Amelie and I went up to Paris day before yesterday, for the first time
since the battle,--you see everything here dates "before" and "after"
the battle, and will for a long time.
Trains had been running between Paris and Meaux for ten days, and
will soon go as far as Chalons, where the Etat-Major was the last time
we heard of it. Isn't that pretty quick work? And with three big bridges
to build? But the army needed the road, and the engineers were at
work five days after the battle.
There are but few trains--none yet on our branch road--so we had to
go to Esbly. It took two hours to get to Paris--hardly more than twelve
miles. We simply crawled most of the way. We crept through the
tunnel this side of Lagny, and then stood on this side of the Marne,
and whistled and shrieked a long time before we began to wiggle
across the unfinished bridge, with workmen hanging up on the
derricks and scaffoldings in all sorts of perilous positions, and all sorts
of grotesque attitudes. I was glad when we were over.
I found the town more normal than it was when I was there six weeks
ago. If I had not seen it in those first days of the mobilization it would
have seemed sadder than it did, and, by contrast, while it was not the
Paris that you know, it was quiet and peaceful,--no excitement of any
sort in the streets, practically no men anywhere. All the department
shops were open, but few people were in them, and very little to sell.
Many of the small shops were closed, and will be, I imagine, until the
end of the war. All the Austrian and German shops, and there were
many of them, are, of course, closed for good, making wide spaces of
closed shutters in the Avenue de l'Opéra and the rue de la Paix, and
the rue Scribe, where so many of the steamship offices are. That, and
the lack of omnibuses and tramways and the scarcity of cabs, makes
the once brilliant and active quarter look quite unnatural. However, it
gives one a chance to see how really handsome it is.
A great many of the most fashionable hotels are turned to hospitals,
and everywhere, especially along the Champs-Elysées, the flags of
the Red Cross float over once gay resorts, while big white bunting
signs extend across almost every other façade, carrying the name
and number of a hospital.
Every sort of business is running short-handed, and no big office or
bank is open between the hours of noon and two o'clock.
I saw no one--there was no one to see. I finished the little business I
had to do and then I went back to the station and sat on the terrace of
the café opposite, and, for an hour, I watched the soldiers going in at
one gate, and the public--Indian file--presenting its papers at another.
No carriages can enter the courtyard. No one can carry anything but
hand luggage, and porters are not allowed to pass the gates, so one
had to carry one's bundles one's self across the wide, paved court.
However, it is less trying to do this than it was in other days, as one
runs no risk from flying motor-cabs.
We did not leave Paris until six--it was already dark--and there were
few lights along the road. The Germans would love to destroy this
road, which is on the direct line to the front, but I cannot imagine a
bomb from an aeroplane reaching it at night, except by accident.
By the way, the attitude of the public towards these war airships is
queer. It seems a great deal more curiosity than fear. I had heard this
stated, and I had a chance to see it exemplified. Just as Amélie and I
were stumbling in the dusk over the rough pavement of the court, we
heard an aeroplane overhead. Everyone stopped short and looked
up. Some fool called "Une Taube--une Taube!" People already inside
the station turned and ran back to see. Of course, it wasn't a Taube.
Still, the fact that someone said it was, and that everyone ran out to
look up at it, was significant, as I am sure they would have done just
the same if it had really been a German machine.
We came back even more slowly than we had gone up. It took ten
minutes by my watch to cross the bridge at Chalifère. We jigged a bit
and stopped; staggered a bit, and trembled, and stopped; crawled a
bit, and whistled. I had a feeling that if anyone disobeyed the order
pasted on every window, and leaned out, we should topple over into
the stream. Still, no one seemed to mind. With the curtains drawn,
everyone tried to read, by the dim light, a newspaper. It is remarkable
how even ordinary people face danger if a panic can be prevented.
The really great person is the one who even in a panic does not lose
his head, and the next best thing to not being feazed at danger is, I
believe, to be literally paralyzed. Total immobility often passes for
pluck.
It was nearly half past eight when we reached Esbly; the town was
absolutely dark. Père was there with the donkey cart, and it took
nearly an hour and a half to climb the hill to Huiry. It was pitch dark,
and oh, so cold! Both Condé and Voisins, as well as Esbly, had street
lamps--gas--before the war, but it was cut off when mobilization
began, and so the road was black. This ordinary voyage seemed like
journeying in a wilderness, and I was as tired as if I had been to
London, which I take to be the hardest trip for the time it consumes
that I know. I used to go to London in seven hours, and this trip to
Paris and back had taken four hours and a half by train and three by
carriage.
I found your letter dated September 25--in reply to my first one mailed
after the battle. I am shocked to hear that I was spectacular. I did not
mean to be. I apologize. Please imagine me very red in the face and
feeling a little bit silly. I should not mind your looking on me as a
heroine and all those other names you throw at me if I had had time
to flee along the roads with all I could save of my home on my back,
as I saw thousands doing.
But I cannot pick up your bouquets, considering that all I had to do
was "sit tight" for a few days, and watch--at a safe distance--a battle
sweep back. All you must say about that is "she did have luck." That's
what I say every day.
As our railway communication is to be cut again, I am hurrying this
off, not knowing when I can send another. But as you see, I have no
news to write--just words to remind you of me, and say that all is well
with me in this world where it is so ill for many.
V