XV. August 6, 1915
Well, the sans gene days seem to be passed.
Up to now, as I have told you, the sauf-conduit matter, except on the last day I was at Meaux, was the thinnest sort of formality. I had to have one to leave the commune, but the blank forms were lying around everywhere. I had only to stop at the hotel at Couilly, step into the cafe, pick up a form and ask the proprietor to fill it out, and that was all that was necessary. I might have passed it on to anyone, for, although my name was written on it, no one ever took the trouble to fill out the description. The ticket-seller at the station merely glanced at the paper in my hand when I bought a ticket, and the gendarmes at the ticket window in Paris, when there were any, - often there were none - did no more. Of course, the possession of a sauf-conduit presupposes all one's papers en regle, but I never saw anyone examining to make sure of that.
All this is ended. We are evidently under a new regime.
I had my first intimation yesterday, when I had a domiciliary visit from the gendarmes at Esbly. It was a very formal, thorough affair, the two officers treating me, at the beginning of the interview, as if I were a very guilty person.
I was upstairs when I saw them arrive on their wheels. I put down my sewing, and went down to be ready to open the door when they knocked. They didn't knock. I waited a bit, then opened the door. There was no one on the terrace, but I heard their voices from the other side of the house. I went in search of them. They were examining the back of the house as if they had never seen one like it before. When they saw me, one of them said sharply, without the slightest salute: "There is no bell?"
I acknowledged the self-evident fact.
"How does one get in, since you keep your door locked?" he added.
"Well," I replied, with a smile, "as a rule, one knocks."
To that his only reply was: "Your name?"
I gave it to him.
He looked on his paper, repeated it - mispronouncing it, of course, and evidently sure that I did not know how to pronounce it myself.
"Foreigner," he stated.
I could not deny the charge. I merely volunteered "Americaine."
Then the inquiry continued like this. "Live here?"
"Evidently."
"How long have you lived here?"
"Since June, 1914."
That seemed to strike him as a very suspicious date, and he stared at me hard for a moment before he went on: "What for?"
"Principally because I leased the house."
"Why do you remain here in war-time?"
"Because I have nowhere else to go," and I tried not to smile.
"Why don't you go home?"
"This is my home."
"Haven't you any home in America?"
I resisted telling him that it was none of his business, and did my best to look pathetic - it was that, or laugh - as I answered: "Alas! I have not."
This seemed to strike both of them as unbelievable, and they only stared at me as if trying to put me out of countenance.
In the meantime, some of the people of Huiry, interested always in gendarmes, were standing at the top of the hill watching the scene, so I said: "Suppose you come inside and I will answer your questions there," and I opened the door of the salon, and went in.
They hesitated a moment, but decided to follow me. They stood, very stiffly, just inside the door, looking about with curiosity. I sat down at my desk, and made a motion to them to be seated. I did not know whether or not it was correct to ask gendarmes to sit down, but I ventured it. Evidently it was not correct, for they paid no attention to my gesture.
When they were done looking about, they asked me for my papers.
I produced my American passport. They looked at the huge steel-engraved document with great seriousness. I am sure they had never seen one before. It impressed them - as well it might, in comparison with the civil papers of the French government.
They satisfied themselves that the picture affixed was really I - that the name agreed with that on their books. Of course, they could not read a word of it, but they looked wise. Then they asked me for my French papers. I produced my permis de sejour - permitting me to stay in France provided I did not change my residence, and to which was affixed the same photograph as that on my passport; my declaration of my civil situation, duly stamped; and my "immatriculation," a leaf from the register on which all foreigners are written down, just as we would be if admitted to a hospital or an insane asylum.
The two men put their heads together over these documents - examined the signatures and the seals with great gravity - with evident regret to find that I was quite en regle.
Finally they permitted me to put the documents all back in the case in which I carry them.
I thought the scene was over. Not at all. They waited until I shut the case, and replaced it in my bag - and then:
"You live alone?" one asked.
I owned that I did.
"But why?"
"Well," I replied, "because I have no family here."
"You have no domestic?"
I explained that I had a femme de menage.
"Where is she?"
I said that at that moment she was probably at Couilly, but that ordinarily when she was not here, she was at her own home.
"Where is that?" was the next question.
So I took them out on to the terrace again, and showed them Amelie's house.
They stared solemnly at it, as if they had never seen it before, and then one of them turned on me quickly, as if to startle me. "Vous etes une femme de lettres?"
"It is so written down in my papers," I replied.
"Journaliste?"
I denied my old calling without the quiver of an eyelash. I hadn't a scruple. Besides, my old profession many a time failed me, and it might have been dangerous to have been known as even an ex- journalist today within the zone of military operations.
Upon that followed a series of the most intimate questions anyone ever dared put to me, - my income, my resources, my expectations, my plans, etc. - and all sorts of questions I too rarely put to myself even, and never answer to myself. Practically the only question they did not ask was if I ever intended to marry. I was tempted to volunteer that information, but, as neither man had the smallest sense of humor, I decided it was wiser to let well enough alone.
It was only when they were stumped for another single question that they decided to go. They saluted me politely this time, a tribute I imagine to my having kept my temper under great provocation to lose it, went out of the gate, stood whispering together a few minutes, and gazing back at the house, as if afraid they would forget it, looked up at the plaque on the gate-post, made a note, mounted their wheels, and sprinted down the hill, still in earnest conversation.
I wondered what they were saying to one another. Whatever it was, I got an order early the next morning to present myself at the gendarmerie at Esbly before eleven o'clock.
Pere was angry. He seemed to feel, that, for some reason, I was under suspicion, and that it was a man's business to defend me. So, when Ninette brought my perambulator to the gate, there was Pere, in his veston and casquette, determined to go with me and see me through.
At Esbly I found a different sort of person - a gentleman - he told me he was not a gendarme by metier, but a volunteer - and, although he put me through practically the same paces, it was different. He was sympathetic, not averse to a joke, and, when it was over, he went out to help me into my baby cart, thanked me for troubling myself, assured me that I was absolutely en regle, and even went so very far as to say that he was pleased to have met me. So I suppose, until the commander at Esbly is changed, I shall be left in peace.
This will give you a little idea of what it is like here. I suppose I needed to be shaken up a bit to make me realize that I was near the war. It is easy to forget it sometimes.
Amelie came this morning with the tale that it was rumored that all foreigners were to be "expelled from the zone des armees." It might be. Still, I am not worrying. "Sufficient to the day," you know.