I thanked him. “But the sack, you wish it back?”
“Yes, for look you; it is a little souvenir.” And at that he showed me certain crosses and darts and letterings in German script which indicated by number and description the prisoner, Guillaume Guilleux of the commune of Hombleux and the farm du Calvaire. “I took this with me, eh! I would not part with it.”
“Not to me, Monsieur? To me also it would be a souvenir, to take to America.”
“O no, Mademoiselle, never,” and his hands clutched it involuntarily. “The souvenir and the memory, they are mine. Both my grandchildren shall remember also in the years to come.”
But the sack was not the only souvenir contained in the little hut. I spied one day three tiny teacups depending from nails upon the wall. They were even smaller than coffee cups, and delicately flowered.
“Oh, how pretty,” I exclaimed. “May I look?”
Mme. Guilleux took them down with fumbling fingers and a suddenly altered face. For the first time, I noticed the sharp indrawn wrinkles about mouth and eyes which tell of suffering.
“They belonged to Solange, Colombe’s sister,” and not able to continue, she hid her face in her apron. “They were her tea-set,” she went on in broken sentences. “Her father and I bought them for her on her thirteenth birthday, and she always kept them. Mon Dieu, how lovely she was! Curls, and long lashes, and skin like apple blossoms, and eyes blue like those flowers! She was my oldest, and good as she was pretty. But on the night when the Germans came, they tore her from my arms. Why do I live?” she broke into sobs. “Solange, Solange!”
She wiped her eyes at length, and regarded the little cups. “When we returned, I searched the ruins. I was fortunate, for I found these. They were all that I did find. Everything else had been destroyed. Nor did I save anything, for look you, after the soldiers seized Solange, I ran hither and thither distracted, and knew not what to save.”