On the Edge of the War Zone Part 13

It is annoying, as I hardly know Quincy, and don't care for it, and never go there except to present myself at the mairie. It is further off the railroad line than I am here. Couilly I know and like. It is a pretty prosperous village. It has better shops than Quincy, which has not even a pharmacie, and I have always done my shopping there. My mail comes there, and the railway station is there, and everyone knows me.

The idea that I can't go there gives me, for the first time since the battle, a shut-in feeling. I talked to the garde champetre, whom I met on the road, as I returned from the mairie, and I asked him what he thought about the risk of my going to Couilly. He looked properly grave, and said:

"I would not, if I were in your place. Better run no risks until we understand what this is to lead to."

I thanked him, with an expression just as serious and important as his. "I'll obey," I said to myself, "though to obey will be comic."

So I turned the corner on top of the hill. I drove close to the east side of the road, which was the Quincy side, and as I pa.s.sed the entrance to Amelie's court I called to Pere to come out and get Ninette and the cart. I then climbed out and left the turn-out there.

I did not look back, but I knew Pere was standing in the road looking after me in amazement, and not understanding a bit that I had left my cart on the Quincy side of the road for him to drive it into Couilly, where I could not go.

"I'll obey," I repeated to myself, viciously, as I strolled down the Quincy side of the road and crossed in front of the gate where the whole width of the road is in my commune.

I hadn't been in the house five minutes before Amelie arrived.

"What's the matter?" she demanded, breathlessly.

"Nothing."

"Why didn't you drive into the stable as usual?"

"I couldn't."

"Why couldn't you?"

"Because I am forbidden to go to Couilly."

I thought she was going to see the joke and laugh. She didn't. She was angry, and I had a hard time to make her see that it was funny.

In fact, I did not really make her see it at all, for an hour later, wanting her, I went up to the Quincy side of the road, leaned against the wall, opposite her entrance, and blew my big whistle for ten minutes without attracting her attention.

That attempt at renewing the joke had two results. I must tell you that one of the few friends who has ever been out here felt that the only annoying thing about my being so absolutely alone was that, if anything happened and I needed help, I had no way of letting anyone know. So I promised, and it was agreed with Amelie, that, in need, I should blow my big whistle--it can be heard half a mile. But that was over two years ago. I have never needed help. I have used the whistle to call d.i.c.k.

I whistled and whistled and whistled until I was good and mad. Then I began to yell: "Amelie--Melie--Pere!" and they came running out, looking frightened to death, to find me, red in the face, leaning against the wall--on the Quincy side of the road.

"What's the matter?" cried Amelie.

"Didn't you hear my whistle?" I asked.

"We thought you were calling d.i.c.k."

The joke was on me.

When I explained that I wanted some fresh bread to toast and was not allowed to go to their house in Couilly for it, it ceased to be a joke at all.

It was useless for me to laugh, and to explain that an order was an order, and that Couilly was Couilly, whether it was at my gate or down the hill.

Pere's anger was funnier than my joke. He saw nothing comic in the situation. To him it was absurd. Monsieur le General, commandant de la cinquieme armee ought to know that I was all right. If he didn't know it, it was high time someone told him.

In his gentle old voice he made quite a harangue.

All Frenchmen can make harangues.

It was difficult for me to convince him that I was not in the slightest degree annoyed; that I thought it was amusing; that there was nothing personally directed against me in the order; that I was only one of many foreigners inside the zone des armees; that the only way to catch the dangerous ones was to forbid us all to circulate.

I might have spared myself the breath it took to argue with him. If I ever thought I could change the conviction of a French peasant, I don't think so since I have lived among them. I spent several days last summer trying to convince Pere that the sun did not go round the earth. I drew charts of the heavens,--you should have seen them-- and explained the solar system. He listened attentively--one has to listen when the patronne talks, you know--and I thought he understood. When it was all over--it took me three days--he said to me:

"Bien. All the same, look at the sun. This morning it was behind Maria's house over there. I saw it. At noon it was right over my orchard. I saw it there. At five o'clock it will be behind the hill at Esbly. You tell me it does not move! Why, I see it move every day.

Alors--it moves."

I gave it up. All my lovely exposition of us rolling through s.p.a.ce had missed. So there is no hope of my convincing him that this new regulation regarding foreigners is not designed expressly to annoy me.

I often wonder exactly what all this war means to him. He reads his newspaper religiously. He seems to understand. He talks very well about it. But he is detached in a way. He hates it. It has aged him terribly. But just what it means to him I can't know.

XIX

Christmas Day, 1915

Well, here I am, alone, on my second war Christmas! All my efforts to get a permis de sortir failed.

Ten days after I wrote you last, there was a rumor that all foreigners were to be expelled from the zone of military operations. My friends in Paris began to urge me to close up the house and go into town, where I could at least be comfortable.

I simply cannot. I am accustomed now to living alone. I am not fit to live among active people. If I leave my house, which needs constant care, it will get into a terrible condition, and, once out of it, there is no knowing what difficulty I might have to get back. The future is all so uncertain. Besides, I really want to see the thing out right here.

I made two efforts to get a permission to go to Voulangis. It is only five miles away. I wrote to the commander of the 5th Army Corps twice. I got no answer. Then I was told that I could not hope to reach him with a personal letter--that I must communicate with him through the civil authorities. I made a desperate effort. I decided to dare the regulations and appeal to the commander of the gendarmes at Esbly.

There I had a queer interview--at first very discreet and very misleading, so far as they were concerned. In the end, however, I had the pleasure of seeing my two letters to Monsieur le General attached to a long sheet of paper, full of writing,--my dossier, they called it. They did not deign to tell me why my letters, sent to the army headquarters, had been filed at the gendarmerie. I suppose that was none of my business. Nor did they let me see what was written on the long sheet to which the letters were attached. Finally, they did stoop to tell me that a gendarme had been to the mairie regarding my case, and that if I would present myself at Quincy the next morning, I would find a pet.i.tion covering my demand awaiting my signature. It will be too late to serve the purpose for which it was asked, but I'll take it for Paris, if I can get it.

For lack of other company I invited Khaki to breakfast with me today.

He didn't promise formally to come--but he was there. By devoting myself to him he behaved very well indeed, and did not disturb the table decorations. Luckily, they were not good to eat. He sat in a chair beside me, and now and then I had to pardon him for putting his elbow on the table. I did that the more graciously as I was surprised that he did not sit on it. He had his own fork, and except that, now and then, he got impatient and reached out a white paw to take a bit of chicken from my fork just before it reached my mouth, he committed no grave breach of table manners. He did refuse to keep his bib on, and he ate more than I did, and enjoyed the meal better. In fact, I should not have enjoyed it at all but for him. He had a gorgeous time.

I did not invite Garibaldi. He did not know anything about it. He is too young to enjoy a "function." He played in the garden during the meal, happy and content to have a huge breakfast of bread and gravy; he is a bread eater--thoroughly French.

I even went so far as to dress for Khaki, and put a Christmas rose in my hair. Alas! It was all wasted on him.

This is all the news I have to send you, and I cannot even send a hopeful message for 1916. The end looks farther off for me than it did at the beginning of the year. It seems to me that the world is only now beginning to realize what it is up against.

XX