They had brought him food for the journey; chocolate, a long loaf, tins of sardines, a bottle of wine; and the fun was in trying to find any pocket, bag, or haversack not already filled. They were all laughing, the little, fat mother rather mechanically, when the whistle blew.
It was one of those shrill, long-drawn whistles without which in Europe no train can start. It had a peevish, infantile sound, like the squeak of a nursery toy. But it was as ominous as though some one had fired a siege-gun.
The soldiers raced for the cars, and the one in front of me, suddenly grown grave, stooped and kissed the fat, little mother.
She was still laughing; but at his embrace and at the meaning of it, at the thought that the son, who to her was always a baby, might never again embrace her, she tore herself from him sobbing and fled—fled blindly as though to escape from her grief.
Other women, their eyes filled with sudden tears, made way, and with their fingers pressed to their lips turned to watch her.
The young soldier kissed the wife, or sister, or sweetheart, or whatever she was, sketchily on one ear and shoved her after the fleeing figure.
“Guardez mama!” he said.
It is the tragedy that will never grow less, and never grow old.
One who left Paris in October, 1914, and returned in October, 1915, finds her calm, confident; her social temperature only a little below normal.