“But, my dear fellow,” Martin protested, “I only want my old room in which I have slept so soundly.”
But Bigourdin would have none of it. He was the Prodigal Son. “Et justement!” he cried, slapping his thigh, “we have a good calf’s head for déjeuner. Yes, it’s true,” he laughed delightedly. “The fatted calf. It was fatted by our neighbour Richard. C’est extraordinaire!”
So Martin shaved and washed in the famous bath room, and changed, and descended to the salle-à-manger. The only guests were a few anxious-faced commercial travellers at the centre table. All but one were old acquaintances. He went the round, shaking hands, amid cordial greetings. It was the last time, they said. To-morrow they would be mobilised. The day after they would exchange the sample box for the pack of the soldier; in a week they would have the skin torn off the soles of their feet; and in a month they would be blown to bits by shells. They proclaimed a lack of the warrior spirit. They had a horror of blood, even a cat’s. It stirred up one’s stomach. Mais enfin one did not think of such unimportant things when France was in peril. If your house was in danger of being swept away by flood, there was no sense in being afraid to catch cold through having your feet wet. Each in his way expressed the same calm fatalistic patriotism. They had no yearning to be killed. But if they were killed—they shrugged their shoulders. They were France and France was they. No force could dismember them from France without France or themselves bleeding to death. It was very simple.
Martin left them and sat down with Bigourdin and Félise, at their table in the corner by the door. It was the first time he had ever done so. Félise ate little and spoke less. Now and again, as he told of his mild adventures in the Far East, he caught her great dark eyes fixed on him, and he smiled, unaccountably glad. But always she shifted her glance and made a pretence of eating or drinking. Once, when Bigourdin, called by innkeeper’s business to one of the commercial travellers, had left the table, she said:
“You have changed. One would say it was not the same man.”
“What makes you think so?” he laughed.
“You talk differently. There is a different expression on your face.”
“I’m sorry,” said he.
“I don’t see why you should be sorry,” said Félise.
“If you no longer recognise me,” said he—they talked in French—“I must come to you as a stranger.”