Upon Germigny l’Evec, removed from the highroad and the railway, the war
descended at first slowly, with the unreality of a vague dream, and then
with a gathering, ponderous ferocity of an appalling nightmare. In the
beginning even the farmer and his men, familiar with the army and with
military service, could not believe it. Still there was the memory of
1870, said the pessimists. It was not impossible.
“Ah, but war is unthinkable,” said Lily to Madame Gigon. “The days of
war are over. It could not happen. They would not dare to permit it.”
But Madame Gigon, again from the pinnacle of her superior age, replied,
“My child. You have never seen a war. You know nothing of it. It is not
at all impossible. You see, I can remember well 1870.”
All the talk, it seemed, turned back at once to 1870. Sooner or later
every one returned to it--M. Dupont, the curé, who had served at Metz
with MacMahon, the farmer and his wife, even Eustache. 1870 was no
longer a half-century away. It became only yesterday, an event which was
just finished the evening before at sunset. And slowly it became clear
that war was not at all an impossibility. The order for mobilization
made it a reality so hideous, so monstrous, as to be utterly lacking in
reality. In the château and at the farm, there were no longer any
barriers. The cook and the farmer’s wife, came and sat on the terrace,
red-faced and weeping. In the quiet of the evening there drifted across
the wheatfields the ominous whistling of trains which followed no
schedule, and from the distant high-road the faint sound of an unceasing
procession of taxicabs and omnibuses rushing east and north through
Pantin, through Meaux, on to La Ferté-sous-Jouarre.
From Paris came three letters, two by messenger, an orderly of the
Baron, the other by post. One was from the Baron himself and one was
from M. de Cyon.
“It is all more grave than any of us suspect,” wrote the Baron.
“Unhappily, Dear Lily, it is impossible for me to see you. I cannot
leave my regiment. You cannot come to Vincennes. We must try to endure
all this in the fashion of philosophers. It is not, you understand, as
if it had been unexpected. It has been slow--more slow than any one
hoped--in arriving.
“As for what may come of it, to me or to Jean. What is there to do? We
are all helpless as if caught in a web. May God be with us all! Jean
will be with me. Your heart can be assured that I shall do all it is
possible to do for him. The rest remains with the good God. I would give
... What would I give? Ten years or more of my life to have seen you
before going away. But that, it seems, is impossible. So we must wait
until it is possible.
“We are leaving to-night. I have sent old Pierre to see to it that you
and Madame Gigon are brought safely back to Paris. Germigny is safe from
the Germans, but there is always a chance. Who can say what will happen?
Good God! The suddenness of it!
“Au revoir, dear Lily, in haste. A thousand kisses from thy Césaire.”
It was the first time that there had been in all their correspondence
even the faintest note of anything more compromising than a proper
friendship between the Baron and the woman who had made his old cousin,
Madame Gigon, comfortable for life. It was this which somehow gave the
letter a gravity more terrible than any hint of foreboding contained in
its crisp white pages. It was as if the barriers of convention had
suddenly been destroyed, as if they had gone down in ruin to reveal life
in all the primitive directness of unfettered nature. It seemed to say,
“Nothing matters any longer save those things which have to do with
life, death and love.”
The letter from M. de Cyon was more calm and dignified, the proper
letter of a diplomat. It was the letter of a distinguished, white-haired
gentleman.
“You must leave Germigny as soon as it is possible. I write you this in
confidence and beg you not to arouse a panic among the peasants and the
citizens of Meaux. It is war, Madame, and no one can say what will
happen. Your security is of the deepest concern to me. I beg you to
waste no time. Go on foot, by ox-cart, by train--however it is possible,
but go. A battle is no place for so beautiful a woman.”
That was all, yet it contained hints and innuendoes of things too
terrible for the imagination. M. de Cyon undoubtedly knew more than he
chose to reveal in his circumspect note. He was, to be sure, near to the
Ministry of War.
There was a letter too from Jean, breathless and full of spirit, the
letter of a young warrior eager for battle, forgetful of all else, of
God, of his mother, of everything save the prospect of fighting.
“Dear Mama,” he wrote, “we are leaving to-night for the front. I
shall return perhaps a captain. Think of it! Thy Jean a captain! Do
not worry. Our troops are in excellent condition. I fancy the war
will be over in a fortnight. I am in Césaire’s company. I think of
you, of course.
“THY JEAN.”
With the three letters in her hand Lily left Madame Gigon and set out to
walk the white tow-path at the edge of the river. On the far side the
farm appeared deserted as if suddenly its occupants had been overcome by
a sleep of enchantment. The oxen were nowhere to be seen. The fowls were
gone. The house lay shuttered and empty as a house of the dead. Above
the tow-path, the château likewise stood silent and empty. In all the
landscape there was no sign of life, no dogs, no chickens, no crying
children. And as she walked she turned her head presently and saw,
leaving the far side of the farm, a lumbering two-wheeled cart piled
high with furniture,--mattresses, a sewing machine, a few chairs, and
swinging underneath, little cages of osier in which were crowded the
barnyard fowls. Tied to the wheels, three goats followed the gentle
motion of the cart. Fat Madame Borgue, the farmer’s wife, trudged by the
side guiding the slow-gaited oxen with a long wand, and high up, perched
on a truss of straw, sat her mother, an immensely old and wrinkled
woman, with Madame Borgue’s baby in her arms. They were deserting,
driven before the straggling columns of refugees which had appeared like
magic during the early morning along the high-roads from La Ferté to
Meaux. There could be no doubt. The farm and the château were empty. At
Germigny only Lily and Madame Gigon remained behind.