Six Women And The Invasion Part 11

In the kitchen the ten men seemed to be rather constrained; they talked in a low voice, but did not lose their appet.i.te for all that. My mother-in-law stood by, thinking that too many things might have led them into temptation. At last they went away; Herr Mayor too. His servant informed us that he would come alone to supper, and that he desired eggs and pancakes. With slow steps the officer went down the street. Behind the buckler of our blinds we burst out into bitter invectives:

"Be off, you old cut-throat! you old scout! You grind the weak; you bully women! You have eaten my finger-tip and have drunk the blood of Antoinette! Cannibal! Man-eater!"

The cannibal came back in the evening, ate a small _pate_, was pleased with the poached eggs, and satisfied with the pancakes. Then he smoked his cigar at leisure, and all the while remained unconscious of severe eyes watching him from the garden. Yvonne and Colette made a wry face.

"The sight of him is enough to make you sick. Fancy! I saw him put a whole egg into his mouth! His gla.s.s was covered with grease when he drank. Ugh!"

The next day after, another tune was played.

At twelve, precisely, Herr Mayor arrived, and calmly declared that, as his servant was out on urgent business, we must have the kindness to wait upon him ourselves.

"A pretty request, truly!"

Mme. Ta.s.sin was nowhere. The omelette, done to a turn, was getting cold in the kitchen. Meanwhile Herr Mayor was waiting in the dining-room. It was high time that the dish should make the guest's acquaintance. I made up my mind.

"I will take his dinner to the man."

"Never! You wait at table!"

"And upon a Prussian!"

"He did it on purpose, of course."

I persisted.

"I a.s.sure you I shall not deem myself degraded. And I promise you the man will feel uneasy sooner than I."

So beneath Herr Mayor's haughty nose I put the omelette _aux fines herbes_.

To the same nose I presented the roast veal with boiled potatoes, which is dear to all German hearts, and thought I might rest on my laurels.

Then I saw that I had forgotten the sauce. Herr Mayor was chewing dry veal, sunk in melancholy. I put the sauce-boat on the table within reach of his hand.

"I had forgotten this; I am not in the habit...."

What did I say? Herr Mayor looked uneasy. He nearly begged my pardon....

"Indeed, I am afraid I disturb you...."

Ah! you deign to notice it? And you might as well have dined at the village inn? But you don't think that you and your ten gormandisers have reduced our stock of vegetables to nothing, and swallowed up our last egg!

But you have not always an officer at hand to give you information, and so I thought I might improve the occasion. "What is the cannon," I asked, "which thunders day and night in the south?"

"We have been fighting in Craonne for the last ten days," said he; "the battle is said to be coming to an end. Just before we were in Fismes."

Herr Mayor p.r.o.nounced Fismesse. In a doleful tone he bewailed the evils of war.

The regiment he belonged to had suffered forty per cent losses since the beginning of war. He himself felt very ill. He had slept in the open air seven rainy nights running. Had I any kinsman in the war?

"Of course, my husband; and I get no news at all from him. That is the worst of all privations."

Herr Mayor nodded a.s.sent. These partings were cruel. Frau Mayor, too, would have given a good deal to accompany her Mayor. As to ourselves, our situation might change for the better. It was, for instance, to our interest that the Germans should advance. The front would then be removed farther from us. I answered that we should welcome no such change for the better. But suppose that just the reverse happened? If the Germans were driven back, the front would also remove farther?

Wouldn't it?

"Oh! no, no.... Really, this war was stupid. England delights in making mischief, and the French are mad to enter into an alliance with the English, when another country was so eager to come to an agreement with them. France and Germany would get on well with each other. What, then, prevents a thoroughly good understanding?"

"A mere nothing, sir; a grain of sand.... Alsace-Lorraine, sir."

Herr Mayor shrugged his shoulders. He had forgotten Alsace-Lorraine.

His lunch was over. I asked if he intended to come and dine at our house.

Again he seemed at a loss what answer to give.

"H'm, h'm ... I am not sure. I will let you know."

His grey cloak streamed in the air, and Herr Mayor went away never to return.

Some days after I met him on the road. He bowed very low, and with a smiling face inquired after my husband. The double-faced fellow knew only too well I had not heard from him, but in common politeness I was fain to inquire also after his health. Herr Mayor was better, much better. In a week he would be back at the front, and if he happened to hear from my husband's regiment, he promised to send me the news.

And with many a bow Herr Mayor smiled himself away. His face was not ever smiling. The peasants were terrified at his way of carrying out requisitions. On the other hand, it was rumoured that he believed himself sprang from the thigh of Jupiter--I beg your pardon--of Wotan, and spoke to no one.

The family did not fail to exercise its flippancy at my expense. They asked for the recipe of my philtres to charm Prussians; they urged me to write a treatise on the art of training Germans, and prophesied a fine future for me as a tamer of tigers.

I did not mind being scoffed at. Too many cares claimed my attention.

Besides, Barbu and Crafleux had just appeared in our orbit. But I am antic.i.p.ating. Our chief anxiety was commonplace enough. The food problem was hard to solve. Fortunately, in spite of direful predictions, bread did not run short at the beginning of the war. Milk we had every day.

Though Mme. Lantoye had been robbed of several cows, and though children were provided for first, she always gave us some. We had almost forgotten the taste of meat. b.u.t.ter and cheese, hard to discover, were extravagantly dear, and eggs were as scarce as in Paris at the end of the siege. We had laid by a small provision of rice and macaroni, articles of food no more to be found in the shops; but we had decided to keep this reserve for extremities, in case, for instance, a bombardment kept us in the cellar. We all agreed to live from hand to mouth upon what we could come by. My reflections were profound when, after half a day's search, I found one egg, from which I had to concoct a dish for the whole family. You laugh? A proof that you lack imagination. With a single egg, as a base of operations, you can make pancakes, or apple-fritters, flower-fritters, or bread-fritters, or any fritters you like. By the way, I advise the use of nasturtiums. Rose leaves, on the other hand, are rather tasteless. But here is something better. You make some pastry, then beat up your one egg with a gla.s.s of milk, a few crumbs of bread, a bit of cheese, if you have any; then you pour the mixture on the pastry, put the whole in the oven, and when it is baked you will find a dish that will feed six women. Oh! we made no complaints; not yet, at least. Really when a _menu_ consists of a potato frica.s.see to which laurel and thyme have given a zest, artichokes with melted b.u.t.ter and chervil--b.u.t.ter, replaced by grease, alas!--fresh salad, and juicy pears, who would not p.r.o.nounce himself satisfied with such a meal? Marmontel, who loved good cheer, Marmontel in the Bastille, where he so highly appreciated the fare, Marmontel himself would have been delighted with it.

The want of light was the worst of our evils. Petroleum was no more to be had, and candles were hard to come by. Linseed oil and modest night-lights grudged us a glimmer by which we gloomily went to bed.

Therefore as soon as the night fell the fiend of melancholy seized upon us. The dull light spread a gloom over the room we sat in, and from the black corners dark thoughts seemed to rise and grow upon us. So we would rather walk in the garden, or even look out of the window, when night fell, than sit at our work or our writing-table. How many hours have I spent leaning out of the window in a nightgown, and watching the sh.e.l.ls burst. In September and October, just after the Germans' arrival, there were beautiful moonlit nights, worthy to be wors.h.i.+pped on bended knees; yet I felt an inclination to imitate Salammbo and cry to the moon with arms uplifted:

"O moon, I hate you. You are deceitful, unrelenting, and cold, and even the pale glimmer you send us you steal. There is nothing true but the warm and cheerful sunbeams, which give us light and life. You fling your silver arrows where you please, and throw what you choose into the shade. You slip your sly rays into closed rooms, through cracks and c.h.i.n.ks; no secret escapes you. You favour illicit love, unpunished crimes, acts of violence, and foul deeds. All those things you feast upon, O moon! But your light is never so pleasant, your caress never so soft, as when you s.h.i.+ne on a battlefield, on places where men kill one another. You take pleasure in the sight of dead bodies, shrivelled limbs, wide-open mouths, features distorted in the weird horror of death. You play on b.l.o.o.d.y weapons, on dark-mouthed cannon; you pa.s.s by the wounded, crying for help, by dying men whose death-rattle is unheard, and you smile yourself from the charnel-field, glad to leave the victims in the unfathomable shades of night."

Moon, I hate you! Everywhere and always you have looked on murderous battles, unbrotherly contests, man maddened against man. You saw the formidable army of Xerxes contend with the Greeks; you saw the Roman Empire quivering at the onslaught of the Barbarians. But can any sight you have ever witnessed be compared with that which you look down upon to-day? Europe in arms, cannon spreading death everywhere, thousands of men killed in the marshes of Poland, on the hills of Galicia, in France, on the plains of Flanders? Are you pleased, O moon?

Moon, I hate you!

To shun the moon, to shut out the sound of the guns, I close the wooden shutters, pull down the window, draw the curtains. The cannon are not silent. Chilled with cold and horror, I fling myself on my bed, bury my head in the pillows, creep under my blankets. The cannon still roars, and shakes my bed. I wake up, and the cannon roars louder than ever. To have lived, and have been sometimes careless and merry, we must have been as mad and as blind as the moon herself. But we cannot attain to the moon's insensibility, and that is why our laughter often turns to tears, and humour ends in a sob.

CHAPTER VI

Morny being near to the battlefield, we naturally saw many soldiers. The village sheltered four convoys at a time within its walls. Officers and non-commissioned officers were billeted on the inhabitants, and we had to bear our share of the common misfortune. And thus Barbu and Crafleux fell to our lot.

Barbu and Crafleux were two Prussian officers, escaped from a toy-shop, and carefully wound up before they were let loose from Germany. They always arrived side by side, with the same automatic stride, the one tall, thin, and--bearded; the other short, stout, and--_crafleux_. I must explain that _crafleux_ in the popular speech of Laon means a misbegotten, rickety creature. The name was not well chosen, for the man was solid, though ugly; but his round, clean-shaven face, his pig's eyes sunk deep behind white lashes, well earned him the nickname. And Barbu himself was no Adonis. He had a small head, with regular features, a pointed beard, an aurified smile, cheeks seamed with scars. His style of beauty is not that which I commend. But what matters the want of good looks? Barbu and Crafleux revealed to us beautiful souls; they were two model Prussians.

One morning, then, the village constable brought in a smart sergeant, who seemed to have been taken out of a bandbox. All bows and smiles, the young man asked for rooms, and we dared not refuse him. The contest with Herr Mayor had been a warning to us.

"This will do," he said, entering Genevieve's room, "and this," pa.s.sing on to Yvonne's and Colette's. He withdrew, still with a smile on his face, giving us full liberty to prepare the rooms and to rail as we chose.