It appeared that the discovery made no impression upon Lily, for she
continued on her way along the deserted river path without stopping,
without even checking the mad speed at which she walked. Her manner was
that of one fleeing before a terror from which there is no escape. When
she had reached a spot opposite the little island that divided the
waters of the river, she halted suddenly by a clump of hazel bushes and
flung herself down upon the thick grass in the shadow of the plane
trees. She began to weep, soundlessly with long, racking, silent sobs
which shook her whole body as if she had been stricken by some frightful
pain.
Far off a train whistled distantly. The bright red kepis of the soldiers
showed in rows like poppies at the windows of the coaches. On the white
solid bridge at Trilport there appeared a double procession; one column
hot, dusty, bedraggled, full of crying, exhausted, women and children,
moved toward Paris. The other was gay and bright. The men wore bright
red trousers and bright red caps. It moved briskly forward. The guns
were like a field of wheat come suddenly to life, moving gallantly to
throw itself upon the reaper.
After a time, Lily sat up, her hair all blown and disheveled, her dark
eyes bright from weeping. She read the letters over and over absorbing
the same phrases.... May God be with us all!... It is all more grave
than any of us suspect.... A thousand kisses from thy Césaire.... It is
war, Madame, and no one can say what will happen.... A battle is no
place for a beautiful woman.... Perhaps I shall return.... Perhaps I
shall return a captain.... Think of it! Thy Jean a captain!... Thy
Jean!... Thy Jean.... Thy Césaire!... Thy Jean! Thy precious Jean!
Slowly she refolded the letters and thrust them into the bosom of her
dress and then, as if her emotion were too strong for silence, she said
aloud.... “Me ... myself.... Why do they worry about me?... Do they
think that I am afraid?” She laughed suddenly. “Afraid of what?”
Besides it was impossible to flee with a sick old woman and no means of
conveyance. She laughed again and said bitterly, “What do they think ...
that I am a magician?”
Lying there in the deep grass, it must have occurred to her all at once
that her whole life had been pillaged and destroyed because an Austrian
archduke was shot in a little hole called Serajevo. Madame Gigon dying.
Césaire and Jean on their way to destruction. Who remained? What
remained? De Cyon, perhaps. No one else. No one in all the world. The
years of her life come to an end like this ... that everything she
loved, everything she cherished, might be swept away over-night like so
much rubbish into a dustbin. As if she were no more than a poor forsaken
flower vender or charwoman! What was money now? What were beautiful
things? What was all her life?
And she flung herself down once more, sobbing wildly as she had sobbed
another time in the old house at Cypress Hill, when all at once, she had
sensed the tragedy of a whole lifetime, as if she stood in a vast plain
surrounded only by loneliness.
At dusk she arose slowly and, from long habit put her hair in order,
smoothed her dress, and set out upon her homeward journey, walking
slowly, with feet from which all youth had gone. When she arrived at the
lodge, the traces of her weeping had disappeared and she entered proudly
and in silence. For a moment there came into her pale lovely face a
fleeting likeness to her mother, a certain determination that was
inseparable from the rugged countenance of the stoic Julia Shane.
The house was still because old Madame Gigon had slipped out of her bed
and was lying asleep on the floor. When Lily attempted to rouse the old
woman, she discovered that she was not sleeping at all but unconscious,
and suddenly Lily too slipped to the floor, buried her face in her hands
and wept noisily and without restraint. The sound of her sobbing
penetrated the breathless garden and the distant empty rooms of the
château, but there was no one to answer it. The only sound was the
triumphant, ironic whistle of a steel locomotive, its belly hot with
red flames, its nostrils breathing fire and smoke.
At last she lifted Madame Gigon into the bed by the window and, lying by
the side of the unconscious old woman, she fell into a profound sleep.