“Oh, my God!” she said, “those devils have gone at last! What have they not made us suffer! My husband and I had four little houses—we were innkeepers—and last night they sent us to this part of the town and burnt all of them.” She used a queer word in French. “Last night,” she said, “they made a devil’s charivari and set many houses on fire.”
Her husband spoke to me over his wife’s shoulder.
“Sir, they have stolen everything, broken everything, ground us down for four years. They are bandits and robbers.”
“We are hungry,” said the thin girl.
By her side the boy, with a white pinched face, echoed her plaint.
“We have eaten our bread and I am hungry.”
They had some coffee left, and asked me to go inside and drink it with them, but I could not wait.
The woman held my wrist tight in her skinny hands.
“You will come back?” she asked.
“I will try,” I said.