiers in the trenches get eight days' permission every four months. I don't seem to get much more,—if as much.
XXXI
January 10, 1917
I went to Paris, as I told you I hoped to do. Nothing new there. In spite of the fact that, in many ways, they are beginning to feel the war, and there is altogether too much talk about things no one can really know anything about, I was still amazed at the gaiety. In a way it is just now largely due to the great number of men en permission. The streets, the restaurants, the tea-rooms are full of them, and so, they tell me, are the theatres.
Do you know what struck me most forcibly? You'll never guess. It was that men in long trousers look perfectly absurd. I am so used to seeing the culotte and gaiters that the best-looking pantaloons I saw on the boulevards looked ugly and ridiculous.