War! Every one knows it, every one says so. It would be madness not to
believe it. And yet, in spite of all, we hardly feel excited; we don't
believe it! War, the Great European War--no, it can't be true!
But why shouldn't it be true?
Blood, money, and more and more blood! And then we have so often heard
people say: "Now there'll be war," and nevertheless we remained at
peace. And it will be so this time. Europe is not going to become a
shambles because an Austrian Archduke happens to have been murdered.
And yet, what are we hourly expecting as we sit here in nervous
idleness in the barracks, unless it is the order for general
mobilization? Sergeants of all ages arrived yesterday at Le Mans, and
every train to-day has brought others. Since réveillé a man dressed in
coarse corduroy has stood at the window watching the artillerymen and
horses coming and going in the square. Every now and then he takes a
brandy-flask from his pocket and has a pull at it.
I was lying on my bed. Hutin, the chief layer of the first gun, was
spread-eagled on his, smoking, his knees in the air and his heels
drawn up under him. Noticing that my pack was crooked, I got up,
mechanically, and put it straight.
"Hutin!"
"Yes?"
"Come and have a drink!"
"All right!"
The barrack square was less noisy than usual. There were no drivers
just returned from the polygon unharnessing their teams in front of the
stables. No word of command was heard from officers directing firing
practice underneath the plane-trees. In a corner one of the guards of
the artillery park was oiling his guns. A cavalryman, both hands in
his pockets and the reins slung over one arm, was leading his horse to
the trough or the forge. Over by the wall of the remount stables, in
the full glare of the sun, a few orderlies were grooming their horses
in a listless fashion. A continuous stream of men on their way to and
from the canteen--like a black line of insects crossing a white gravel
path--marked out one of the diagonals of the square. In front of the
canteen there was a scramble for drinks. It was hot.
* * * * *
Midday, and we are still waiting for news. Suppose all this should only
turn out to be another false alarm!
White-clad gunners, with nothing to do as there is no firing practice,
are strolling about the courtyard in search of news. In the Place de
la Mission inquisitive onlookers press close up to the railings; it is
difficult to say why. The majority of them are women. In front of them
a few gunners pass with a smile and a swagger, already assuming the air
of brave defenders.
Near the guard-house which serves as a visitors' room, but where no
visitors are allowed to enter on account of the fleas which infest
it at this time of year, wives, mothers, sisters, and friends have
come to see their soldiers. All make a brave attempt to hide their
feelings. But their expression betrays their anxiety, which has lined
their foreheads and sharpened their features. There are dark rings
round their eyes, and the eyes themselves are restless and sunken.
They continually avert their gaze, lest the fears and forebodings
which no one can banish should be read in their faces. When they go
away, through the little door under the chestnut-trees, after having
watched the soldiers disappear down the passage at the end of the
barracks, their feelings suddenly find vent in a sob, at which they
are themselves surprised. Rapidly, and almost shamefacedly, pressing
a rolled-up handkerchief to their lips, they turn aside into the Rue
Chanzy, as if all the men there did not understand their trouble....
* * * * *
At four o'clock I went out with Sergeant Le Mée by special permission
of the Captain. We went to my room in the Rue Mangeard to leave Le
Mée's outdoor uniform there, together with a bag and some papers.
We were about to have dinner. I had just uncorked a bottle of old
claret, when Le Mée caught hold of my arm.
"What's that?"
Up from the street a loud murmur came through the open window. At the
same moment something magnetic, indefinable and yet definite, shot
through both of us. We looked at each other, I with the bottle held to
the brim of the glass.
"At last!"
Le Mée nodded assent, and we hurried to the window. In the street
below, near the artillery barracks, surged a dense crowd. All faces
reflected the same expression of stupor, anxiety, and bewilderment.
In the eyes of all shone the same strange gleam. Women's voices were
heard--voices that quavered and broke....
"Well, Le Mée, here's to your health and let's hope that in a few
months we shall have another drink together!"
"Here's luck to us both!"
Grasping our swords we ran back to the barracks. That night we once
again slept in our beds.
_Sunday, August 2_
My kit was ready. I had rolled up some handkerchiefs in my cloak.
A sergeant came in:
"Now then, all of you go to the office!"
The sergeant began distributing the record books and identity discs.
On one side of mine was inscribed: "Paul Lintier," and, underneath,
"E.V. (engagé volontaire) Cl. 1913"; on the other: "Mayenne 1179."
A fly was buzzing about in the office. For one moment there rose up
before me a vision of a battlefield--with dead men lying stretched
out on the edge of a pit, and a non-commissioned officer hastily
identifying them before burial.
The "Great Event" had at last come to break the monotony of our barrack
life, and no one thought of anything else. It was almost as if a
sort of blindness prevented us from looking ahead and confined each
man's attention to the preparations for departure. This indifference
astonished me, and yet I myself shared it.
Was it decision or courage? To a certain extent, perhaps.... Did we
really believe there was going to be war? I am not too sure of it. It
was impossible to realize what war would be--to gauge the whole horror
of it. And so we were not afraid.
From one of the barrack windows I saw the following scene:
A young man, promptly called up by the general mobilization, had just
come out of a house opposite. He was walking backwards, shading his
eyes from the sun in order to see the face of some one dear to him who
stood at one of the second-floor windows. A fair-haired woman, very
young and extremely pale, watched him with longing eyes from behind the
muslin curtains, doubtless afraid to let him see her distraught face
and tear-stained cheeks. She was standing close behind the curtains,
her hand on her breast, with the fingers spasmodically stretched out
in an attitude eloquent of grief. As he was about to disappear from
view in a bend of the road, she suddenly opened the window wide, and
showed herself for an instant. The man could not see her. She took two
unsteady steps backwards, and sank into an arm-chair, where she sat
huddled up, her face in her hands, and her shoulders shaken with sobs.
Then, in the semi-darkness of the room, I caught sight of a servant
with a Breton cap carrying a baby to her....
* * * * *
At noon we left the barracks in order to take up the quarters which had
been assigned to us a little way down the Avenue de Pontlieue.
The 10th and 12th Batteries of the 44th Regiment of Field Artillery
were to assemble upon a war footing in the cider-brewery known as
Toublanc.
We had nothing to do except shake down straw bedding. A gas-engine was
throbbing with an incessant double beat which got on one's nerves after
a while. On the doors of the available buildings were crudely chalked
the numbers of the regiments to which they were allotted.
The stables were installed in a shed open on one side, at one end of
which casks containing harness were piled up. These stables would have
been quite comfortable if they had not smelt so horribly owing to the
dirty lavatories adjoining them.
The men's quarters had been arranged in a kitchen garden full of black
currant-bushes and peach-trees, and consisted of an old, tumble-down
outhouse, which seemed to have escaped complete destruction solely
owing to the vines and virginia creepers growing over it, which, in
a clinging embrace of closely woven branches and tendrils, held its
crumbling walls together. The grapes were already large and fat,
promising a fine harvest. I wondered where we should be when the time
came for them to be gathered.
* * * * *
No one troubled to ascertain whether war had been declared. After all,
the declaration only meant a few words already spoken, or about to be
spoken, by diplomatists. The war was already a reality. We felt it. The
only question which occupied our minds was when we were to start, and
this nobody could answer.
The men were cheerful, unconcerned, and much less nervous than
yesterday. Personally, I did not feel weighed down under the
intolerable burden of anxiety which I had expected to crush me at
such a time. I wanted to ask all my comrades whether they really
believed that in a few days we should be under fire. And if they had
answered "Yes," I should have admired them, for, if I remained cool and
collected before the yawning chasm opening out before us, it was merely
because I had not yet realized its depths.
I kept repeating to myself: "It is war--ghastly, bloody war ... and
perhaps you will soon be dead." But nevertheless I did not feel in the
least afraid; I did not believe that I should be killed. I realize now
that it is true that, in the presence of a dead person one has loved,
one does not at first believe that he (or she) is dead.
* * * * *
I have written these notes sitting on a packing-case, using the bottom
of an upturned barrel as a table. A stable-guard, after eyeing me a
moment or two, came and looked over my shoulder.
"Lord!" said he, "you've got it badly!"
_Monday, August 3_
We don't yet know whether war has been declared, but Metz is reported
to be in flames and some even say taken. Some French aeroplanes and
dirigibles are said to have blown up the powder magazines there. There
is also a rumour that Garros has destroyed a Zeppelin manned by twenty
officers, and that on the frontier our airmen have been tossing up as
to who shall first try to ram an enemy airship. The Germans are said to
have crossed our frontier yesterday in three places. But yesterday we
heard that our soldiers, in spite of their officers, had broken through
on to German soil. The rumours going about are numberless, and the most
likely and unlikely things are said in the same breath.
What are we to believe? Nothing, of course. That is best.
But we thirst for news, and yet, when any is brought in, we shrug our
shoulders incredulously. Nevertheless, when a success is reported we
are so anxious to believe it that the majority of sceptics only require
a sufficiently vigorous affirmation in order to accept it as true.
I intend to note down every day both fables and facts. But at present
I am not in a position to distinguish between what is true and what is
false.
I am only endeavouring, in these hurriedly scribbled pages, to give
some idea of the different elements which go to form the state of mind
of an individual soldier lost among a crowd of others. In this sense
fact and fable are the same thing; but later on, if this notebook is
not buried with me in some nameless grave out yonder, these notes may
perhaps serve to form a history of legend. A history of legend--that is
as much as I dare hope to achieve!
* * * * *
I have an hour or two free for writing, and am using a bench as a desk.
Behind me the horses keep stamping intermittently on the cement floor
of the shed. It would not be so bad if these lavatories did not smell
so abominably.
We have been informed that we are to start on Friday. To Berlin! To
Berlin!
Berlin! That's the objective. It was in everybody's mouth! But did
we not mark time to the same refrain in 1870, almost at this time of
year? And what happened afterwards? The recollection made me shiver.
Superstition!
Is England going to come into line with us against Germany? England is
the great unknown quantity at the present moment. Nevertheless, she is
hardly mentioned here.
To Berlin! To Berlin!
The cry echoes on all sides.
* * * * *
Although I had begun to convince myself of the reality of events, the
excitement of departure and the irritation caused by knowing nothing
definite had set my nerves jangling and prevented me from realizing to
the full the approaching horror.
We had harnessed our horses and formed the gun-teams.
A gun in a 75 mm. battery is composed of the gun itself and ammunition
wagon, each with its limber, and each drawn by six horses harnessed
in pairs. The detachment consists of six drivers, six gunners, a
corporal, and a sergeant, who is the gun-commander. But my gun, the
first of the 2nd battery, is also accompanied by the section-commander,
the battery-leader, a trumpeter, and the Captain's orderly with his
two horses. In all, eighteen men and nineteen horses. Of the eighteen
men, seventeen are serving their time. For nearly a year now they have
led the same life; each day they have executed the same manoeuvres
together. One detachment, therefore, is a real entity, and forms a
little society by itself, with its habits, likes and dislikes.
Bréjard, the section-commander, really commands it himself, as he did
before the general mobilization. So nothing seems changed. Hubert, the
new gun-commander, a reservist, has his thoughts centred on his young
wife, whom, after only a few months of married life, he has had to
leave at his farm, where the corn is still standing.
Bréjard, who must be about twenty-four, is tall and spare, with
unfathomable grey eyes, an obstinate chin, and rather strong features.
He enlisted when very young, and, by dint of hard and methodical work,
passed into Fontainebleau high up in the list.
Corporal Jean Déprez affords a contrast to Bréjard. Dreamy and
imaginative, bored by regimental life, and far from reconciled to
the prospect of many months of war, Déprez, as far as the Service is
concerned, is a weakling to whom any exercise of his authority, small
though it is, goes against the grain. He has momentary flashes of wit,
and, although as a rule very unenthusiastic and rather moody, he is
nevertheless an amusing conversationalist at times, and is a staunch
friend. The lack of work in the barracks has for some part thrown us
together, and both were pleased to find ourselves side by side when the
moment came to take the field.
With Corporal Déprez on one hand, and Gun-layer Hutin on the other, I
had not the least feeling of loneliness in the tremendous excitement
of mobilization, and the hourly expectation of the breaking of the
storm.
Hutin is a little fellow with a thick crop of black hair and a
moustache. His regular features are lit up by a pair of attractive dark
brown eyes of rather roguish expression. Energetic, quick-tempered,
fairly ambitious, intolerant, quick to make up his mind, and extremely
intelligent, capable of real friendship and even devotedness, I have
grown fond of his spontaneous and varied character.
* * * * *
In the Avenue de Pontlieue the commandeered horses were standing in
line. There were hundreds of them, heavy, pot-bellied, docile animals,
with splendid manes and shaggy fetlocks. They were held by men in
smocks, standing motionless on the curb, chafing at the delay and
longing for their dinner. Near-by, along the wall of the artillery
barracks, was collected a heterogeneous medley of carts and lorries,
also requisitioned.
A motley crowd was thronging the avenue--women in light-coloured summer
dresses and soldiers in uniform and canvas clothing presenting an
incongruous appearance. Reservists were arriving in groups. Almost all
looked quiet and undisturbed, and some even wore a cheerful air. One
or two were obviously drunk, and others looked as though they were.
I only saw one who was crying. He was sitting on a heap of straw,
engaged in fixing a brand-new yellow strap to his revolver-holster, and
tears were falling on his clumsy fingers as he fumbled with the stiff
leather. I put a hand on his shoulder, whereupon he half turned round
and said, with a jerk of his head:
"Oh, my God! My wife died in childbed last week.... There's the
baby-girl--only eight days old--left all alone with nobody to look
after her!"
"What have you done with her?"
"Well, the only thing I could ... took her to the Infants' Home."
* * * * *
It is when the post comes in that the men look saddest.
* * * * *
We are confined to quarters, but the non-commissioned officers are
allowed to take the men, two or three at a time, to the _abreuvoir_ as
the café opposite is called.
_Tuesday, August 4_
Yesterday evening at nine o'clock, by way of a purely theoretical
roll-call, the Lieutenant opened the door of our den.
"Every one all right in there?"
"Yes, sir, thank you! Warm as pies!"
"Nothing you want?"
"Yes, sir, we'd like to start!"
"Oh! to start, would you?"
This morning Pelletier, the trumpeter, a Parisian who seems able
to turn his hands to almost anything, began sharpening our swords.
Standing in front of a bench in his shirt-sleeves, he worked an
enormous file with a horrible screeching noise which sent cold shudders
down one's spine and set one's teeth on edge. From time to time he
paused in his work, and, with furious thrusts and slashes, tried the
points and edges by cutting up some old deal cases lying in a corner.
From the depths of our quarters, where we live in an atmosphere
alive with the most ridiculous rumours, waiting for orders to
entrain, the tumult of the general mobilization in the streets and
on the neighbouring Paris-Brest railway line sounds like incessantly
reverberating thunder in an atmosphere charged with electricity.
One of my fellow-countrymen, Gaget, who is clerk to the Artillery
Staff, told me that war has not yet been declared. He is in a position
to know. His mother has written to him from Mayenne saying that my
family believe me to be already at Verdun. I wonder if my letters are
not being delivered....
* * * * *
This afternoon Déprez went to the laundry to get his washing. In the
shop a young woman, the wife of a corporal of artillery who joined the
colours this morning, threw her arms round his neck and began to cry.
He came back much upset.
* * * * *
Some of the men have gone with their horses to bring back our war
material from the station. The park is arranged on the wide footpath of
the Avenue de Pontlieue, where the plane-trees shelter our 75 mm. guns
and ammunition wagons. Women stop to look at them, and some shake their
heads despondently.
It appears that we are to entrain to-morrow evening. We are beginning
to get thoroughly bored here, and do not know how to fill in our
time. I am going to get some sleep in our den at the farther end of
the kitchen garden, where it is cool and shady. The sun, through the
open door, only lights up a large rectangle of straw, covered with
haversacks and gleaming weapons. The weather has been splendid to-day,
fine and clear, and, now that twilight is near, the air is beginning
to hum with those midges which fly round and round in circles and are
supposed to herald fine weather.
I was able to get out for a moment. Some women, their eyes swollen with
crying, looked at us with pity, and spoke to us--the first young men to
go--in voices full of sympathy:
"When do you start?"
"To-morrow--perhaps the day after."
"Where are you going?"
"We're not sure--either Verdun or Maubeuge."
"Well, the best of luck!"
"Thanks so much.... Good-bye!"
Good luck!... I hope so!... It is a sort of lasting farewell they bid
us, out of the fullness of their hearts, before we start for the Great
Unknown.
_Wednesday, August 5_
War has been declared since the 3rd, and fighting is in progress all
along the frontier.
Serious losses have already been reported. Eleven thousand French
and eighteen thousand Germans are said to have fallen in the opening
engagements. Whether these figures mean killed or injured I do not know.
The news, true or false, damped our spirits for a few moments. But
our extraordinary indifference soon gained the upper hand. Besides,
has there ever been a more favourable occasion for revenge--for the
_Revanche_--than this.
_Thursday, August 6_
The Germans have entered Belgium, in spite of the convention of
neutrality. I don't think this will surprise anybody. But what does
astonish us, and what must also astonish the enemy, is the fierce
resistance the Belgians are making.
The Germans have just failed in a massed attack on Liége. If the
Belgian Army alone has managed to worst them, what hopes dare we not
entertain?
England is joining us. That is now certain. With the French, English,
Russians, Belgians, and Serbians allied, we ought soon to see the last
of this military Power which is supposed to be so formidable. The news,
official this time, made us all the more impatient to leave Le Mans and
the wearying quarters in which we live.
On the Paris-Brest railway trains full of infantry, cavalry, and
equipment have been passing incessantly. Grinding and screeching they
laboriously roll over the bridge which spans the Avenue de Pontlieue,
and which is heroically guarded by obese Territorials, wearing dirty
canvas suits, and armed with Gras rifles with fixed bayonets. A crowd
of women with children in their arms or clinging to their skirts are
waiting there beneath the noontide sun. They stand for hours on end,
watching the procession of military trucks decorated with greenery
and illustrated with crude chalk drawings. Clusters of soldiers are
to be seen on the foot-boards, and in the brake and guards' vans. In
the avenue clouds of dust are raised by commandeered horses which,
harnessed to forage wagons, are being tried there, and which, under
the unaccustomed yoke, become refractory, lash out, and finally get
entangled in the traces. The women separate hurriedly, dragging their
children with them, in order to avoid a prancing horse or the oncoming
wheel of a wagon. But nevertheless, obstinate, excited, and as if
intoxicated with the noise, light, and continual movement, they stay
there in spite of all discomfort. Whenever a train passes a broadside
of shrill cries rises from their groups, which collect, separate,
disperse, and are again encompassed by the dangers of the avenue.
In front of the Toublanc cider-brewery flowers and ribbons in bunches,
sprays, and cascades carpet the pavement and smother the gun-carriages,
ammunition wagons, and limbers. Women and girls arrive with armfuls of
hortensias, iris, and roses. Their faces lit up by the sun and by the
excitement of the moment, appear and disappear among the flowers. As
the sentinels are not allowed to let any one approach too close, they
throw their bouquets from a distance. Artillerymen, who have nearly
finished loading up their trucks, thank them by blowing kisses which
put them to flight.
I saw one girl fastening a huge tricolour bunch on the bayonet of
one of the sentinels--evidently her lover. The steel shone amid the
blossoms.
* * * * *
Women timidly bar the way to the horsemen in order to decorate their
bridles and saddle-bags with garlands. And overhead the splendid August
sun beats down, shedding a golden light on the dust of the roadway and
the green of the trees, and lighting up the faces of the women and the
flowers.
_Friday, August 7_
For some time now I have observed the first gesture of a soldier who
has just received a letter. He tears it open hurriedly, and, without
pulling it out of the envelope, rapidly fingers it to see whether it
contains a postal order....
I was out to-night with Déprez, when a woman, powdered and painted,
with podgy cheeks and a chest and stomach forming an undivided mass of
shaking fat, accosted us:
"Forty-fourth?"
"Yes."
"Do you know Corporal X? Give him the best wishes from Alice. He'll
know.... Alice is my name.... You won't forget?... Poor old Joe!..."
Then, as we prepared to go on our way:
"Won't you come in?" she said, with the usual glance of invitation.
"No, thanks," answered Déprez politely, "we haven't got time."
After we had gone a little farther, he added:
"That's a message which I'm shot if I'll deliver!"
_Saturday, August 8_
At last we have received orders to entrain. Our first taste of war
has been a sort of flower-show. A crowd of women and grey-haired men
were waiting for us under the trees on the other side of the avenue.
Children, their tiny arms full of flowers, ran up to us; their
mothers waved their hands and smiled. But how sad the smiles of these
women were! Their swollen eyes told a tale of tears, and the lines
lurking round their lips, despite their smiles, showed that another
breakdown was not far off. The younger children--and quite tiny ones
came toddling across the street--were obviously finding the day's
proceedings finer than a circus. They laughed and clapped their hands
with delight.
We passed the fag-end of the morning getting the limbers and wagons
ready and furbishing up the harness. Twelve o'clock struck. As the hour
of departure approached the tumult in the avenue calmed down, and the
crowd waiting in the shade became gradually quiet.
There was almost complete silence when the Captain gave the order, in
clear resonant tones:
"Forward!"
Like an echo there rose from the crowd a loud hurrah, through which I
nevertheless distinctly heard two heartrending sobs.
Never was there a brighter August day. The limber-boxes and gun-wheels,
the straps and hooks of the harness--even the muzzles of the guns
themselves--were festooned with flowers and ribbons, the bright hues
of which were blended together in a harmony of colour against the
iron-grey background of the guns.
This morning the Captain, Bernard de Brisoult, said to us:
"Take the flowers they offer you, and decorate your guns with them.
They are the only send-off the women can give you. And, whatever you
do, keep calm! Then they'll be much braver when you go off."
The streets, through which we proceeded at a walking pace, were gay
with flags and bunting. The departure of the soldiers, many of whom
would never return, was attended with a degree of composure and good
order which was really admirable. The gunners, sitting motionless on
the limber-boxes or walking beside the horses, smiled and laughed
merrily as the women by the wayside waved them farewell. We felt moved,
of course, but it was rather the emotion of the crowd in the street
which affected us than any feeling born in our inner selves.
* * * * *
Entraining was effected easily and expeditiously. As it was very hot,
the gunners hoisting the material on to the trucks had discarded
their vests, and, with red faces, their shoulders to the gun-wheels,
they united their efforts whenever the gun-commanders gave the word
"Together!" which was echoed down the whole length of the train. The
drivers had great difficulty in getting their teams into the boxes. The
old battery horses were used to the manoeuvre, but the commandeered
animals resisted obstinately. Girths were slung round them, two by
two, and they were hauled by force on to the foot-bridges. Once in the
vans they had to be turned round and backed into position so that four
could stand on each side. This operation was accompanied by a deafening
din of iron-shod hoofs on the wooden floors and partitions. The horses
once safely installed and secured face to face in their places by
picket-lines, the stable-pickets began to arrange the harness and
forage in the space between the two lines.
* * * * *
Just as the train was starting I was attacked by a sort of dizziness.
Something in my chest seemed to snap, and I felt almost choked by a
sudden feeling of weakness and fear. Should I ever come back? Yes! I
felt sure of it! And yet, I wonder why I felt so sure!
* * * * *
CONNERRÉ-BEILLÉ. I am sitting on a truss of hay between my
eight horses. At every moment, in spite of my whip, they bite at the
forage and nearly pull away my seat. The door of the van is opened
wide on the sunny country.
_Sunday, August 9_
The train rumbled on for fifteen to eighteen hours. A long journey like
this is best passed as a stable-guard. I made myself comfortable on
some shaken-up hay, and, cushioning my head in a well-padded saddle,
eventually fell asleep.
The horses, almost all of which were suffering from strangles,
slobbered and sneezed over me, and eventually woke me up. It was
already day. A thick summer mist was floating over the fields at a
man's height from the ground. The sun, breaking through it in places,
lit up myriads of shimmering grass-blades, dripping with dew.
Sitting at the open doors of the vans, their legs dangling over the
side, the gunners watched the country flit past. The empty trains
passing us in the opposite direction frightened the horses, which
neighed and whinnied. No one--not even our officers--knew whither we
were bound, and the engine-driver himself said that he didn't know, but
that he was to receive orders on the way.
The Territorials guarding the line greeted us as we passed by holding
out their rifles at arm's length. We waved our whips in answer.
"Morning, old chap!"
"Good luck to you, boys!"
* * * * *
RHEIMS. First the canal, then a glimpse of the town, and then
open country again, with fields of ripe corn yellow in the morning
sun. There were only a few sheaves to be seen. The crops were standing
almost everywhere, motionless in the heat, casting golden lights on
the gently rolling hills and quiet beauty of the countryside. I felt
as though I could not see enough of it. In a few days, perhaps, I
should no longer be able to see the splendour of the sun-kissed corn
and the gorgeous mantle it throws over the symmetrical slopes of the
harvest-land like a drapery of old lace lightly shrouding a graceful
Greek form.
The train rolled slowly on towards Verdun. In each village, from the
gardens adjoining the railway-line, girls and children threw kisses to
us. They threw flowers, too, and, whenever the train stopped, brought
us drinks.
It was already dusk when, after passing the interminable sidings and
platforms of Verdun, with its huge bakeries installed under green
awnings, the train finally came to a standstill at Charny. We had
been travelling for more than thirty hours. Before we had finished
detraining it was quite dark.