Well, we are beginning to get a little light--we foreigners--on our
situation. On February 2, I was ordered to present myself again at the
mairie. I obeyed the summons the next morning, and was told that
the military authorities were to provide all foreigners inside the zone
des armées, and all foreigners outside, who, for any reason, needed
to enter the zone, with what is called a "carnet d'étrangère," and that,
once I got that, I would have the privilege of asking for a permission
to circulate, but, until that document was ready, I must be content not
to leave my commune, nor to ask for any sort of a sauf-conduit.
I understand that this regulation applies even to the doctors and
infirmières, and ambulance drivers of all the American units at work in
France. I naturally imagine that some temporary provision must be
made for them in the interim.
I had to make a formal petition for this famous carnet, and to furnish
the military authorities with two photographs--front view,--size and
form prescribed.
I looked at the mayor's secretary and asked him how the Old Scratch
--I said frankly diable--I was to get photographed when he had
forbidden me to leave my commune, and knew as well as I that there
was no photographer here.
Quite seriously he wrote me a special permit to go to Couilly where
there is a man who can photograph. He wrote on it that it was good
for one day, and the purpose of the trip "to be photographed by the
order of the mayor in order to get my carnet d'étrangère," and he
solemnly presented it to me, without the faintest suspicion that it was
humorous.
Between you and me, I did not even use it. I had still one of the
photographs made for my passport and other papers. Amélie carried
it to Couilly and had it copied. Very few people would recognize me by
it. It is the counterfeit presentment of a smiling, fat old lady, but it is
absolutely réglementaire in size and form, and so will pass muster. I
have seen some pretty queer portraits on civil papers.
We are promised these carnets in the course of "a few weeks," so,
until then, you can think of me as, to all intents and purposes, really
interned.
It may interest you to know that on the 9th,--just a week ago--a
Zeppelin nearly got to Meaux. It was about half past eleven in the
evening when the drums beat "lights out," along the hillside. There
weren't many to put out, for everyone is in bed at that hour, and we
have no street-lights, but an order is an order. The only result of the
drum was to call everyone out of bed, in the hope "to see a Zeppelin."
We neither heard nor saw anything.
Amélie said with a grin next morning, "Eh, bien, only one thing is
needed to complete our experiences--that a bomb should fall shy of
its aim--the railroad down there--and wipe Huiry off the map, and write
it in history."
I am sorry that you find holes in my letters. It is your own fault. You do
not see this war from my point of view yet--alas! But you will. Make a
note of that. The thing that you will not understand, living, as you do,
in a world going about its daily routine, out of sight, out of hearing of
all this horror, is that Germany's wilful destruction is on a
preconceived plan--a racial principle. The more races she can reduce
and enfeeble the more room there will be for her. Germany wants
Belgium--but she wants as few Belgians as possible. So with Poland,
and Servia, and northeast France. She wants them to die out as fast
as possible. It is a part of the programme of a people calling
themselves the elect of the world--the only race, in their opinion,
which ought to survive.
She had a forty-four years' start of the rest of the world in preparing
her programme. It is not in two years, or in three, that the rest of the
world can overtake her. That advantage is going to carry her a long
way. Some people still believe that advantage will exist to the end. I
don't. Still, one of the overwhelming facts of this war is to me that:
Germany held Belgium and northeast France at the end of 1914, and
yet, all along the Allied fronts, with Germany fighting on invaded
territory, they cried: "She is beaten!" So, indeed, her strategy was. At
the end of 1915 she had two new allies, and held all of Servia,
Montenegro, and Russian Poland, and still the Allies persisted: "She
is licked, but she does not know it yet." It is one of the finest proofs of
the world's faith in the triumph of the Right that so many believe this
to be true.
You are going to come some day to the opinion I hold--that if we want
universai peace we must first get rid of the race that does not want it
or believe in it. Forbidden subject? I know. But when I resist
temptation you find holes in my letters, and seem to imagine that I am
taking no notice of things that happen. I notice fast enough, and I am
so interested that I hope to see the condemnation, already passed in
England, against Kaiser, Kronprinz and Company, for "wilful murder,"
executed, even if I cannot live to see Germany invaded.
This is what you get for saying, "You make no comment on the
overrunning of Servia or the murder of Edith Cavell, or the failure of
the Gallipoli adventure." After all, these are only details in the great
undertaking. As we say of every disaster, "They will not affect the final
result." It is getting to be a catch-word, but it is true.
Germany is absolutely right in considering Great Britain her greatest
enemy. She knows today that, even if she could get to Paris or
Petrograd, it would not help her. She would still have Britain to settle
with. I wonder if the Kaiser has yet waked up to a realization of his
one very great achievement--the reawakening of Greater Britain? He
dreamed of dealing his mother's country a mortal blow.
The blow landed, but it healed instead of killing.
This war is infernal, diabolical--and farcical--if we look at the deeds
that are done every day. Luckily we don't and mustn't, for we all know
that there are things in the world a million times worse than death,
and that there are future results to be aimed at which make death
gloriously worth while. Those are the things we must look at.
I have always told you that I did not find the balance of things much
changed, and I don't. I am afraid that you cannot cultivate, civilize,
humanize--choose your word--man to such a point that, so long as he
is not emasculated, his final argument in the cause of honor and
justice will not be his fists--with or without a weapon in them--which is
equivalent to saying, I am afraid, that so long as there are two men
on earth there will always be the chance of a fight.
Thus far February has been a droll month. I have seen Februaries in
France which have been spring-like, with the chestnut trees in bud,
and the primroses in flower, and lilacs in leaf. This February has been
a strange mixture of spring awkwardly slipping out of the lap of winter
and climbing back again. There have been days when the sun was
so warm that I could drive without a rug, and found furs a burden;
there have been wonderful moonlit nights; but the most of the time,
so far, it has been nasty. On warm days flowers began to sprout and
the buds on the fruit-trees to swell. That made Père sigh and talk
about the lune rousse. We have had days of wind and rain which be-
longed in a correct March. I am beginning to realize that the life of a
farmer is a life of anxiety. If I can take Père's word for it, it is always
cold when it should not be; the hot wave never arrives at the right
moment; when it should be dry it rains; and when the earth needs
water the rain refuses to fall. In fact, on his testimony, I am convinced
that the weather is never just right, except to the mere lover of nature,
who has nothing to lose and nothing to gain by its caprices.
The strange thing is that we all stand it so well. If anyone had told me
that I could have put up with the life I have been living for two winters
and be none the worse for it, I should have thought him heartless.
Yet, like the army, I am surely none the worse for it, and, in the army,
many of the men are better for it. The youngsters who come home on
leave are as rugged as possible. They have straightened up and
broadened their chests. Even the middle-aged are stronger. There is
a man here who is a master mason, a hard-working, ambitious,
honest chap, very much loved in the commune. He worked on my
house, so I know him well. Before the war he was very delicate. He
had chronic indigestion, and constantly recurring sore throats. He
was pale, and his back was beginning to get round. As he has five
children, he is in an ammunition factory. He was home the other day.
I asked him about his health, he looked so rosy, so erect, and strong.
He laughed, and replied: "Never so well in my life. I haven't had a
cold this winter, and I sleep in a board shanty and have no fire, and I
eat in a place so cold my food is chilled before I can swallow it. My
indigestion is a thing of the past. I could digest nails!"
You see I am always looking for consolations in the disaster. One
must, you know.