Marguerite-Yerta Méléra

“ Ideas float in the air and may be turned into talk or dreams. I warrant, it is the vigil of thinkers that has civilised the world.
In the morning everything has a cold air, inanimate objects are hostile, a dull light reluctantly falls from the windows, and for some hours you strive hard to tame life again and make it bearable. I beseech you, let me live in the evening. The Germans did not allow us to live in the evening. More than once, when the bell had rung eight o'clock, we heard fists hammer on the shutters, and harsh voices cry:
"Go to bed; French no light, no light." ”

“ I remember a room in the sugar-mill where about fifty emigrants had been huddled together—men and women, old people and children, in ill health or in good. It was a long, icy-cold room, with a low ceiling, feebly lighted by two deep windows in the shape of loopholes. At the threshold the odour of sick and dirty humanity suffocated you; the children's squalling, the mothers' scolding, the men's rough voices stunned you. In the dimly lighted room you perceived a path opened through the straw, spread out on both sides, on which you saw creatures crouched or lying. ”

“ 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. ”

“ We arrived in Morny just in time to see some German infantry march through the street. They came from the front, and their ill-looks filled us with joy. They trudged along with weary faces, and were all muddy, and bent as if with old age. "Just look at them," we said. "Where do they come from? Surely they are beaten men. Is the French army advancing?"
Colette, hidden behind the curtains, never failed to throw her wishes after the Germans as they passed through the village. [114]
"Die, die, die. Die, you nasty red-haired fellow. Die, you fat brute. Die, you young whipper-snapper. ”

“ And I thought: "All over France the roads are covered with troops, and thousands of women, close to the man they love, are listening to the steps of the soldiers and the rumbling of the cannon; broken-hearted, they kiss an adored face, and with bitter tears repeat: 'War will carry him off!'"
Cavalry followed infantry; then came gunners, cannon, and powder-carts. The heavy pieces rolled on with the noise of thunder, and shook the house to its foundations. It was about three o'clock in the morning. A cold mist fell as if reluctantly from the cloudy sky. ”

“ If the Feldwebel announced: "In the afternoon at three the emigrants will be passed in review," the whole village was in a flutter. It was no trifle to drag the old people and the babies out from their heaps of straw, to hold up the lame, to lead the blind, and to persuade the idiots. The ragged army, every day more beggarly, hobbled along to one of the rallying points. In the evening about eight o'clock the drum was beaten by way of curfew-bell. Every one shut himself up and blew out his candle, if he had one. ”

“ Oh, for the power to strike, to kill those men! To hurl down upon them some of those big stones, half loosened by time! We shuddered at the mere sight of them, a bantering, conceited, happy mob. The faces of Yvonne and Antoinette, standing among the crosses, were wet with tears and convulsed with rage. Hatred was so clearly visible in their eyes that the faces of the Germans grew hard and stiffened as if they had been given a slap in the face. They pass, they are gone, and now the prisoners are coming. ”

“ Still more foot soldiers. The men sing no more. Dawn is unfavourable to enthusiasm. You set forth in the evening sanguine of success, seeing at the end of the road Victory, Triumph, and Glory. But when morning comes, dark and cold, your exaltation sinks. Not that you feel less resolute, but behind the brilliant phantoms your fancy had conjured up the night before, you see grimacing slaughter and death and fire.
Day broke bright and clear. In the sun's lively beams all fears melted away. There will be a war? Be it so. The men will go and fight, and we too will do something for France. ”

“ All these unhappy wanderers were stranded at Jouville. They had met again with their old companion Hunger. They were persecuted by the cold. Many lay groaning in the icy cellars of the sugar-mill, or in the airy attics of the farm.
And then suddenly came the spring. It came in one night. A light breath passed over the vale, which was soon like a nosegay. The meadows grew green, the hedges expanded their buds, the trees put forth tender leaves, the groves were embroidered with periwinkles. ”

“ How shall we depict the fate of thousands of soldiers ordered back home on the eve of the invasion? They are soldiers, they ought to fight for their country. They watch from afar the different stages of the battle, whose [192] manifold din reaches them. They stand, panting, with clenched fists. They think: "This is going on, such a thing is happening. If I were with my brothers, I would fall upon the enemy, I would fight against the invaders."
Their blood is burning; they wish to kill; they will kill some of them. A sudden uproar, imperious voices are heard. ”

“ So through the streets of Vaux the pitiful crowd wended its way to the station, about twelve hundred emigrants surrounded by soldiers. From their thresholds the inhabitants stared at us. Truly a more miserable herd never was seen. The Germans had chosen to send away the poorest among the poor of our villages—bareheaded women, ragged children, beggarly men, sick people, cripples, idiots. All were laden and overladen with parcels, baskets, and bundles. There were two or three carts to convey the heaviest luggage, but every one preferred keeping what was dearest to him. ”

“ 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? ”

“ A stout German under-officer thought well to give us his opinion: "Here are the English!" said he. "Look at their pigs' heads. They ought all to be shot; not the French," he added, to be agreeable, "only the English." We wanted the poor Tommies to have their share too. As I was threading my way through the crowd and they were stretching out their hands, their guardian, with a blow of his large claws, swept away the boxes of sweets and put them into his pocket, amid the laughs of his comrades. It was too late to make good the German's mischief, for the soldiers were already moving forward. ”

“ But your light is never so pleasant, your caress never so soft, as when you shine 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 bloody weapons, on dark-mouthed cannon; you pass 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. ”

“ When the Germans settled themselves upon us, these feats of the satyr were no longer common. Here and there evil deeds were still spoken of, and a doctor of the neighbourhood told us in the spring of 1915 that nearly every week there was an act of violence. I must confess that many a woman was the victim of her own imprudence. When you have lived all your life in a quiet village, among kind people, you have some difficulty in believing that you must be on your guard for months together, that you are for ever surrounded with brutes. ”

“ Life sprang up anew in our hearts, and with life, spirits. Many a time—was it a reaction?—we burst out laughing, broke into mad, inextinguishable laughter. Liza more than once set us in a roar. Liza is Mme. Laroye's maid,—a maid who has land of her own, who possesses a mile away a house, a horse, a dog, and, in ordinary times, a husband. But, as the times we live in are by no means ordinary, Zidore—for he is called Zidore—had joined the army, to make war against the King of Prussia. ”

“ At a bound I was up in the attic, at another I flew to the garret window. Like a [52] gargoyle stretched out on the edge of the roof, I scanned the horizon. Northward a light puff of smoke vanished in the upper branches of the poplar trees. Nothing was to be heard; but I beheld the confused flight of all creatures that were out in the fields. A man standing in a car lashed his bewildered horse with all his might; fowls and even pigeons hurried away to poultry-yard and dovecot. ”

“ I can merely refer, for instance, to a certain officer who at eleven o'clock one night wished to lodge "twenty horses in our barn"; or to four requisitioners who dragged us out of bed at five in the morning, and forced us to dress in haste, merely to prove we had no pigs. These same soldiers delighted to talk German with French women; tried to convince us that England was responsible for the war. "The whole world is against us," they said in a sulky voice; "the French, the English, the Russians, the Belgians...." ”

“ As they cannot—despite their bargain with the devil—perform such feats of skill, they wreak revenge on us by spoiling our beautiful country. Our farmers were furious when they saw the Germans—the first winter after their arrival—plough up fields throughout the land, unmindful of the limits and value of the soil. And what splendid tillage was theirs! Their laziness turned up about ten centimetres of earth; they sowed seed, and put no manure; before they leave they want to exhaust the soil of which they are jealous, and which they would like to annihilate. ”

“ They are all there. The lamp is bright, the stove lit up. Dinner is over; they are smoking their pipes and reading their papers.
And in the invaded territory thousands and thousands of people have gone to bed at six, because they have no light, no fire, and no dinner. And the others are there. They read the papers. They praise whatever the German army does, they admire the German soldiers, they approve all high-handed measures, and those who are at home, as well as those away from home, lift up their eyes towards the sky, and thank God for not being like the rest of mankind. ”

“ So we prepared to make an entrance into the village worthy of us and it. We sat by the wayside and took small looking-glasses and powder-puffs out of our leather bags. Powder is as necessary to women as to soldiers, isn't it? We did our hair, brushed our dresses, and then went down the village street quite smart. We turned to the right and entered the big farm of Mme. Laroye. Surprise, exclamations! Arms lifted up to the sky, and then clasped around us in a close embrace! Boundless friendship and endless hospitality were promised us. ”

“ 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 pâté, 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. ”

“ We dragged them upstairs to a loft next my bedroom, thrust them into it all topsy-turvy, and hurriedly heaped up big logs at the entrance. Everything was in order; the dogs were on their chains; we had but to go.
Here we are in the street, all doors shut, and off we go. We wait one minute to calm our hearts and to drop a tear. [56]
Dear little house, white walls, virginia creepers, when shall we meet again? And what will you look like? Let us begone! It is time for action, not for regret.
Our neighbours next door, the couple Tillard, were putting the donkey in their cart all ready for flight. ”

“ Several nights running, we gave hospitality to unfortunate families, first to Belgians and then to people of the North, small [28] manufacturers of the neighbourhood of Fourmies. All told the same heart-rending stories: the order to evacuate, the house left ten minutes after, the bewildered flight on the road. Many had fled of their own free will, driven by the breath of terror the Prussians spread abroad; but all were way-worn, all talked of sleepless nights, hunger, thirst, and suffering. ”

“ Every morning the baker's shop was carried by storm. Every morning the housewives had to wait their turn for an hour to get a loaf. It was a heart-rending sight to see how the baker toiled; his wife did not know which way to turn; his boy knew not what to be at. At this rate the flour sacks would melt away like snow in an April sun. We had to find other sacks, or famine would break out in the village. One morning, then, Liza announced: "My horse is required to go and fetch flour at Pont-Avers."
In the country the word "requisition" does not exist. You are "required"—that is all. ”