"Impossible, impossible."
At length, towards evening--the whole camp with the whole village sympathised with us--some one told me:
"An officer from Marle is at the Red Cross. Go and try again."
We ran to see him. I well-nigh fell at his feet, and besought him. He looked somewhat moved.
"Well, let me see what I can do. You are sure the lady is unable to travel?" he asked the doctor.
"Absolutely. She cannot be moved."
"I cannot be moved either," I cried. "Please examine me. You will see there is something the matter with my heart, and if I am driven to go, it will be the death of me."
"Well," the officer said, "let us see."
His eyes gave consent. He turned to the doctor.
"You might examine her, and see if the journey would not endanger her life."
The doctor tossed his head, and smiled an incredulous smile.
"Hum, hum, it can"t be denied there is something wrong with her heart," ... and, taking a pen, he signed the slip which I so much desired. What a relief! Genevieve would not be left, seriously ill, among strangers.
"And I, what am I to do?" Antoinette moaned.
"Ah! you must go."
There was nothing else to do. On the way home I tried to encourage her, miserable as she was at going away alone.
The next day I left Genevieve, burning with fever, in Mme. Charvet"s care, and went to see the convoy start, heart-broken.
The sun lit up the scene; everybody was in a flutter of excitement.
Villagers had been requisitioned, with carts and horses, to convey the children, the infirm, and the luggage. The crowd set out, under the conduct of the soldiers, amid calls and shouts. Many emigrants were crying:
"Where are we going to? Whither shall we be taken?"
Several families were severed one from another, for about fifteen men had been thought too strong to leave the invaded territory. They might turn soldiers, and fight against the Germans!
The charity children, delighted at the prospect, flocked around me.
"You will come later on, won"t you, madam?"
Old Mme. Noreau and her grand-daughters faltered some words of sympathy, Antoinette strove hard to restrain her tears, and Pierrot dared not show his joy. I went with them as far as the end of the village, where two gendarmes were busy counting up the herd. I was not allowed to go any farther, and I stood there gazing at the trampling crowd, and until I saw them disappear at a winding of the road.
A halting-place had been arranged four miles from thence, where a train was waiting to convey the emigrants to Hirson. They spent the night in the waiting-rooms, lying on the floor, sitting on benches, all squeezed together with fluttering hearts and anxious looks, disturbed by the squalling of the children and the groans of the old people. In the morning, the poor wretches were carefully searched, and then crowded into the train. Two days after they reached France. With tears and cries of joy they greeted life, at length recovered after so many trials.
CHAPTER XII
After eight months" hopeless waiting, after long weeks spent in a flutter of expectation, we had seen the gate of delivery closed upon us.
The others were gone; they were free; and Genevieve and I alone still bore the yoke of invasion, which no one loathed as much as we did. No one had more eagerly wished for freedom, longed to return home, and yearned to meet again those we loved, and alone we stayed behind.
The poor girl thought that she would die of despair rather than of illness, and while she moistened her pillow with tears, I hid my sobs in the attic.
Mme. Charvet took care of Genevieve, and did her best to comfort us both. We did not follow the prescriptions of the German doctor, and never once applied cold compresses. A French matron"s experience is at times worth more than the learning of a Teutonic physician. We applied mustard-poultices and cupping-gla.s.ses; we gave the patient hot _tisanes_ and syrups, which were all the better because they were made in the village.
On the 4th of June, three weeks after the convoy"s departure, we arrived at Morny station, in the care of a sergeant. My sister-in-law was still a convalescent, and we trudged along to the Bureau, where our guardian handed over his prisoners. Thus we were restored to liberty; we were no longer emigrants. And with beating hearts we went back home.
On seeing us, my mother-in-law, Yvonne, and Colette well-nigh turned into stone. They thought we had been in Paris for two months at least.
We returned to our old habits; five women were again under the same roof, five women in the midst of invasion. One only had succeeded in escaping.
No change for the better in the village. A single detail amused us. The soldiers of the line lived as before in a white house at the corner of the street. For a long time, one of its stout occupants, perched on a ladder, taking great pains and putting out his tongue, had formulated this wish in big black letters:
"G.o.d punish England!"
And now, on account of recent events, the painter had added in a fit of rage:
"And the devil run away with Italy!"
The Hussars of the farm were gone, Bouillot at their head, and that day the village had heaved a deep sigh. As a last theft, the Pandours had carried away a cartful of furniture, in order to make themselves comfortable in the trenches which would shelter them.
On the other hand, two convoys were still quartered within our gates, and troops of pa.s.sage were now and then billeted upon us. We gave hospitality to a young lieutenant, who had succeeded Bubenpech as commandant. He lodged in the two rooms we had abandoned to the Prussians with a heavy heart; he had requisitioned, besides, "the small room" for his servant, and the stable for his horse. Gracieuse and Percinet, shut up in a corner of the coach-house, would gladly have seen the Prussian mare dead, which had usurped their domain. We, too, bore a grudge against the fat Hans, who enc.u.mbered our rooms with his person, his pipes, and his clothes.
So, resigned to fate, we established ourselves in the drawing-room, Genevieve and I. One of the windows looks into the street, and when, behind the lace of our curtains, we saw, hour after hour, day after day, the same carts loaded with straw, the same placid-looking Prussians,--they are all alike,--the same stiff and sneering lieutenants, we might have believed our stay in Jouville had been but a dream. The invaders seemed more "at home" than ever. The officers enjoyed themselves according to rule. Of course they had not waited for the spring to lead a jolly life. As early as November 1914 they had had drunken revelries. What merry evenings! What dishes never tasted in Germany! What floods of good wine! What erotic, patriotic, and bacchic songs! "Let us drink and eat, for we shall die to-morrow!"
"But no, we shall not die, we, who shout the loudest, we are safe; we do not go to the front, we stay behind, secure from danger. No other task but to grind down, vex, and punish civilians! Let us profit by the war.
Joy"s the word! There was a festival yesterday at Laon; it will be at Morny to-day; to-morrow it will be Coucy"s turn. Still more revels, still more junketings. It is war, hurrah for the war!"
And all enjoyed themselves: those who cared for nothing as well as those who cared first to save their skin, sybarites as well as sentimentalists, the pompous as well as the dissipated.
But this demands an explanation. We had seen many officers of the reserve, the very men whom the _Gazette des Ardennes_ calls "the flower of cultured German manhood"; but we had discovered few varieties among them, and all of them could be comprised in one of the categories we had created for the purpose.
Those who cared-for-nothing deserve careful consideration. They partook of the qualities common to their brothers-in-arms, which I will extol farther on, but their pusillanimity or their indifference belonged alone to them.
Such, for instance, was this lieutenant quartered in Laon, who confided to every one willing to listen to him:
"I don"t care a fig for the fate of Germany! If only the war would end soon, and I could get on with my studies and make myself a good position after.... I should be content."
Of the same kind was the young commandant of the village, lamed by a fall from his horse.
"The war!" he said, "what do I care for it? I am unfit for fighting, do you see. I shall neither be killed nor mutilated, and it is all one to me how long the war will last. I have comfortable rooms, and get good dinners without untying my purse-strings. I am well paid, and able to save. When we are at peace again I shall have a jaunt, and then go back to Germany. Men will be rare, and I shall marry whom I choose, the richest girl I can hear of, of course. My future is a.s.sured, and so I am quite easy in my mind."
We thought still more disgusting those who first-cared-for-their-skin.
We were pleased to observe not a few cowards who strove with feet, hand, and purse to avoid danger and keep behind the line.