NOUS SOMMES DIX
It was at Christmas time that we came most to realise the broken family
circles in all our villages. There was not one household which did not
have some hostage _avec les Boches_. Of the pitiful remnant, the old
men—there were no young ones—were to me the most appealing. I shall never
forget the fête in the hill village of Douilly, well up to the front, a
village completely destroyed, whose inhabitants were living in cellars.
On the brow of the hill, facing the sunset, stood the white stone
church. It had been used by the Germans as a barracks, and had not been
reconsecrated, so that we were given permission to hold our party there.
Cold, bare, yet beautiful with the sunlight falling in rainbow colours on
the groined arches, was the old church. At the bases of the pillars, we
deposited our sacks of presents; most of them for the children, but one
each for the women and the men. The latter were in my charge. Only three
came hobbling up from the outskirts of the crowd. “But is this all?”
I asked, as they chose the size of package which seemed to each most
desirable. “Are there no other men in the village?” The old men consulted
together. “There is Grandpère Cordon,” suggested one, “and Jean, who has
rheumatism,” “and blind Pierre——” “_Nous sommes dix_,” came the answer,
finally. “Shall we take the presents to the rest?”
“_Nous sommes dix!_” It was the answer which might have been made in
Canizy. According to the number of inhabitants, it might represent the
proportion of the male population left anywhere in the _région dévastée_.
Not one was able-bodied. In Canizy there were, for example, the lame
mayor of whom I have spoken; his four contemporaries, verging on sixty,
one a heavy drinker, another one-armed, a third in need of an operation,
a fourth suffering from heart disease. Even the latter had been taken
away, but as he said, when the German doctor put down his ear to listen,
he threw up his hands, and gave the officers a good piece of his mind for
having imported a useless consumer of food. So he was encouraged to make
his way back.
Of an older generation are two of the servitors of the Château, the
one the feeble gardener, the other the bedridden husband of the
laundress, who has not worked for many years. There is M. Tabary also,
the grandfather of Germaine, who has his own peculiar sorrow in his
granddaughter’s visible disgrace. A Boche baby will never outlive its
stigma while the memory of the Great War remains. M. Tabary is sick and
frail. It was he who, persuaded at last to come to the Dispensary, paused
in going out to doff his old cap with a courtly bow and to address the
doctors with a “_Merci, mes demoiselles, merci; je suis content_.”
It was a fortunate circumstance, however,—for I cannot think it
intentional on the part of the Germans—that all of these old men, more
or less in need of care, had either wives or other feminine relatives to
give it to them. Not so circumstanced was M. Augustin. Smooth-shaven save
for a white fringe of beard, his fresh-coloured but anxious face appeared
one day at the Château. Thither he had gone to deliver a load of hay.
But the particular lady who had contracted to buy it being unexpectedly
absent, M. Augustin was disturbed. His language gave one an impression
of vigour which was borne out by subsequent acquaintance. On the saint’s
day of the village, he shared honours with young Lydie in being the life
of the party, by contributing a song and a quaint peasants’ dance. He
was to be met with frequently along the roads, with blue-visored cap,
brown corduroys and stout cane. As his neighbours said: “_M. Augustin,
il voyage toujours partout_.” Still, he took time to do chores, like
chopping wood for Mme. Juliette, to hoe in his garden, and to keep his
house. The latter was, strictly speaking, a shed. It had two windows,
however, through which, in the absence of the owner, I made inventory. A
broken stove was propped against a home-made chimney; a plank table stood
beneath the window; a chair, and a rough chest completed the furniture.
On the table, instead of a lamp, was a bottle containing a candle; beside
it were a bowl and a frying pan.
Chiefly from the neighbours, I learned that M. Augustin was a widower,
that he had been the village cobbler, and that he preferred to live
alone. Now, we had shoe-making tools among our stores, so one day I
asked him if he would not like some. “No, Mademoiselle, I thank you,”
he replied. “My eyes are no longer clear; I cannot see well.” I was
more successful with other suggestions, however. A little nest of
dishes pleased him greatly; a new stove was installed, and a bed, and
what was perhaps even more greatly appreciated, a lamp. The evidence of
his appreciation took the form of whitewash on walls and ceiling; the
cobwebs vanished from the windows; and a shelf appeared for the dishes
behind the stove. It may be that M. Augustin will now be more content
with his own fireside, and less drawn to visit the wineshops of Ham and
Nesle.
I never saw M. Augustin at mass, where the village transformed itself on
occasion from weekday caps and kerchiefs and sabots to its conventional
and unbecoming best. Therefore I must needs infer that his face was
shaven daily, and his suit always clean, for his own satisfaction. The
moral stamina shown by this is noteworthy, and characteristic of the
peasantry of our district. We ourselves in our living conditions found
cleanliness next to godliness in this respect at least, in that it was
hard to attain. But _cui bono_ seemed never to have disturbed the habits
of M. Augustin.
Another sprightly old gentleman was M. Touret. His quarters were more
spacious than those of his neighbour, for he lived in a barn. Overhead,
hay piled from eaves to roof-tree helped to keep out the cold, and there
was one window. As he himself said when asked if he wanted anything:
“What would you? I am warm; I have a chair, a stove and a bed. If
the young people were here—perhaps. But we who are old, we shall not
live long, we have enough.” M. Touret, however, did not live alone.
The mother of his son’s wife had taken pity on him after the Germans
deported his two sons and their families, and had invited him to share
her barn. There were three housed there altogether, for with them lived
her son. M. Touret was oftenest found on a bench between the window and
the stove, poring through his spectacles over the daily paper. Mme.
Clara was usually busy with some savoury cooking, and M. Albert on the
occasion of my first visit held the centre of the floor with saw-horse
and axe. A chair was offered at once, and we all sat down to talk. M.
Touret, however, kept glancing at his paper, or regarded us over the rims
of his spectacles. Presently he broke in: “As for you, I do not know
what you may be, but as for me, I am a Christian.” In the midst of a
conversation about fodder and furniture, the effect was arresting, until
one realised from his point of view the strangeness of our position.
What, he must have queried, are these young American women doing here? We
were certainly different from the French ladies of family who nursed the
soldiers, or took over whole communities to house and feed. French women
would never have walked as we did, muddy-shoed and knapsacked, alone over
the fields. They might have been more understanding, at least their ways
would have been more conventional and better understood.
In fact, on another occasion M. Touret asked me why I had come to France.
“Monsieur, my father was a soldier; I cannot fight, but in this war I,
too, want to help.” “Your father was a soldier? Ah yes, that would be
in the Civil War, in ’64—I remember it well. And what rank did he hold?
Was he a general?” “But no, Monsieur; only a common soldier.” “A common
soldier?” He thought a moment. “But not like ours, because in America you
are not a military nation, and depend on volunteers.” My face must have
expressed astonishment. “Look you, Mademoiselle; before the war it was my
habit to read. I read every year as many as two hundred volumes. I had a
large library in a cabinet. The Germans burned my books.” He rose, picked
up something from a bench behind the stove and handed it to me. It proved
to be a charred and mildewed copy of a history; the history of England
in the time of Henry the Eighth. Mutilated as it was, the pages showed a
beautiful clear type and exquisite engravings. It was a good example of
the printing of Abbeville, famous for its engravers and binders since the
days of its first printing press in 1484.
“Would you not like some books, then?” I ventured.
“What sort of books? Not magazines.” He looked contemptuously at one that
I had in my hand. “Me, I like stories. See what I bought yesterday.” He
brought from a chest of drawers a gaudy paper volume entitled “La Morte
d’Amour.”
Knowing that our library contained no such light literature, I continued,
“Would you perhaps like Dumas?”
“Dumas? ‘The Three Musketeers’?” His wrinkled face lighted. “I know them.
Another book I liked the Germans loaned me when they were here. It was by
an Englishman—B-u-l-w-e-a-r—‘The Last Days of Pompeii’—a very interesting
book.”
“Tell me,” he went on a little later, “some one has said that you have no
twilight in North America. Is it true?”
It seeming in his mind to be a reflection upon our country, I tried my
best to dissipate this impression by citing the great size of the United
States, and its varying climatic conditions. But I could not truthfully
say that we had the lingering orange sunsets and afterglows of pink and
mauve and applegreen which I knew were in his mind, and with which I too
became familiar on the plain of Picardy.
The last time I saw M. Touret was on a white and wintry morning when I
had risen even earlier than the Villagers or M. the chaplain, to attend
the Village mass. In a golden-brown corduroy which might have been
the twin of M. Augustin’s, I spied M. Touret on the path ahead of me,
homeward bound after the service. I ran to catch up.
“Good morning, Monsieur, and how are you?”
“_O, doucement, doucement_,” he answered. “And you?”
“The books, did you like them?” I inquired, for his Christmas present had
consisted of three.
“O, well enough; but one was not true. It was called ‘Contes de la Lune.’
I did not read it. Another (this in reference to Tourguenieff) was by
a Russian; and you know well, in France we do not love Russia, now. A
Russian indeed! The third,—well Jules Verne is always interesting. _Ça
ira._”
Somewhat discouraged, I recalled what Mme. Clara had told me once in
an effort to soften the old man’s brusqueness. “He is old; he is full
of crotchets, you understand.” But Madame herself appeared to me to be
quite as old, though I had the wit not to compliment her politeness
thus maladroitly. Perhaps it was because of this honesty, entirely
unaffected, that of all the households in my village, I enjoyed most
hers and M. Touret’s. There one found a freeborn fellowship, which,
like the mellow twilight, belongs to Picardy. It is a _timbre_ resonant
in the older generation; that generation which endured the invasion of
1870, as well as the invasion of 1914. It is a survival of many wars, of
many hardships, a spirit akin to that fortitude which has made our own
country,—a common language that we, who came from the ends of the earth,
could understand.