"REALLY and truly," said Paradis, my neighbor in the ranks, "believe me
or not, I'm knocked out--I've never before been so paid on a march as I
have been with this one, this evening."
His feet were dragging, and his square shoulders bowed under the burden
of the knapsack, whose height and big irregular outline seemed almost
fantastic. Twice he tripped and stumbled.
Paradis is tough. But he had been running up and down the trench all
night as liaison man while the others were sleeping, so he had good
reason to be exhausted and to growl "Quoi? These kilometers must be
made of india-rubber, there's no way out of it."
Every three steps he hoisted his knapsack roughly up with a hitch of
his hips, and panted under its dragging; and all the heap that he made
with his bundles tossed and creaked like an overloaded wagon.
"We're there," said a non-com.
Non-coms. always say that, on every occasion. But--in spite of the
non-com.'s declaration--we were really arriving in a twilight village
which seemed to be drawn in white chalk and heavy strokes of black upon
the blue paper of the sky, where the sable silhouette of the church--a
pointed tower flanked by two turrets more slender and more sharp--was
that of a tall cypress.
But the soldier, even when he enters the village where he is to be
quartered, has not reached the end of his troubles. It rarely happens
that either the squad or the section actually lodges in the place
assigned to them, and this by reason of misunderstandings and cross
purposes which tangle and disentangle themselves on the spot; and it is
only after several quarter-hours of tribulation that each man is led to
his actual shelter of the moment.
So after the usual wanderings we were admitted to our night's
lodging--a roof supported by four posts, and with the four quarters of
the compass for its walls. But it was a good roof--an advantage which
we could appreciate. It was already sheltering a cart and a plow, and
we settled ourselves by them. Paradis, who had fumed and complained
without ceasing during the hour we had spent in tramping to and fro,
threw down his knapsack and then himself, and stayed there awhile,
weary to the utmost, protesting that his limbs were benumbed, that the
soles of his feet were painful, and indeed all the rest of him.
But now the house to which our hanging roof was subject, the house
which stood just in front of us, was lighted up. Nothing attracts a
soldier in the gray monotony of evening so much as a window whence
beams the star of a lamp.
"Shall we have a squint?" proposed Volpatte.
"So be it," said Paradis. He gets up gradually, and hobbling with
weariness, steers himself towards the golden window that has appeared
in the gloom, and then towards the door. Volpatte follows him, and I
Volpatte.
We enter, and ask the old man who has let us in and whose twinkling
head is as threadbare as an old hat, if he has any wine to sell.
"No," replies the old man, shaking his head, where a little white fluff
crops out in places.
"No beer? No coffee? Anything at all--"
"No, mes amis, nothing of anything. We don't belong here; we're
refugees, you know."
"Then seeing there's nothing, we'll be off." We right-about face. At
least we have enjoyed for a moment the warmth which pervades the house
and a sight of the lamp. Already Volpatte has gained the threshold and
his back is disappearing in the darkness.
But I espy an old woman, sunk in the depths of a chair in the other
corner of the kitchen, who appears to have some busy occupation.
I pinch Paradis' arm. "There's the belle of the house. Shall we pay our
addresses to her?"
Paradis makes a gesture of lordly indifference. He has lost interest in
women--all those he has seen for a year and a half were not for him;
and moreover, even when they would like to be his, he is equally
uninterested.
"Young or old--pooh!" he says to me, beginning to yawn. For want of
something to do and to lengthen the leaving, he goes up to the
goodwife. "Good-evening, gran'ma," he mumbles, finishing his yawn.
"Good-evening, mes enfants," quavers the old dame. So near, we see her
in detail. She is shriveled, bent and bowed in her old bones, and the
whole of her face is white as the dial of a clock.
And what is she doing? Wedged between her chair and the edge of the
table she is trying to clean some boots. It is a heavy task for her
infantile hands; their movements are uncertain, and her strokes with
the brush sometimes go astray. The boots, too, are very dirty indeed.
Seeing that we are watching her, she whispers to us that she must
polish them well, and this evening too, for they are her little girl's
boots, who is a dressmaker in the town and goes off first thing in the
morning.
Paradis has stooped to look at the boots more closely, and suddenly he
puts his hand out towards them. "Drop it, gran'ma; I'll spruce up your
lass's trotter-cases for you in three secs."
The old woman lodges an objection by shaking her head and her
shoulders. But Paradis takes the boots with authority, while the
grandmother, paralyzed by her weakness, argues the question and opposes
us with shadowy protest.
Paradis has taken a boot in each hand; he holds them gingerly and looks
at them for a moment, and you would even say that he was squeezing them
a little.
"Aren't they small!" he says in a voice which is not what we hear in
the usual way.
He has secured the brushes as well, and sets himself to wielding them
with zealous carefulness. I notice that he is smiling, with his eyes
fixed on his work.
Then, when the mud has gone from the boots, he takes some polish on the
end of the double-pointed brush and caresses them with it intently.
They are dainty boots--quite those of a stylish young lady; rows of
little buttons shine on them.
"Not a single button missing," he whispers to me, and there is pride in
his tone.
He is no longer sleepy; he yawns no more. On the contrary, his lips are
tightly closed; a gleam of youth and spring-time lights up his face;
and he who was on the point of going to sleep seems just to have woke
up.
And where the polish has bestowed a beautiful black his fingers move
over the body of the boot, which opens widely in the upper part and
betrays--ever such a little--the lower curves of the leg. His fingers,
so skilled in polishing, are rather awkward all the same as they turn
the boots over and turn them again, as he smiles at them and
ponders--profoundly and afar--while the old woman lifts her arms in the
air and calls me to witness "What a very kind soldier!" he is.
It is finished. The boots are cleaned and finished off in style; they
are like mirrors. Nothing is left to do.
He puts them on the edge of the table, very carefully, as if they were
saintly relics; then at last his hands let them go. But his eyes do not
at once leave them. He looks at them, and then lowering his head, he
looks at his own boots. I remember that while he made this comparison
the great lad--a hero by destiny, a Bohemian, a monk--smiled once more
with all his heart.
The old woman was showing signs of activity in the depths of her chair;
she had an idea. "I'll tell her! She shall thank you herself, monsieur!
Hey, Josephine!" she cried, turning towards a door.
But Paradis stopped her with an expansive gesture which I thought
magnificent. "No, it's not worth while, gran'ma; leave her where she
is. We're going. We won't trouble her, allez!"
Such decision sounded in his voice that it carried authority, and the
old woman obediently sank into inactivity and held her peace.
We went away to our bed under the wall-less roof, between the arms of
the plow that was waiting for us. And then Paradis began again to yawn;
but by the light of the candle in our crib, a full minute later, I saw
that the happy smile remained yet on his face.