August 2, 1914.
Well, dear, what looked impossible is evidently coming to pass.
Early yesterday morning the garde champetre--who is the only thing in
the way of a policeman that we have--marched up the road beating his
drum. At every crossroad he stopped and read an order. I heard him at
the foot of the hill, but I waited for him to pass. At the top of the
hill he stopped to paste a bill on the door of the carriage-house on
Pere Abelard's farm. You can imagine me,--in my long studio apron, with
my head tied up in a muslin cap,--running up the hill to join the group
of poor women of the hamlet, to read the proclamation to the armies of
land and sea--the order for the mobilization of the French military and
naval forces--headed by its crossed French flags. It was the first
experience in my life of a thing like that. I had a cold chill down my
spine as I realized that it was not so easy as I had thought to separate
myself from Life. We stood there together--a little group of women--and
silently read it through--this command for the rising up of a Nation.
No need for the men to read it. Each with his military papers in his
pocket knew the moment he heard the drum what it meant, and knew equally
well his place. I was a foreigner among them, but I forgot that, and if
any of them remembered they made no sign. We did not say a word to one
another. I silently returned to my garden and sat down. War again!
This time war close by--not war about which one can read, as one reads
it in the newspapers, as you will read it in the States, far away from
it, but war right here--if the Germans can cross the frontier.
It came as a sort of shock, though I might have realized it yesterday
when several of the men of the commune came to say au revoir, with the
information that they were joining their regiments, but I felt as if
some way other than cannon might be found out of the situation. War had
not been declared--has not to-day. Still, things rarely go to this
length and stop there. Judging by this morning's papers Germany really
wants it. She could have, had she wished, held stupid Austria back from
the throat of poor Servia, not yet recovered from her two Balkan wars.
I imagine this letter will turn into a sort of diary, as it is difficult
to say when I shall be able to get any mail matter off. All our
communications with the outside world--except by road--were cut this
morning by order of the War Bureau. Our railroad is the road to all the
eastern frontiers--the trains to Belgium as well as to Metz and
Strasbourg pass within sight of my garden. If you don't know what that
means--just look on a map and you will realize that the army that
advances, whether by road or by train, will pass by me.
During the mobilization, which will take weeks,--not only is France not
ready, all the world knows that her fortified towns are mostly only
fortified on the map,--civilians, the mails, and such things must make
way for soldiers and war materials. I shall continue to write. It will
make me feel in touch still; it will be something to do: besides, any
time some one may go up to town by road and I thus have a chance to send
it.