Our leisure was propitious to gossip, and we spent many an hour

listening to those who had seen the first tragical events of the

invasion. Their simple, unvarnished tales were like so many nightmares.

For instance, there were bargemen of Braye whose boat had been split in

two by a cannon ball, and who had escaped death only by swimming and

clinging to floating planks. There was the woman of Corbeny, driven by

the Prussians from a village near Soissons. With several others she

walked to Cerny at a stretch, with the Germans ever at her heels. The

unhappy wretches had covered forty kilometres in the midst of a battle,

spent with weariness, breathless, tumbling down, and trudging off again.

Three of them were killed on the way. The woman who gave us an account

of this carried her baby, aged eighteen months, throughout this wild

race, and on the way the poor little thing was wounded twice in her

mother's arms. Of Cerny were the poor creatures who were shut up in a

deep stone quarry, and stayed there with scarcely any food for

twenty-seven days. When they were taken out and brought to Laon they

were pale, hollow-cheeked, and covered with vermin; they could hardly

walk by themselves, and their eyes could not look upon the daylight.

"The people wept as they saw us go by," the women said. During the first

hours of their sojourn in the stone quarry, there had been a tragical

incident. The fugitives were crouching in the dark when an officer broke

in, accompanied with soldiers:

"Some of you," he said, "have harboured Englishmen. We discovered an

English officer lying in such and such barn, in such a place. We have

set the building on fire."

"Ho," said a man, "my barn!"

"Ah, it was yours! You knew an Englishman was hidden in it? Come on."

The poor man vainly protested against the accusation; he was taken away.

The following day he had not yet returned. His wife was greatly

disturbed, and despite the danger made up her mind to go and try to see

him. She took some chocolate out of the slender store of the refugees.

"They have thrown him into prison," she said, "and I am sure they will

starve him to death."

The woman went. The village was half in ruins, and the ruins smoked. All

was deserted. She summoned up her courage, went straight to her house,

walked into the yard, and, close to the dunghill, his face fallen in the

filth, his hands tied behind his back, saw the corpse of her husband. He

had been shot twice in the head, and his side was pierced with a large

wound.

The victim's brother and the niece from whom we heard this story, were

not allowed to attend his burial.

From the same part were two ladies, a mother and her daughter, with a

new-born baby, who were flung out of their house with only a

dressing-gown and slippers on, and driven on without stopping at the

bayonet's point, until they reached Laon, half distracted.

To Cerny also belonged those seven men who had been confined in the

_mairie_ of Chamouille, and who saw an officer come up and yell in a

furious tone: "Your dirty French have discovered our presence here. One

of you must have made signals. That's why we are getting a shower of

shrapnel." The civilians denied the charge, and defended themselves. To

no purpose.

"You shall spend the whole night in front of the house, and if you get

knocked on the head, it will serve you right."

The men were drawn up in the street, and from evening till morning stood

there within reach of their guards' revolvers. As if by miracle, the

cannonade ceased, and during the night not a shot was fired upon the

village. The next day the prisoners were sent to Laon.

Less tragic but just as remarkable, was the story of our companions

Noreau, the grandmother, so small, so weak, that we more than once

thought her death near at hand, and her darlings, with their pale faces

and their eyes encircled with black. Major Noreau owned a large house in

Coucy. It pleased the invaders, in their omnipotence, to take possession

of eleven rooms, and to establish their offices in them. The owners had

but the use of a single room, reserved for the sick father. Mme. Noreau,

her four children and her mother-in-law, slept all the winter in a cold

attic. Some of them slept on straw, but the old grandmother had, instead

of a bed, ... a kneading-trough!

All the furniture had been carried away, scattered about the village, or

over the trenches. To crown all, the family had suffered hunger almost

unceasingly. Coucy had been still less favoured with provisions than

Morny, and only the farmers had managed to lay by some few articles of

food.

"One day," our old friend told us, "little Mimi picked up from the

dunghill a lump of sugar an officer's servant had thrown to the dog. She

knew her mother had had no food the last two days, and brought her this

windfall."

The same little Mimi, after she had slept on straw for months together,

forgot, for want of practice, her normal vocabulary, such words, for

instance, as sheet, and the first evening she asked Antoinette, who had

adopted her:

"What is the name of those things ... you know what I mean ... those

white things one stretches upon the beds?..."

A great many emigrants were thrown out of their villages in September,

when the Germans had been driven back. They had been pushed forward like

cattle, had been penned up in the citadel of Laon, and left there for

weeks, for months, sleeping on straw and starving. All these unhappy

wanderers were stranded at Jouville. They had met again with their old

companion Hunger. They were persecuted by the cold. Many lay groaning in

the icy cellars of the sugar-mill, or in the airy attics of the farm.

And then suddenly came the spring. It came in one night. A light breath

passed over the vale, which was soon like a nosegay. The meadows grew

green, the hedges expanded their buds, the trees put forth tender

leaves, the groves were embroidered with periwinkles. Beneath the thorn

bushes came up lords-and-ladies; violets in tufts peeped out along the

paths, and the meadows were strewn with primroses. Six small lambs in

the keeping of a shepherd girl looked like six white specks on the slope

of the green hill. The hedges were lively with songs and murmurs. The

spring wondered much that it did not see the fresh idylls it was used

to. Alas! Love had fled; Venus alone, a lewd and venal Venus, saw her

altars besieged with a host of worshippers; but pure chaste Love had no

faithful followers left.

Yet the spring bestowed with a full hand its gaiety upon all Nature. I

met once with five small emigrants. The eldest was about eight years

old; their clothes were all in rags, their feet walked naked on the

stones. But they had flowers in their arms, and their pale faces were

bright with the joy of the Spring. The joy of the Spring! Could we feel

glad at it? "The month of May without France is no longer the month of

May." This corner of France was no more France since we bore the yoke of

strangers. In vain we lay basking in the sun, with outstretched arms.

The sun could not, as once it did, warm and burn us, as if to make us

die a voluptuous death. In vain did we listen to the watchful

nightingale, whose song overtopped the noise of the water-gate. It

expressed all the ecstasy and passion of mankind; it could no longer

make us feel the sweetness of life. Our hearts were benumbed with grief,

and had no taste for happiness.

Even the humblest of our companions, of our neighbours, understood this

contrast between the sentiments of us all, and the joys which filled

Nature. And we heard poor women say in a mournful tone:

"What misery! To think that we must live with the Germans in such fine

weather!"

We lived with the Germans. In their train came all the ills--captivity,

sickness, hunger. We suffered hunger more than ever since the ration of

bread had been reduced almost to nothing. The women made loud

complaints, and even talked of mutiny. The commandant of the camp--it

was no longer he of the first days--replied to my complaints, lifting up

his arms in a gesture of impotency and indifference:

"They are hungry! How am I to help it? I have nothing to give them. I

had rather see them eat! It wouldn't disturb me in the least! Do you

think I should care about it?"

A few women with their children and a cripple ran away, thinking they

might reach their village. They were overtaken, some at five, others at

ten kilometres from Jouville, were thrown into prisons without any

further formality, and sentenced to wait there for the departure in

which every one had ceased to believe. Two girls did succeed in getting

home, but were likewise caught and brought back. These flights rendered

our supervision stricter than ever. We had to answer to numberless

roll-calls, and once, when the _Feldwebel_ was in a bad temper, he

called us all "a set of pigs!"

Our misery was alleviated at last, when the American-Spanish Relief

Commission began its work. Jouville had already received some white

flour. The mayor of the village interposed to obtain the same favour for

the emigrants. He succeeded, and the last week of their quarantine the

poor people got bread--white bread. The first day we went to the baker

we saw a stirring sight. The children gazed in wonder at the golden

loaves; they squeezed, they smelt their portion with joy, and without

waiting broke off pieces which they ate eagerly. I saw women look at

their share with staring eyes, and say weeping:

"Bread, real bread!"

This happened the last week of our sojourn in Jouville. Indeed the

longed-for event was about to take place. There were endless reviews and

verifications of names and civil conditions. The men were examined, and

re-examined by the doctor, for all would not be allowed to leave. A card

with a number was delivered to every person, and we were all ordered to

meet in the yard of the sugar-mill at eight o'clock in the morning on

Friday, the 14th of May. Different sentiments prevailed. A few were

overjoyed at the news; others showed signs of despairing incredulity.

"God knows where they are going to take us now! What will become of us?

You will see they will shut us up in Germany!"

But most of them suspended their judgment. Not daring to hope, they

anxiously waited upon events. A still greater misfortune than we had

borne lay in store for us, Genevieve had caught a severe cold about a

month before, and the day we heard delivery was near she was in bed,

shaking with fever. She spent a very bad night, notwithstanding our

care. In the morning I ran for the German doctor--as there was no

other--despite the patient's protests.

"No, no, I will have no Germans about me. Besides, there is nothing the

matter that will prevent me from going."

The fair-haired coxcomb gave a listless ear to my words, looked at me

between his eyelids, and asked with his lips:

"Why did not this person come round for medical advice?"

I replied that "this person" was in a high fever, and could not get up.

Fortunately another doctor had come to help the former to examine the

people before they were allowed to depart. He was a fat, red-faced,

jovial fellow, who showed great haste to oblige me, and repeated over

and over again as he accompanied me:

"Ah! le kerre! pien ture, pien ture!"

His diagnosis was alarming. A double congestion of the lungs. He

prescribed cold water compresses.

"And--and the departure...."

"Oh, it is quite out of the question! The lady could not stand the

journey. It is absolutely impossible."

"Then ... we are not going either...."

"That is no business of mine."

And the doctor withdrew with a shrug of his shoulders. Mad with despair

we went to the commandant of the camp, Antoinette and I.

"We cannot go. Our sister is ill; we cannot forsake her."

"Why, you must go, you are not ill."

We did not know what saint to pray to; we looked out for help. The mayor

of Jouville vainly went to the _Kommandantur_ of Marle to plead our

cause:

"All emigrants in good health must go." Such was the answer.

Genevieve tossed about her bed, and protested:

"I want to go; I will go. I will not run aground, as we are reaching the

port."

But the doctor, once more consulted, repeated emphatically:

"Impossible, impossible."

"Then allow us to stay too."

"Impossible, impossible."

At length, towards evening--the whole camp with the whole village

sympathised with us--some one told me:

"An officer from Marle is at the Red Cross. Go and try again."

We ran to see him. I well-nigh fell at his feet, and besought him. He

looked somewhat moved.

"Well, let me see what I can do. You are sure the lady is unable to

travel?" he asked the doctor.

"Absolutely. She cannot be moved."

"I cannot be moved either," I cried. "Please examine me. You will see

there is something the matter with my heart, and if I am driven to go,

it will be the death of me."

"Well," the officer said, "let us see."

His eyes gave consent. He turned to the doctor.

"You might examine her, and see if the journey would not endanger her

life."

The doctor tossed his head, and smiled an incredulous smile.

"Hum, hum, it can't be denied there is something wrong with her

heart," ... and, taking a pen, he signed the slip which I so much

desired. What a relief! Genevieve would not be left, seriously ill,

among strangers.

"And I, what am I to do?" Antoinette moaned.

"Ah! you must go."

There was nothing else to do. On the way home I tried to encourage her,

miserable as she was at going away alone.

The next day I left Genevieve, burning with fever, in Mme. Charvet's

care, and went to see the convoy start, heart-broken.

The sun lit up the scene; everybody was in a flutter of excitement.

Villagers had been requisitioned, with carts and horses, to convey the

children, the infirm, and the luggage. The crowd set out, under the

conduct of the soldiers, amid calls and shouts. Many emigrants were

crying:

"Where are we going to? Whither shall we be taken?"

Several families were severed one from another, for about fifteen men

had been thought too strong to leave the invaded territory. They might

turn soldiers, and fight against the Germans!

The charity children, delighted at the prospect, flocked around me.

"You will come later on, won't you, madam?"

Old Mme. Noreau and her grand-daughters faltered some words of sympathy,

Antoinette strove hard to restrain her tears, and Pierrot dared not show

his joy. I went with them as far as the end of the village, where two

gendarmes were busy counting up the herd. I was not allowed to go any

farther, and I stood there gazing at the trampling crowd, and until I

saw them disappear at a winding of the road.

A halting-place had been arranged four miles from thence, where a train

was waiting to convey the emigrants to Hirson. They spent the night in

the waiting-rooms, lying on the floor, sitting on benches, all squeezed

together with fluttering hearts and anxious looks, disturbed by the

squalling of the children and the groans of the old people. In the

morning, the poor wretches were carefully searched, and then crowded

into the train. Two days after they reached France. With tears and cries

of joy they greeted life, at length recovered after so many trials.

CHAPTER XII

After eight months' hopeless waiting, after long weeks spent in a

flutter of expectation, we had seen the gate of delivery closed upon us.

The others were gone; they were free; and Genevieve and I alone still

bore the yoke of invasion, which no one loathed as much as we did. No

one had more eagerly wished for freedom, longed to return home, and

yearned to meet again those we loved, and alone we stayed behind.

The poor girl thought that she would die of despair rather than of

illness, and while she moistened her pillow with tears, I hid my sobs in

the attic.

Mme. Charvet took care of Genevieve, and did her best to comfort us

both. We did not follow the prescriptions of the German doctor, and

never once applied cold compresses. A French matron's experience is at

times worth more than the learning of a Teutonic physician. We applied

mustard-poultices and cupping-glasses; we gave the patient hot

_tisanes_ and syrups, which were all the better because they were made

in the village.

On the 4th of June, three weeks after the convoy's departure, we arrived

at Morny station, in the care of a sergeant. My sister-in-law was still

a convalescent, and we trudged along to the Bureau, where our guardian

handed over his prisoners. Thus we were restored to liberty; we were no

longer emigrants. And with beating hearts we went back home.

On seeing us, my mother-in-law, Yvonne, and Colette well-nigh turned

into stone. They thought we had been in Paris for two months at least.

We returned to our old habits; five women were again under the same

roof, five women in the midst of invasion. One only had succeeded in

escaping.

No change for the better in the village. A single detail amused us. The

soldiers of the line lived as before in a white house at the corner of

the street. For a long time, one of its stout occupants, perched on a

ladder, taking great pains and putting out his tongue, had formulated

this wish in big black letters:

"God punish England!"

And now, on account of recent events, the painter had added in a fit of

rage:

"And the devil run away with Italy!"

The Hussars of the farm were gone, Bouillot at their head, and that day

the village had heaved a deep sigh. As a last theft, the Pandours had

carried away a cartful of furniture, in order to make themselves

comfortable in the trenches which would shelter them.

On the other hand, two convoys were still quartered within our gates,

and troops of passage were now and then billeted upon us. We gave

hospitality to a young lieutenant, who had succeeded Bubenpech as

commandant. He lodged in the two rooms we had abandoned to the Prussians

with a heavy heart; he had requisitioned, besides, "the small room" for

his servant, and the stable for his horse. Gracieuse and Percinet, shut

up in a corner of the coach-house, would gladly have seen the Prussian

mare dead, which had usurped their domain. We, too, bore a grudge

against the fat Hans, who encumbered our rooms with his person, his

pipes, and his clothes.

So, resigned to fate, we established ourselves in the drawing-room,

Genevieve and I. One of the windows looks into the street, and when,

behind the lace of our curtains, we saw, hour after hour, day after day,

the same carts loaded with straw, the same placid-looking

Prussians,--they are all alike,--the same stiff and sneering

lieutenants, we might have believed our stay in Jouville had been but a

dream. The invaders seemed more "at home" than ever. The officers

enjoyed themselves according to rule. Of course they had not waited for

the spring to lead a jolly life. As early as November 1914 they had had

drunken revelries. What merry evenings! What dishes never tasted in

Germany! What floods of good wine! What erotic, patriotic, and bacchic

songs! "Let us drink and eat, for we shall die to-morrow!"

"But no, we shall not die, we, who shout the loudest, we are safe; we do

not go to the front, we stay behind, secure from danger. No other task

but to grind down, vex, and punish civilians! Let us profit by the war.

Joy's the word! There was a festival yesterday at Laon; it will be at

Morny to-day; to-morrow it will be Coucy's turn. Still more revels,

still more junketings. It is war, hurrah for the war!"

And all enjoyed themselves: those who cared for nothing as well as those

who cared first to save their skin, sybarites as well as

sentimentalists, the pompous as well as the dissipated.

But this demands an explanation. We had seen many officers of the

reserve, the very men whom the _Gazette des Ardennes_ calls "the flower

of cultured German manhood"; but we had discovered few varieties among

them, and all of them could be comprised in one of the categories we had

created for the purpose.

Those who cared-for-nothing deserve careful consideration. They partook

of the qualities common to their brothers-in-arms, which I will extol

farther on, but their pusillanimity or their indifference belonged alone

to them.

Such, for instance, was this lieutenant quartered in Laon, who confided

to every one willing to listen to him:

"I don't care a fig for the fate of Germany! If only the war would end

soon, and I could get on with my studies and make myself a good position

after.... I should be content."

Of the same kind was the young commandant of the village, lamed by a

fall from his horse.

"The war!" he said, "what do I care for it? I am unfit for fighting, do

you see. I shall neither be killed nor mutilated, and it is all one to

me how long the war will last. I have comfortable rooms, and get good

dinners without untying my purse-strings. I am well paid, and able to

save. When we are at peace again I shall have a jaunt, and then go back

to Germany. Men will be rare, and I shall marry whom I choose, the

richest girl I can hear of, of course. My future is assured, and so I

am quite easy in my mind."

We thought still more disgusting those who first-cared-for-their-skin.

We were pleased to observe not a few cowards who strove with feet, hand,

and purse to avoid danger and keep behind the line.

Love of life, self-esteem, a dislike for bloodshed, and a natural dread

of blows kept them from the front. They thought but of one goal: to

cling at any price to safety.

I wrote "at any price" on purpose. Several of them boasted they had paid

for not being sent to the front. Where, when, how, to whom, I do not

know. By what mysterious bribery, by what surreptitious palm-greasing

other people will perhaps establish. The truth of such things is not

easy to ascertain. I can only state that two officers and a sergeant,

belonging to different regiments, told those in whose houses they

lodged, one in Laon, the others in Morny and Jouville, that they had

paid from 4000 francs to 6000 francs to get leave to keep out of

danger's way. Thus they obtained a few months' respite, after which they

had to pay again or endanger their lives.

When we were at Jouville, a stout sergeant, nicknamed Tripe, well-nigh

died of an apoplectic stroke on hearing he was ordered to go to the

front. "I have paid 4000 francs to be exempted from fighting. I thought

the war wouldn't last so long! And now I have no money left!" Mad with

rage, he dashed his helmet right across the room, and this martial

attribute was picked up with its point all awry. As to private soldiers

who told their hosts they had acted in the same way, I will not even try

to count them, they are too many.

The other officers owned a certain number of qualities in common.

According to the individuals, one of these characteristics eclipsed the

others, and the dominant feature helped us to classify the fools.

Of the sentimentalists, Herr Mayor was the best specimen. His eyes cast

upon the blue sky, he murmured his regrets in a voice broken by tears:

"His wife ... so many griefs ... and so many dead ... how dreadful is

war! If only we could make a Holy Alliance of the peoples!" I must say

that Herr Mayor kept his sensibility in his pocket, and took it out only

at dessert. In the discharge of his duties he forgot this faculty

completely.

The pompous officers were more entertaining. Such was a certain cavalry

officer who at the end of September put up for a few days at M.

Lonet's. His name ended in "ski," he twirled his mustachio after the

Polish fashion, and drew himself up most elegantly. Once upon a time he

happened to go through the drawing-room, where Genevieve was talking

with Mme. Lonet. The surprise sent a thrill through him: "Why! two

pretty women! Quick! let us show off!"

And the braggart began to hold forth in praise of Germany.

"Ah! _mesdames_, the emperor is extremely satisfied with the march of

our army. Our gallant soldiers laugh at obstacles, and advance as if by

miracle."

This speech was made shortly after the battle of the Marne.

Unfortunately the hearers, as well as the orator, were unacquainted with

the event, which, had they known of it, would have given yet more

meaning to the gentleman's discourse.

The same _Rittmeister_ could not refrain from delivering high-sounding

addresses to all whom he met. In case of need he even fell back on the

man who split the wood or the maid of all work. "Have you seen," he

would say, "have you seen our splendid Imperial Guard? Have you noticed

the gait of our soldiers? Do you know that no troops in the world are to

be compared with them?" And for a revictualling cart that rattled by,

for a soldier's shirt drying on a hedge, he would pour forth his soul in

dithyrambs on Germany's greatness, invincibility, and might. You will

think, no doubt, that the first and foremost soldier of the Prussian

army, the supreme chief of our enemy, would take his place, not without

the radiance of a star, among his _confreres_ of pomposity.

Another pompous talker, a sub-lieutenant and former law student, lodged

in the spring of 1915 at Mme. Lantois'. He set up for a linguist, and

wanted us to believe he knew French better than we. Once I brought him a

demand-note to sign. He carped at a word I used. I tried to defend my

prose, but he stopped me with a motion of his hand:

"I know the word and how to use it."

I had nothing to do but hold my tongue, so I did, like one

thunderstruck. Unfortunately the eloquent rascal took it into his head

to turn his stay in France to account. Are we to suppose he thought he

would thus acquire a few niceties of speech of which he was ignorant?

Nobody knows. But he was often to be seen seated in the big kitchen,

devoutly listening to the conversation of the workers, to the stories of

the old people of the farm, to whom Mme. Lantois spoke sharply when they

lingered too long. The lieutenant knew how to listen, how to learn, how

to remember what he heard. For one day we heard him say, thumping his

fist on the table:

"Je savions ce que je disions!"

Among our guests were a great many sybarites. Is Barbu's love of

creature comforts still remembered? And the many cushions necessary to

uphold his person? Can you imagine that some of them, before choosing

their room, felt the elasticity of the mattresses, tried the softness of

the blankets, inspected the fineness of the sheets? Are the nice

afternoon-naps already forgotten?

"We are at war! but that is no reason to give up comfort. Let us have

carpets and cushions, wadding and down! We are sybarites!"

The category, to which we come now, the brutes, is the most scandalously

celebrated. The present war has been its triumph. I must say we never

saw these gentlemen at their best, such as they showed themselves in

assaults, in pillage, in massacre, in arson. We did see them as brutes

in their treatment of a peaceful, submissive, terrified

population,--brutes who thought they had drawn in their claws. Bouillot,

for instance, was a beautiful specimen of the kind, but we saw many

another. For instance, there was the hero, who had a small boy of

Jouville bound fast to a post during an icy cold afternoon. There was

that other who knocked down the shepherd-boy of Aulnois, and gave him a

good horse-whipping. The poor boy had gone beyond the frontier of the

commune with his cattle:

"What am I to do?" he said. "My master's meadow is in Vivaise. I must

feed my flock, and at the office they won't give me a pass. They say I

don't want one to go those few steps."

I should never finish telling the high deeds of those scoundrels, and I

have still to sing the praises of the revellers. They were many in

number, and I think more dangerous than the rest. They came to France,

allured by the depravity they attributed to us, and it was they who

brought to us their vices, particularly those exclusive to their race,

on which I had rather not insist. No doubt they thought that they would

do a pious work in helping to pervert a country which they hated. Be

that as it may, they eagerly exerted themselves to this end, and did

their best to transform the country behind the front into a vast

brothel. Of course such creatures had not the least respect for the

house which sheltered them. An old lady in Morny was deeply shocked at

being forced to provide two fast girls of Laon with lodging and board

for some days, and many a country house, which had never looked upon

other than peaceful scenes, was scared at revels, the noise of which

made the very window-panes tremble.

Bubenpech was a remarkably vicious specimen. A bottle of champagne was

never emptied in the province without his presence. He was at every

feast, he took part in every rejoicing; he rarely came home before two

or three o'clock in the morning. He had a pretty taste in wine and nice

dinners. Besides, he looked upon himself as Don Juan, and expected every

one to yield to him. No thought hindered his caprices. One day he asked

a young girl publicly to come and see him in his rooms. Another day we

saw him towards dusk kiss two loose girls in the open street. To be at

perfect liberty, he sent to prison, under some pretence or another, a

man whose daughter he was paying court to. He inscribed, among the women

inspected by the police, the name of a young girl who, though not very

respectable, had done no harm but reject his advances. With real Gallic

humour our good villagers were careful to catalogue the great deeds of

our guests, chiefly when heroines from the other side of the Rhine came

upon the scene.

One Sunday morning, about ten o'clock, there appeared at our house a

little German nurse of the Red Cross, dark-haired, smart, and--a fact

hardly to be believed--pretty; but the lady had a peevish air--an air

only.

"Lieutenant Bubenpech?"

"Out."

With all possible speed the orderly went to fetch the officer. Bubenpech

came back as fast as he could, shut himself up with the little dame, and

did not move until four o'clock in the afternoon, forgetful of his

lunch. And the orderly, who timidly presented himself for duty, was

roughly sent away from the closed door.

"Oh," said Mme. Valaine, shocked, "such impudence! in my house!"

The neighbours made jokes and watched the door. They even laid wagers:

they will come out; they won't. At last the couple came out, and

disappeared on foot towards Laon.

A moment after a murmur was heard:

"What does it mean?"

To show his disregard of decency, Bubenpech had thrown his window wide

open before going out. And now the whole village gathered about our

windows and jeered at the shameless disorder of the room and bed.

So, while some officers clearly belonged to such and such a category,

they all possessed to a certain degree the qualities peculiar to the

other classes. But there were real mongrels among them. For instance,

you can imagine for yourself a sentimental-fine-talker and a

sybarite-who-cared-for-his-skin or a brutish-reveller. And there was a

sameness in all, a family resemblance. Prussian militarism, hypocrisy,

and haughtiness were smeared over them all like a thick coat of paint.

All showed an extreme satisfaction with their own race and person. In

short, you have but to scratch the Prussian to find the barbarian.

Should an opportunity offer, or even no opportunity, they can all be

unreasonable, harsh, unrelenting.

These gentlemen enjoyed themselves.

In a physical sense, you can easily picture to yourself those revellers.

They were not handsome--at least we never came across one we thought

handsome, in spite of our efforts to be impartial. Save Bouillot, we

never saw a very tall one. They were either long and threadlike, or

short and fat. Those who thought they had a look of Apollo you might

reproach with thick wrists and ankles, large hips, and heavy feet. Most

of them had shapely hands, and very often well-kept nails. Their

features were unpleasing from being shockingly irregular or freezingly

regular; their hard eyes belied the false kindness of their smile. At a

distance, their stiff and starched gait, their mechanical movement; at

close quarters, their voice, their smell, their whole being made us

bristle with hostility. For a trifle we would have snarled at them like

a dog, and every day their presence lay heavier on our hearts.

Their smell! Some people deny its reality. Let them go to the North of

France! When you have lodged Prussian officers--very clean people, no

doubt--you may air the room eight days running, and it will not lose the

smell _sui generis_ which impregnates it, and every inhabitant of the

village, from the Mayor down to the smallest child, would turn up his

nose on entering the room, and say:

"Faugh! it smells of Prussians here!"

Such as they were, the gentlemen amused themselves. Some maintained even

that they made conquests. I am touching here on a very delicate

subject--the relations between the invaders and the women of the invaded

countries. There has been much talk of rape. Compared with the crimes

committed in Belgium and in Lorraine, the misdeeds we shall mention are

but little things. To be sure, there were rapes, but, thanks be to God,

they were few, and they took place at the beginning of the invasion,

chiefly after the Germans' retreat on the Marne. In Jouville I heard

many a sad story. There was the story of a young woman of Chevregny who

went mad after her misfortune, and of several old women too. For, hardly

credible as it seems, old women often fell victims to acts of violence,

because they lacked agility to run away. At Braye, several soldiers fell

upon a woman of eighty, knocked her down, and beat her most

unmercifully. At Chamouille, in October 1914, a few women were living in

a cellar, frightened to death. "One evening," one of them told me, "we

heard a loud cry; there was a falling of stones, and a young woman

tumbled down into the cellar through a shell-hole. Thus she escaped from

her pursuers, but her companion, an old woman of sixty-eight, fell

defenceless into the hands of the filthy fellows."

Ah, we had many proofs of the respect the Germans have for old age!

A woman of Cerny, eighty-seven years old, small and white-haired, with

red eyes and a shaking head, told us how she had left her lodging. "I

had a small bundle of clothes ready lying on the table. But the soldiers

did not allow me to go in and take it; they beat me. As I didn't go--I

had money, too, in my bundle--they forced me to go; they all flocked

around me, they were twelve, and ... how am I to say it?..." In short,

the twelve rascals had driven the poor old woman out of her house by

directing towards her that which a famous statue innocently eternises in

Brussels. Stripped of her spare clothes and money, filthy, disgusted at

what she had seen, the unhappy woman had to go to a neighbour to beg for

a bodice and a petticoat, that she might cast away her soiled clothes.

When the Germans settled themselves upon us, these feats of the satyr

were no longer common. Here and there evil deeds were still spoken of,

and a doctor of the neighbourhood told us in the spring of 1915 that

nearly every week there was an act of violence. I must confess that many

a woman was the victim of her own imprudence. When you have lived all

your life in a quiet village, among kind people, you have some

difficulty in believing that you must be on your guard for months

together, that you are for ever surrounded with brutes. So more than one

villager had reason to regret having gone alone to the forest, or having

persisted in living in a lonely house.

But the systematic brutalities, the collective assaults, which marked

the beginning, were no longer known. The method had changed. There were

acts of violence which were no less terrible for being moral. In many a

village whose inhabitants suffered hunger, the children were provided

with bread and soup. Yes, but this privilege was reserved for the

children whose mothers showed themselves complaisant towards the

soldiers. And these women accepted dishonour, because they could not

bear to see their little ones pine away and die, while others could not

withstand the troubles and vexations that lay in store for good women.

A cry of reprobation and horror arose when we heard that the conduct of

all women was not blameless. In the first place there were the women of

the lowest class. Even Boule de suif herself would have been tamed after

daily relations with the German soldiers. Of course a few black sheep

are a disgrace to the flock, and I can fancy women-haters shrugging

their shoulders in scorn when they hear of this.

Gently, sir--a truce to jeering. More than one person wearing a beard

gave abundant proof of an equal complaisance. Alas, traitors were to be

found among us. For instance, there were those who welcomed the Germans

with a smile, and revealed to them the resources of the place. There

were those, the foulest of all, who denounced French soldiers hidden in

the woods or those who fed the fugitives. There were those who, for a

little money or food, pointed out the hiding-places of his neighbours,

and thus surrendered to the enemy wine, grain, potatoes, even money and

jewels. But I am pleased to say that such despicable wretches were rare,

and on the whole the population was proud and dignified, and opposed to

the invaders' dishonesty a solid brotherhood, which no troubles, no

persecutions could lessen or fatigue. And yet we led a grievous life;

the Germans seemed to aim at making it as hard as possible, while theirs

was as merry as can be.

The winter had been painful, but the summer was still more so. We had

less liberty and less food. We were allowed to leave the place we lived

in but three times a week, and on stated days. Besides, we had to ask

for a pass two days beforehand, and pay seventy-five centimes for it

when it was granted, which was not always the case. It was almost

impossible to go to the country from Laon, and for weeks together nobody

was allowed to leave the town. One day passports had been freely given

to the people, tradesmen mostly who went to Marle to buy raw sugar--a

yellowish sticky substance with a taste of glue--and a little butter,

precious goods that were still to be found there in small quantities.

They all came back furious. At different points of the road,

level-crossings, outskirts of villages, they had all been arrested.

Men and women had been then entirely stripped of their garments, and

searched according to rule. Nurses of the Red Cross and soldiers showed

equal zeal in the task, which had a practical object--the gathering of

all gold and even silver coins of five francs which pockets and purses

might contain. The sum seized, it must be said, was replaced by notes of

the Reichsbank.

The victims thought the joke a very bad one, and I am sure Thomas of

Marle's bones must have turned in his grave. To think that on this

nobleman's own territory soldiers arrested and robbed the passers-by,

and he not there to help! And, what is worse, the aggressors were German

troopers, and the victims good and loyal French citizens! What does your

shade regret, O famous plunderer? To be unable to fight for your

countrymen, or to have no share in the robbery?

I need not say that after that no gold pieces ever ventured out on the

roads.

A pass also was necessary to go out into the country, and you were

expected to have an identity card in your pocket if you but stood on

your threshold. All papers had to be renewed every fortnight.

"Fancy," an aged woman said to us, "that I have to pay twenty marks

because I forgot my antiquity card!"

One Saturday, a farmer's wife, perched on a ladder out of doors, was

eagerly polishing the glass of a bull's-eye window.

Two gendarmes on horseback passed by and gave heed to this commendable

zeal:

"Matam! ... carte...."

"Hem, hem! Ah, yes, my identity card; wait a minute, it is lying on the

table...."

"Ha! ha! no, not enter ... no card ... fine...."

So she had to pay the fine.

One of our neighbours was taking his cows out of the stable. Suddenly

one of them seemed to smell some enlivening odour--was it that of

powder?--she bent a frolicsome head on one side, lifted up her sprightly

nostrils, raised a swaggering tail, and, as fast as she could tear, went

full gallop towards the meadows, the brooklet, the rosy horizon where

the setting sun pleased her. The owner took to his heels in his turn,

and fled after the giddy-pated creature. The better to run, he tore off

his jacket, and succeeded in getting hold of the tether. Then he stopped

panting, all in a sweat, and rapped out a tremendous oath.

As if by miracle, a gendarme happened to stand there, his note-book in

hand.

"Card, card...."

"Ah! oh, it is in my jacket pocket...."

The jacket was smiling in the distance, a small spot lying on the green.

"Ach!" the Prussian said with a sneer, "not fetch: fine."

Cost fifty francs.

Rascally cow!

I treat the matter as a joke. Sometimes we did joke. We could not have

our minds always on the stretch. We already were half-crazy, and we

should have gone quite mad if we had not occasionally laughed. We often

laughed, with rage, with an empty stomach, with our brain confused after

a troubled night. Our race needs to laugh in the midst of tears, and

tears are shed in secret, whereas laughter bursts forth in public.

When the Germans laugh, it is always a peal. As to tears, they trickle

down their cheeks for a trifle; they bathe in them, they pour them forth

everywhere. I had always looked upon this lachrymal faculty so often

spoken of as a legend, but we have come to the conclusion that there is

nothing more real.

An untoward event, a deception, bad news, or simply home-sickness and

melancholy--anything is an excuse for tears. Here is a famous example.

Those who have visited the battlefields of Mars-la-Tour and Gravelotte

have seen the famous monument--a granite armchair in the midst of a

lawn, surrounded with a balustrade. This noble simplicity should speak

to the soul of itself. Yet an inscription explains:

"During the battle of Mars-la-Tour, the Emperor Wilhelm the First sat

here and wept."

Of course he thought the game was lost. But if his descendants are

faithful to tradition, where will they get the torrents of tears they

will have to shed within a short time!

However, we are not always crying. We even tried to enjoy the summer, to

make up for the sad spring we had spent. As we had to plead a practical

object to obtain leave to take walks out of the village, we begged to be

allowed "to go and fetch wood."

And, lying on the grass in the open country, we tried to forget the war

for a few moments, Genevieve and I, lost in the surrounding calm and

beauty; but distant rumours soon belied our short-lived illusions, and

dispelled the poor creations of the fancy.

No, it was not peace. Our stomachs, always clamouring for food, never

failed to tell us so. During the month of June we hardly ate anything

except asparagus and cherries. These things are not highly nutritious.

No potatoes, a slice of horrid, sticky, sour German bread. Then came

carrots, green peas, and artichokes, and we no longer starved; and when

in the second fortnight of August there arrived the food sent by the

Spanish-American Board of Relief, we thought we had been transported to

a Land of Cockayne. Twenty grammes of bacon daily, a dish of rice on

Sunday, a dish of beans on Thursday, eatable bread; what would you ask

more? No matter. I wonder, when we are once out of this vale of hunger,

how long it will be before we recover our former health.

During the month of July we spent the hot hours of the day out of doors

stretched on the grass. Being near a field of corn, we put out a timid

hand and from time to time broke off ripe ears; we rubbed them between

our fingers, and their plump grains, stripped of the husks, seemed to us

delicious food. It was strictly forbidden to pluck corn, "however small

the quantity might be." "Our leather bags may be searched," we thought,

"but they cannot make a post-mortem examination of us to make sure of a

possible theft." For there is no doubt that we were committing highway

robbery to the prejudice of the Germans.

When we had yawned the whole long day away, in wearisomeness and hunger,

we might have hoped to slumber at night, for sleep is as good as a

dinner.

Alas! remember the Germans' revels! These gentry were no longer allowed

to find their amusement out of the village in which they were quartered.

Every night the officers of Morny will disport themselves in Morny!

Yes, indeed! They spent their evenings in a house which they had

transformed into a casino, amid laughter and songs. Only the immediate

neighbours were kept awake. But about twelve or one o'clock we never

failed to start up in our beds, as the songs and cries came nearer.

"Here are the brutes going home. What whim will they take into their

heads to-night?"

We heard them approach to the strains of accordeons and mouth-organs.

From upstairs we saw them dressed up like women, with plumed hats on,

stopping at every door, trying, it would seem, who could bawl the

loudest. Or they tricked themselves out as house-painters, carried

buckets and brooms and set high ladders against the walls, and climbed

up as if to storm the house. Another time they would pretend to be

strolling musicians, and, armed with saucepans and cauldrons, would give

a mock serenade that would have put the dead to flight. Or, what was

far worse, the noise of their steps would be scarcely audible; they

would talk in whispers and stifle their laughter.

And, lying in the dark, we said to ourselves, still half asleep:

"They seem quiet to-night; perhaps we shall be able to go to sleep

again."

But all of a sudden: bing, bang, formidable blows with revolvers shook

the wooden shutters, and resounded in the room like peals of thunder.

The unexpected noise startled us out of our torpor, and we could hardly

recover our breath.

The next day, Mme. Lantois, half-sour, half-sweet, asked her lieutenant:

"Well, you had some fun last night?"

"Oh, yes! We knocked hard at the windows of all houses where there are

young girls."

Maybe the officer read disapproval in the features of his interlocutor,

for he went on:

"We are merry.... You may be sure that the French officers amuse

themselves in the same way...."

In the same way? Oh no, Mr. ex-law student of Heidelberg!

One evening, an officer whose rooms were not far from our house refused

to take part in a drunken orgy. He was tired; he had a headache; in

short, he preferred to go to bed. There were guests in Morny, and before

they left to drive home, the whole band made an irruption into the

refractory officer's room, tore him from his bed, and, with shouts of

laughter, hoisted him into the visitors' carriage and ordered the

coachman to drive on.

At the end of the village our man was stripped of his night-shirt,

deposited on the road, and his comrades went away at full speed. As

naked as when he was born, he had to walk along the high street to get

back to his quarters.

The commandant of the village, to whom we gave hospitality, did not care

to put a stop to these extravagances. Being but twenty-five, he had

little authority over his comrades, and besides, from time to time he

liked an orgy himself. He was famous for his worship of Bacchus. He was

as long as a day without bread; he had a small boy's head, adorned with

large outstretched ears at the top of it. The women of the village, at

the sight of his slender calves, had surnamed him "Jackdaw's Leg." More

stupid than bad, he felt frightfully dull at Morny, and talked with

raptures of his stay in Belgium. "What a good time I had of it!" he used

to say. "I was drunk from morning till night!" That he might not get

quite out of practice, Jackdaw's Leg tippled as often as he could, and

many a night his unsteady legs were at much pains to convey him home

without accident. We knew him by his uncertain gait; and when drunk he

never failed to prevent us from sleeping the livelong night. He sought

laboriously for the dancing keyhole. Then he banged-to the door. At

length he succeeded in getting to his room, and his door was hardly

shut, when the result of his excess burst forth noisily and--sinister

detail--we perceived a characteristic clash of washhand-basin and

slop-pail. Then desperate hiccups, groanings, and sighs were audible,

and the whole house resounded with his laborious efforts.

Upstairs we heard Colette, furious and disgusted, rail against the tipsy

fellow:

"You dirty, loathsome brute ... pig...."

Then nothing was heard but snores. The officer had certainly flung

himself upon his bed with his boots on.

And the following morning plump Hans, his servant, was to be seen all

a-flutter running to and fro with water, pails, and floor-cloths.

Sometimes the painful scene took place in the street; the disreputable

traces of it were still to be seen on wall and pathway the next morning,

and the lieutenant made for his rooms with deep sighs. Yet he was able

to walk by himself to our house. What could we say of that captain who,

in Jouville, used to be wheeled home in a barrow by his servants?

At that time an adventure happened by night which I cannot recall

without an inward thrill of fear. It was already late in the evening,

and we were shut up in our room, Genevieve and I. Our windows were open,

and the strong wooden shutters were carefully closed. We had been

talking for some time, lying in the dark, and were about to fall asleep,

when we heard a carriage rattle by and then stop at the farther end of

the house. It was about half-past eleven.

"Kolb, Kolb," cried a loud voice.

Such was the official name of Jackdaw's Leg. A silence followed, then

the owner of the voice seemed to grow impatient.

"Kolb ... Kolb ... Kolb...."

No answer came. The uproarious fellow bellowed:

"Kolb ... Koooolb...."

I bounced out of bed, still drowsy.

"This man will wake up the whole street," I murmured. "I believe we had

better answer."

"Lieutenant Kolb is at the casino," I cried from behind the shutter.

"What?" asked the voice.

I thought my interlocutor fifteen yards from thence, in front of the

gate. My hand leaning against the fastening unconsciously turned it; all

of a sudden it was wrenched from my grasp and the shutters flew wide

open. As quick as lightning I shut the window, stuck to the wall, and

slipped behind the piano. Genevieve had started to her feet and

stretched herself at full length along the bed. We saw the man produce

an electric lamp from his pocket, and, with his nose flattened against

the window-pane, try to catch a glimpse of the inside of the room. The

curtains prevented him from seeing clearly anything, but we got a full

view of his person.

He was a captain, colossus-like, thick-featured, and red-bearded; he had

a helmet and a grey coat on. He sat on the window-sill, and muttered in

a clammy, drunken voice:

"Mademoiselle, mademoiselle, open the window.... I want to wish you a

good morning ... shake hands with me.... Mademoiselle, open the window."

We held our breaths, we dared not stir a finger.

Then the officer got up, stepped backwards, took a survey of the house,

and made for the next window. He shook the shutters, which did not give

way, and went to try the others. How eagerly we wished the orderly had

shut up everything at his master's! The first window held out, the

second too, but the fastening of the third one yielded, and we heard the

man jump into the room. As if he knew the ins and outs, he swiftly

crossed both rooms and the passage, and stopped at our door.

"Open...."

He gave a knock ... then made an endeavour to open the door.

We were struck with dismay.

With a shove of his shoulders he might have forced the lock. With naked

feet and nothing but a nightgown on, how should we have been able to

stand up against this booted, armed giant if he had broken in?

Noiselessly Genevieve sprang towards me. I softly opened the window

overlooking the garden, and we jumped out, careless of the pebbles that

bruised our feet, ran along the house with all possible speed, and

stopped at my mother-in-law's window.

"Mother, mother, open the window."

Our voices were low, but so anxious that the shutters immediately flew

open. We climbed in like cats and hastily closed the window. With

strained ears we listened to the intruder's goings and comings, but he

soon jumped out of the window, and after renewed calling and knocking we

heard his carriage roll away.

We prudently waited some time before venturing out, then we poked our

noses into the passage, and, making sure the enemy had really withdrawn,

we took once more possession of our own room. But, alas, our emotion had

destroyed all chance of sleep.

Day after day, night after night, alarm upon alarm, the summer glided

by. Then came the harvest-time. The farmers were much agitated, for the

Germans had declared that they would gather in the harvest.

They did so.

Ah, the birds will long remember the summer of 1915!

The harvest lasted three months, and all that time the grain strewed the

ground. Every overripe sheaf lost in transport half its wealth.

"They are but lazy-bones, the whole pack of them," M. Lantois muttered

between his teeth. "When we gather in the harvest, we get up at three

o'clock and work till eight or nine, and we hurry over our meals. But

those fellows! they get up at six, leave off work from eleven to one,

and have done with it at five!"

If the soldiers did not tire themselves out, the civilians they employed

showed no eager haste to do things properly.

The peasants were full of indignation.

"If those idiots had allowed us to gather in the harvest on the

condition that we gave them half or even a third of it, they would have

had more corn than they have now, and we should have been provided for

the whole year!"

However, the Prussians at last understood that more speed was necessary.

And since all the able-bodied men were requisitioned, it was the turn of

the women. The rural constable announced one evening that women who

would work in the fields would receive two francs a day. This aroused a

great deal of wonder. In the times we lived in two francs were looked

upon as a large sum, and many women hired themselves out willingly. A

week after, there was a sudden fall in the tariff. The women heard they

would be paid only fourpence a day, and the female workers dwindled to

zero. The soldiers, in a rage, tried to enlist the women in their very

houses. But they did not succeed. One had a bad headache, another was in

bed, a third was nursing her baby, a fourth was sitting up by her sick

mother, and so on.

This state of things did not last long. The military authorities issued

an order, which enjoined all women from sixteen to fifty to be on the

_place_ of the village at such an hour, to be enrolled as day-labourers.

Mothers of young children alone were exempt. We looked at one another

in bewilderment. Why, then, we had to go too! But if we can wield the

pen and the needle, and on occasion the broom, we are not trained to

handle the sickle, the spade, and the rake. Besides Genevieve was hardly

recovered. Colette is as slender as a reed, and if Yvonne and I are far

from being viragoes in times of peace, we were still weaker after a year

of privation and trouble.

"The little of health and life we have left would be lost in the

fields," said Yvonne.

"I won't risk it," said Genevieve. "I had rather go to prison. Let them

take me to Chalandry!"

It was at Chalandry that the Germans had installed a prison for women.

Jackdaw's Leg good-humouredly reassured us in his most Teutonic accents:

"The measures in hand concern but the peasants," he said.

It is worth while remarking that the officers did their best to be on

tolerable terms with their hosts, and when the inhabitants were

ill-treated, the head of the house was sure to be away.

Now, Jackdaw's Leg had been feeling very poorly for some weeks. Was it

due to home-sickness and to a longing for sauerkraut and sausages? Or

might it not rather come from too many merry parties? In short, the

commandant seemed to languish, and ten times a day lay down on his

couch. As he had two bedrooms at his disposal, he slept in one bed by

night, and--for variety's sake--in the other by day, unmindful of the

fact that he thus requisitioned two pairs of sheets a week, that soap

was scarcely to be had, and that the poor washerwoman had to whiten the

linen with wood ashes. Jackdaw's Leg, being ill, got a month's leave of

absence, and disappeared in the background. His place was filled up by

the young linguist who had put up at Mme. Lantois'.

He would gladly have seen us dead.

Calling on his brother-in-arms, lingering without a motive, or for a

wrong motive, in our garden, in our lobby or on our threshold, peeping

through the keyholes--we once detected him in this occupation--he had

discovered that our souls were not unworthy of associating with his, mad

for music and philology, enamoured of art and culture. Notwithstanding

that we had the reputation of hating the Germans, this nice Prussian,

who produced in tippling-houses a list of at least one thousand and

three names--the list of his conquests in France--this nice Prussian

then gave us to understand that he would condescend to enter into

relations with us, relations based on philosophy, science, and

literature. Why not on politics?

We responded in such a manner to his advances as to convince even a

Prussian. And since then the fellow had borne us a dangerous grudge.

Two days after the departure of Jackdaw's Leg we heard a beat of

the rural constable's drum ... women from sixteen to fifty ... one

o'clock ... market-place.... We hardly listened to it. It was no

concern of ours. But at one o'clock Mme. Lantois ran up breathless: "Do

you know that the lieutenant just said that _everybody_ must go to the

market-place? He even told us that if you didn't go, he would send four

soldiers to fetch you, and take you off to Chalandry."

Consternation! Alarm! It was twelve o'clock according to German time.

Without waiting for luncheon we ran out in all directions to look for

substitutes. At one we arrived on the _place_, attended by four old

women, still hale and hearty, and well pleased to fill our places, for

of course to the scanty pay of the Germans we had agreed to add the

usual price of a day's work. The sight of the place suggested a picture

of the slave-market. Women, wearing light blouses and coarse linen

aprons, had gathered on both sides. To shield themselves from the glare

of the sun, the most of them wore a handkerchief tied under the chin; a

few of them laughing, tossed their sunburnt hair, and many with weary

faces leant against the tools they had brought. There were gloomy-eyed

women, who up to that time had never done any work but housekeeping;

there were young girls, carefully looked after by their mothers, who did

not know what to do with themselves; there were sedate, stern-looking

workers, and at last the usual set of soldiers' wenches, laughing at and

making fun of the others, noisier than the rest of the company, and

thinking that they might do what they liked.

Under the shade of the plane-trees was seated Jacob--such was the

Christian name of the lieutenant, and no one gave him another--busy

calling the names over. Ours was among the last; we answered without

wincing, and then presented our substitutes. Thus did we baffle the

trick which Jacob wanted to play us.

This enforced service brought about many troubles between the invaders

and the inhabitants, so the Germans had prudently turned the sugar-mill

of Aulnois into a prison for male culprits, and converted a house at

Chalandry into a jail for women. And if you showed the least disposition

to disobedience, you were immediately taken into custody. Did you call

a private soldier such names as he had deserved a hundred times? To

prison with you. Had you kept back any goods from the perquisitioners?

To prison with you. Were you unwilling to comply with the

requisitioners' orders? To prison with you. Were you penniless when

liable to a fine? To prison with you, to prison, to prison!

Half a dozen men from Morny were for ever ruralising at Aulnois. Of

course it is no disgrace to be put into prison by the Germans, but it is

a well-known fact that the diet of the Prussian jails is anything but

engaging.

A girl of sixteen coming back one evening from the fields threw her

pickaxe on her threshold, and cried out in tears:

"I won't work any longer for those barbarians!"

An indiscreet ear overheard the sentence, which was repeated in high

quarters.

Now, the word "barbarians" is to a German like a red rag to a bull.

So, two days afterwards, the family of the imprudent little person were

awakened out of their sleep at four o'clock in the morning. A sergeant

and four men came to fetch the guilty girl and take her to Chalandry.

Half an hour was granted her to get ready. Mad with despair and shaken

with sobs herself, she left her parents sunk in desolation and in tears.

They even did not know how long their child would be imprisoned. Towards

evening the father succeeded in seeing the commandant, who told him his

daughter would be in prison for three weeks.

"I was not too uncomfortable," the poor thing said afterwards; "one of

the 'nurses' was rather nice ... we were sewing the whole day long ...

but there were such funny women there...."

I should think so.

Then what an excellent pretext for vexatious measures was this enforced

service! A rich landowner of Vivaise, who was ill, sent a servant of

his, old but able-bodied, to take his place. One morning the officer

asked:

"Why does M. Villars not come himself?"

"He is ill."

"He is not so ill as you are pleased to say. He must come, and we will

see what occupation he is fit for."

M. Villars had to yield, and by way of an easy little job he was ordered

to clean the soldiers' closet, and gather up dung on the road. Ah, the

enslavers knew how to rouse our wrath, and more than one Prussian

well-nigh paid with his life for his insolence.

If our men strove hard to be always submissive it is because they knew

that a single attempt at revolt might have caused the village to be set

on fire and the inhabitants dispersed. Yet once a worker had a quarrel

with a Prussian. He was a youth of eighteen, who, when he had seen the

convoys go away, had cried for rage and clenched his fists, saying:

"Ah, if I were but allowed to go ... within eight days I should wear red

trousers!"

He did not know that red trousers were blue now, but he meant well, and

this young fellow one evening gave a sharp answer to one of the soldiers

who supervised the work of the fields. The Prussian, not quick at the

answer, aimed his revolver at him. The boy stooped down, and the bullet

was lost in a bush. At the same time a sudden collective rage seized

upon the companions of the young man, who had listened to the quarrel a

few steps away. Armed with hay-forks, scythes and spades, they rushed

headlong upon the common enemy, who bounded forward and fled across the

country. It was a splendid chase: Jacques Bonhomme pursuing Michael.

With the whole band at his heels, the Prussian raced across fields and

meadows, cleared the hedges, crossed the brooks, got to the village, and

went to earth. The pursuers stopped and looked at one another. "What

were we going to do?" With a sheepish look and their arms dangling, they

went home more than ever depressed beneath a feeling of helplessness.

Our tyrants were not content with worrying us with passports and

enforced service. They continued to strip us methodically, poor shorn

lambs as we were, to whom the wind was not tempered but whose food was

strictly measured. Though the Germans had taken all the fruits of the

fields, they were still afraid that something might be left us to eat.

So the farmers' wives were forced during the summer to reconstitute

their poultry yards. All birds were counted and requisitioned. Besides,

the farmers had to deliver to the _Kommandantur_ as many eggs as they

had hens every fourth day.

"What are we to do if the hens lay no eggs?"

"Do as you will," replied the Germans.

The fruit-trees in the orchards and gardens looked promising. We all

rejoiced at it. "If we have nothing else to eat we shall have

marmalade." But the first rosy tint had hardly spread over the cheeks of

the apples, when the rural constable proclaimed throughout the village:

"When good and ripe, fallen apples should be brought to the _Bureau_; a

severe penalty will be enforced on the refractory persons."

But the Germans still thought that we might cheat them, and the fruit

was unripe when they began to gather it. Children from twelve to sixteen

were requisitioned, and under the supervision of two soldiers they

knocked down the plums and picked them up. A month later it was the turn

of the apples, and then of the pears. The Germans carried off the fruit

throughout the country, and we saw hundreds of carts go by loaded with

sacks of apples, which were conveyed to Germany.

Among the most troublesome announcements made to the amazed

parish--always with a threat against refractory persons--I must recall

that which forbade them to cut down grass along roads and paths. This

annoyed particularly the owners of rabbits, goats, and kids; the animals

were requisitioned, but as long as the Germans were not in need of them

the peasant had to take charge of them--had the use of them, if I may

say so. And it was no trifle to feed the cattle, as the provender was

requisitioned.

In Mme. Lantois' big shed the Germans had heaped up a great deal of hay,

and towards evening the farmer's wife used to stand on her threshold,

and, after a glance to the right and left, she would run to the shed,

gather up an armful of hay, and come back home in a hurry. "My poor

beasts," she said, "I can't give them enough to eat. When I hear them

move about of nights it nearly breaks my heart; it prevents me from

sleeping, it does."

In the autumn the potatoes were dug up and sent to the north. The

peasants were furious. One of them, busy digging in his own field behind

his house, muttered between his teeth: "Isn't it a shame! The very

potatoes I have planted myself! And I shan't have any! Wait a minute!"

He had on a large belt that transformed the upper part of his shirt into

a sack. His hand went by turns down to the ground and up to his neck,

and he soon had the figure of Punch. While the guard studied the

weather, his nose lifted up towards the sky, the man sneaked away,

slipped into his house, emptied his belt, came back, and began again.

Alas, came the moment when the guard discovered the trick!

This guard was a holy man, fat, stout, demure-looking, a canting

preacher, who not only took the apostleship of his nation for granted,

but his own too. When the misappropriated potatoes had got back to the

Prussian sacks our Mr. Smooth-Tongue looked at the grieved

culprit--grieved at having been caught--looked at the hollow-cheeked

faces around him, at the sunken, jaded eyes. He paused before speaking,

tossed his head three times, and said: "How perverse are the French!

Don't you know that stealing is forbidden? And don't you know that the

potatoes belong to the Germans? Now then, by taking our potatoes you

commit a theft. It is a disgrace. Be sure you never do such a thing

again!" Such talk was to be heard from many Germans. It suits them. I

delight in hearing them sing this tune, the _Gazette des Ardennes_ at

their head, and cry up to the skies the good, the beautiful. They go

still further, and my joy increases. They laud the love of their

neighbour, respect for the property of others, compassion towards the

weak; they extol the meekness, the goodness, the infinite sweet temper

of Germany. But oh! it is ever to be regretted that so many noble words

should be delivered in vain. Such rubbish does not take with us.

"Their _Gazette des Ardennes_!" exclaimed a farmer's wife. "We buy it

only to read the list of French prisoners, and because there is no other

newspaper. But when my husband reads it, he never leaves off thumping on

the table, and rapping out oaths from beginning to end. Since those

filthy fellows have settled themselves down here, one has never a fine

word in one's mouth!"

"The other day," another woman told us, "my husband had to bring

vegetables to Laon. He went to have his pass signed; the sergeant held

out his hand to take the paper and said: 'Well, comrade?' My husband

gave no answer, but he thought to himself: 'You my comrade! I would

rather kick you soundly than call you that.'"

Our sense of impotence was never greater than in the month of August,

when the Germans trumpeted abroad with a sneer the defeat of the

Russians, and oh, sacrilege! ordered our own bells to be rung to

celebrate the glorious deeds of the German army! But in September hope

rose in our hearts, and filled them with joy. The offensive began in

Champagne. The cannon raged as never before. How they rolled and shook

and roared! And to our minds the uproar was suave, the rumbling was

blessed.

The French aeroplanes came eight days running to drop bombs on the

station at Laon. Six, seven, even ten were to be seen at the same time

in the sky; they sparkled like jewels in the deep-blue heavens; they

well-nigh drove us mad; we jumped for joy in the garden, cheered them,

and would gladly have thrown our hearts out to them. Fortunately no

outsiders were the witnesses of our frenzy, or we should have been found

guilty. At Laon, two young girls were looking out of an upper window,

and at the sight of the dear aeroplanes had screamed with joy, and

clapped their hands. Alas, some soldiers saw them from the street, and

lodged an information against them! They were immediately arrested,

tried, and sentenced to a month's imprisonment. We lived in hope for a

whole week. The _Gazette des Ardennes_ suppressed the French official

reports which they generally gave at full length--at least so they

said--and we thought that the offensive, even in the Germans' opinion,

bade fair to succeed. Then the cannon was silent once more, and our

hearts sank within us.

The fair weather was past. It was cold and rainy, and again, as the year

before, we gathered every evening around the lamp--a horrid,

evil-smelling horse-oil lamp. Our circle was often out of spirits; our

very gestures revealed weariness. Thirteen months of captivity lay heavy

on us, and we had received no news whatever of those we loved:

"Oh, they are all dead!" sighed Colette.

Yet we reposed the strictest confidence in our army. We felt sure

victory would ultimately be ours. But, oh! how long was victory in

coming!

It was cold and damp. We were afraid of the coming winter. Though the

summer had brought us many hardships, yet we had made shift to live;

but how could we manage in the bad season, when we had neither fuel nor

vegetables? They had refused us permission to cut down trees in our own

woods, though the invaders had massacred them at will. Besides, the

Germans chose this very moment to threaten us with enforced service. We

were told that we were no longer allowed to get other persons to supply

our places as day labourers.

"The substitutes you find prove that they are still able-bodied. So they

must work for their own account, and you for yours."

"Oh!" we moaned, "is there no means of escape from this hell?"

We had made several attempts, had addressed petitions, and written

letters that had been either thrown away or answered with a negative.

And now they wanted to add penal servitude to imprisonment! They would

oblige us to work from morning till night, in the mud, in the rain.

"I prefer going to Chalandry," Genevieve repeated.

But we were excused enforced service, and exempted from prison. A

greater misfortune spared us these troubles. One morning I met in the

passage two callers who did not ask for Jackdaw's Legs. One of them,

very tall, very thin, and very stiff, with Japanese-like features, bent

himself down with a low bow. His companion, smaller but just as thin and

stiff, copied him hastily.

"Madam," lisped the former in a faint voice, "I should like to see the

owner of this house."

I showed both men in, and rushed into my mother-in-law's bedroom.

Everybody was in a stir.

"What do they want? This visit foretells no good, of course."

"It is the general's son," Colette said. "I had him pointed out to me a

few days ago."

Mme. Valaine walked into the dining-room, where the visitors were

waiting. On tip-toe we went into the passage, and holding our breaths

anxiously listened from behind the door.

As soon as my mother-in-law entered the room, the officers got up, and

bowed themselves at right angles. Then the lisping voice began:

"Madam, I am a staff officer. I have been ordered to inform you of a

decision that concerns you nearly...."

"Ah!..."

Behind the door left ajar we strained uneasy ears; the speaker went on

with his speech:

"You are not ignorant, madam, of the painful necessities of the war, and

I am sorry to have to tell you that we are in need of your house...."

"Oh!"

It was Genevieve who uttered this stifled cry. Mme. Valaine had no voice

to answer.

The orator continued:

"... We are in need of your house for a printing office. It corresponds

exactly with our wishes."

"But it is my own house; I live in it with my family. I have a right to

stay in it...."

"Madam, I am very sorry, but we want it. To-day is Thursday; I think we

can wait till Monday next to take possession of the place."

"But it is impossible ... my furniture...."

"Oh, the house must remain furnished. But you may take away such pieces

of furniture as the officers do not want."

"But, sir, it is a disgrace!" Genevieve, unable to control her

indignation any longer, had pushed the door open, thus unmasking our

group, and had entered the lists. Her invasion slightly disturbed the

officer.

"It is a disgrace! You pretend that you don't make war upon civilians,

and you turn five women out of doors at the beginning of the winter! You

offend against the law of nations. But it is your habit. I know you by

your handiwork!"

Wholly unmoved, the executioner replied:

"I see you are excited, and I shall not repeat what I have just heard."

"What! Indeed! You may repeat it if you like. I should not be afraid to

say so to anybody."

Always calm and stiff and lisping, the Japanese blond went back to what

he was saying:

"You will be quieter by and by. I said we want the house to be free on

Monday next. As we may stay in France for months, and even for years, it

is our duty to settle things as well as can be. It is our right. I am

sorry this is disagreeable for you, but it is war." When he had done

talking, he bowed himself to the ground, his companion immediately did

the like, and both withdrew. In a death-like silence we listened to the

retreating steps, to the gate slammed-to, and then burst out into

lamentations. A fortnight after we were in Laon.

The dear old house, the garden, the furniture were all violated, lost.

As nothing else kept us in Morny, we had asked leave to go to Laon,

which by way of compensation had been granted to us. So, we should not

be bound to enforced service, and we could make up for the tediousness

of the winter by devouring all the books in the town library. And above

all, we should not see plundered, and given over to the beasts, the

beloved old house, embellished by our love, where the family had lived

for several generations, where my husband and my sisters-in-law had been

born, where they had spent their childhood.

We should not see the looking-glasses cracked by awkwardness or malice,

the hangings splashed with beer, the carpets torn up, the pieces of

furniture burnt one after another for firewood, according to the whims

of the servants. We should not see the officers walking two by two under

our lime-trees, in our long alleys, edged with box--the box, beneath

which we hid our Easter eggs!

The rumour of our expulsion spread abroad, and presently we heard the

reason of it.

Jacob, the linguist, the pompous talker, not to say the chatterbox, told

the Lantois:

"The ladies' troubles are due to an officer's vengeance. Lieutenant

Bubenpech had a personal grudge against them; he is the nephew of the

brigade-major, and he thought it amusing to give these ladies a little

lesson."

Very kind indeed, Herr Bubenpech! But we know what a pretty thing is

German vengeance, and it gets home! And after all, life was more easily

bearable in Laon than in the country. Friends of ours who lived near the

Porte d'Ardon let us have a little apartment in their house. Our windows

overlooked the country, and as usual we could watch the bursting of

shells, the captive balloons, and the turning beacons. Horse-oil was

faithful to our lamps, and we used turf to heat our rooms. I recommend

this fuel to those who have a love of dust and smoke. The question of

food was hard, but not harder than in Morny. Meat was scarcely to be

had. The people dimly remembered the shape of an egg, the colour of

butter or oil or grease or milk. Babies I know fed on vegetable-soup

alone from six weeks of age. The American Board of Relief distributed

provisions similar to those we had enjoyed in Morny--250 grammes of

bread a day, a little rice, dry vegetables, from time to time a bit of

bacon. Besides, green vegetables were to be had at the greengrocer's.

But we were forbidden to buy more than ten kilograms of potatoes a head

per month. At Morny the Germans had generously distributed twenty

kilograms a head, but half of them were rotten, and then the population

had been told that they had received their winter supply.

What we appreciated most in the town was the calmness of the nights.

Where superior officers are quartered, subalterns are obliged to save

appearances and to conduct their drunken revelries in private. We had no

more brutal intrusions to fear; we dreaded no perquisitions, as we had

lost everything. And the aspect of so many houses close to one another

gave us an impression of security, long since forgotten.

Yet how sad the town looked! Many houses had been emptied according to

the Germans' whims. Furniture, bedding, linen, clothes had been carried

away. The officers loaded the women who devoted themselves to soothe the

boredom of the war with presents, chosen from among this booty. They

adorned their apartments with things they had taken from all quarters of

the town, and if they did not get from the houses of the absent what

they wanted, they applied to those who were still there.

Thus it was that a sergeant and four men once came to the house of the

friends who had received us, to fetch away a set of drawing-room

furniture. Protestations were of no avail.

"I have my orders. Make out an invoice, take it to the _Kommandantur_,

and a note of hand will be delivered to you."

To any complaint which the wronged owner might make an officer answered:

"I have but one word of advice to give you: Keep quiet and hold your

tongue."

The streets always swarmed with officers and soldiers on foot and on

horseback. All shops were open by order of the Germans, but there was

nothing to be sold in most of them. No articles of food were to be had,

and the stock of shoes, materials, and clothes was nearly exhausted by

the needs of the people and by frequent requisitions. In November all

silk goods had been requisitioned, even ribbons above ten centimetres'

breadth. Many empty shops--which had been plundered after the departure

of the owners--had been laid hold of by German civilians, who had lost

no time in bringing their little trade to France. Thus you might admire

a stationer's and two booksellers' shops, a jeweller's--various kinds of

paltry stuff--a boot and shoe warehouse, a hairdressing saloon, and so

on. These patriotic establishments were always thronged with

customers--in uniform of course.

The _Kommandantur_ sold officially in a shop thus installed Belgian lace

of great beauty, marvels of point: Brussels, Bruges, Mechlin. After a

month it was offered for sale in the town hall alone, and so the sight

of these treasures was kept back from French eyes. The officers

scrambled for this lace, which, in spite of high prices, sold

wonderfully well. For the rest, military men of all ranks spent a great

deal of money, and a French jeweller told us that private soldiers often

spent upon gold chains and rings all the money they possessed. Was it a

way to convert their paper money into something safer? Later on they

were forbidden to pay for their purchases in silver or in German notes,

and the tradesmen were not allowed to receive anything from the soldiers

but municipal banknotes, and were bound to give back only German or

French money. These rules were a great hindrance to business.

In the autumn of 1915, the magnanimous, high-souled military authorities

decreed that the persons who had concealed wine--well-hidden wine alone

had escaped being requisitioned--would avoid close searches and severe

punishments by making a statement of the quantity they possessed. Afraid

and tired out, many people complied and handed over what they had so

long kept out of sight, and thousands of bottles went down the throats

of our tormentors.

More serious was the proclamation which granted a delay to the French

soldiers still in the invaded territory. The blockade had taken a great

many of them by surprise, and had prevented them from reaching the

French line; they wore civil clothes and lived under an assumed name.

Some of them had surrendered at the beginning of the invasion; others

had been discovered and shot. But the new regulation enabled those who

were hidden to give themselves up until the 20th of November. From that

date every French soldier, caught in invaded territory, would be looked

upon as a spy and be immediately shot. As many as eighty surrendered

before the stated day, and oh, desolation! the very day after they

arrested, in a suburb of the town where he lived disguised as a workman,

a French officer, a captain. We read on the bills stuck up in the

streets that he had been shot in the citadel.

Another announcement threatened the villagers more than the town's

people. It intimated that every criminal attempt made at any point of

the railroads would immediately bring terrible reprisals upon the

inhabitants of the neighbouring villages. "Whether guilty or not," the

unhappy wretches would be "driven from their houses if the military

authorities thought proper"; the women would be taken away, and "the men

enrolled in the gangs of labourers." Besides, such hostages as the

Germans selected might be shot.

On the other hand, the invaders were always in readiness to drain the

country of the little money that was left. Many means were at their

disposal. Fines were showered down upon the towns and villages. If a

French aeroplane dropped bombs on the Laon station, the town was quickly

condemned to pay upwards of one hundred thousand francs. In October, to

mark, no doubt, the anniversary of the German occupation, the invaded

were warned that they would have to pay a second contribution of war.

The chief authorities of the communes were told that those under their

charge would soon get into the habit of paying tribute, very likely

every quarter, to the conquerors. "And when all the money has thus been

wrung from all purses, well, you will but have to issue municipal notes,

which you will give to us, the Prussians. So, when the war is at an end,

when you have all been eaten out of house and home, you will all the

same be our debtors!"

They were just as ingenious in fooling the farmers. In that year, 1915,

the peasants had tilled the fields themselves. But the Germans are

scrupulously honest, as every one knows. "We are going," they said, "to

pay you for your trouble and your corn. You will receive twenty francs a

hectare!" Splendid amend! Rich indemnity! Morny was entitled to 18,000

frs. "Yes," the Germans went on, "but you remember that old fine of

yours, which you never paid entirely. Besides, there is the quarter's

contribution to the war, and a thousand francs fine imposed for a

passport that was not vised. In short, when it is all added up, you owe

to us 800 frs." The civilians who had to listen to these speeches hung

their heads. The account was right: they could not plead false

arithmetic. Two and two always make four, especially when the German

army maintains it.

This gave heart to the Prussians to go still further: "Let us talk of

the future. Next year we shall cultivate the fields ourselves. Of course

it is but right that you should remunerate us for so doing. Our tillage

is worth fifty-six francs a hectare. Besides, you must pay us our

expenses: three hectolitres of seed a hectare ... at the highest

possible price. We will be paid beforehand." The sum total was 92,000

frs. for the village of Morny alone. And there were about 1500

inhabitants left in Morny, all in utter poverty after the exactions of

which they had been victims. Fortunately the Prussians put the remedy at

the sufferers' disposal: "If you have no money left, you possess good

pieces of land, which you might pledge. We have just founded a

German-Belgian Bank in Brussels, which will lend you some money." These

honest offers were made in the month of December, but we do not know how

things befell, for the dawn rose again for us. Convoys were organised

for a second time.

We blessed the number of the _Gazette des Ardennes_ which, at the end of

November, brought us the good news. Twenty thousand persons were to be

chosen in the invaded territory, first among the poor and the sick and

the people whose usual residence was on the other side of the front. We

feared lest our demand should be rejected, and we left no stone unturned

to prevent refusal. At length we were told that our names had been put

down on the list of the emigrants.

It was the end of the year. Colette still hoped to see the French come

back before our departure. But, alas! nothing of the kind happened.

Christmas, New Year's Day, were kept as they had been kept a year

before, sadly by the French, merrily by the Germans. Then the month of

January, cold and foggy, glided by, and we were still kept waiting. At

length the day of the departure came. The convoy, the mass of emigrants,

were strikingly like the herd we had witnessed the year before. Yet I

think we saw more sick people. There were many who coughed. When once we

were all seated in a carriage, we five, with two little orphan girls,

who went to meet their grandmother at Lyons, the train moved off at

last, and such an emotion seized upon us that no one uttered a word. The

first time our flight had been stopped at Chevrigny, a second time at

Jouville. How far should we go now?

We had been told that there would be no quarantine. Was it true? We were

travelling through a grey country. The night fell and the dawn rose

again: we were in Germany. We made many a long stop in the stations;

soldiers distributed coffee and soup in the carriages. We had taken with

us, put by from our pittance of a whole week, dry toast, barley coffee,

and licorice-wood tea. As to tasting "the soup"--no, thank you. We

peered through the windows, but did not see anything worth looking at.

Towns and villages were gloomy; in the stations, boys of about thirteen

did the work of railway porters.

The night fell again. We reached the Black Forest, which was white with

snow. We wound our way up a mountain, and caught sight of a vale far

below us. The branches of the fir-trees bent beneath their pure burden,

and the cloak spread over the ground was so dazzling that it gave light

to the starless night. Houses were to be seen everywhere, grouped

together in hamlets and villages, or standing apart in the

mountain--good-natured-looking houses nestled in the snow, with

gaily-lit-up windows.

Then I cast my eyes about me. My companions were slumbering, and the

flickering light brought out the paleness of their uneasy faces. One of

the little girls was coughing, and we could hear other people who seemed

to echo back the same sad sound. The long train that rolled along was

full of wretchedness and misery. And from those snug little houses, from

those towns we had just crossed, came the soldiers who had rushed upon

our country. From thence the plunderers, the drunkards, the debauchees,

the executioners; from thence came those who have carried dismay into a

peaceful country, who have converted a happy, industrious population

into a fearful, enslaved herd....

May you be cursed ... cursed....

And there, in the big houses, in the towns, live still the accomplices.

They are all there. The lamp is bright, the stove lit up. Dinner is

over; they are smoking their pipes and reading their papers.

And in the invaded territory thousands and thousands of people have gone

to bed at six, because they have no light, no fire, and no dinner. And

the others are there. They read the papers. They praise whatever the

German army does, they admire the German soldiers, they approve all

high-handed measures, and those who are at home, as well as those away

from home, lift up their eyes towards the sky, and thank God for not

being like the rest of mankind.

Ah no, you are not like the rest of mankind! Could we shout it loud

enough? Is there any cry that might pierce your dull conscience? Are

there maledictions of sufficient vehemence to penetrate the carapace in

which you have wrapped up your understanding?

Ah, I wish I were hundred-tongued, and gifted with more than human

genius, the better to proclaim your infamy, the better to cry out upon

the sufferings width which you do not cease to load us. I can but repeat

what I have seen, what I have heard, what I have borne. I shall never be

weary of lifting up a corner of the veil in which you wrap yourselves,

you dissemblers, you false-faced, false-hearted men! On your features of

brutality and violence you wear a benignant, canting mask, you assume a

candid, astonished look, and turn round to the neutrals, to Europe, to

all civilised powers, saying:

"We are charged with evil deeds! Look if it is like us?"

You resemble the woman of whom the Bible says: "She wipes her mouth, and

says: I have done no harm." You reject with a shrug of your shoulders

those of your actions which might make you uneasy. Your accommodating

consciences do away with them, and they immediately fall into oblivion.

But we are sure to remember what you forget. You have shown yourselves

openly, and we know your real faces only too well, their unrelenting

harshness, their falseness, their incomprehension, and in your double

face we spit out the horror and scorn you rouse in us. And yet we admire

you. Your presence was attended with murder, fire, acts of violence and

plunder; you have displayed a powerful, splendid, hideous bestiality,

and it is that bestiality which we admire in you.

Do not reject the title of Barbarians. It is the only one that suits

you. You might have been fine Barbarians, but for a long time to come

you will be only shabby civilised men. I had rather see you stand on a

pedestal, and hear you shout, exaggerating your misdeeds, overstraining

your cruelty, your vices, your animality:

"Yes, we are Barbarians! and then?"

Thus you might have been great, and since you are strong, since you know

how to fight, you would have been like a hero who defends himself as he

is, and not like a little girl about to be whipped, who tries to deny

her fault, and weeps.

Believe me, you will cut no figure in history as saints. Where your

horses have trodden, the grass will not spring up again for long. So

make up your minds, unmask yourselves, and cry out:

"We are _the_ Barbarians!"

The train had reached the highest point of its journey. All the vale,

and the slopes of the mountains, were flecked with a thousand brilliant

points. They were the windows of the houses, more smiling than ever. A

few moments passed, and then a kind of excitement came over us. Were we

approaching the Swiss frontier?

We had still to wait in our carriages for the morning. Long hours

together we should have to wait for our turn to be searched, and allow

the nurses to examine the soles of our shoes, and the hems of our

garments. But what did it matter? We were in raptures! It was over! Our

martyrdom was at an end!

We were in Switzerland! We were free!

A fraternal welcome cheered us all along the road. Here was rich Zurich,

whose prosperity dazzled our eyes. Then came Berne and fair Geneva, at

the end of its blue lake.

Here was at last ... oh, my heart, do not throb so violently! Here she

was ... France ... it was France ... unsullied France, where no Germans

breathe, living, active France, the France that will crush the enemy. We

saw Mont Blanc watch over the frontier; then we came within sight of the

valley, of a rocky land, and then of the plain, the plain as vast as the

hope which filled our hearts.

And now that we had reached France, now that we rode in a French

carriage, we sat close to one another, and with tears in our eyes looked

at the landscape.

We felt heavy with an overwhelming joy, and we waited for the morrow,

not knowing whether it would bring happiness or mourning.

THE END

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TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES:

Obvious punctuation errors repaired.

The following words appear both with and without hyphens and were

transcribed as they appear in the book: arm[-]chair, bank[-]notes,

battle[-]fields, cannon[-]ball, guard[-]room, hunch[-]backed,

needle[-]women, night[-]cap, tip[-]toe, way[-]worn.