XVIII. December 6, 1915
It is two months since I wrote - I know it. But you really must not reproach me so violently as you do in yours of the 21st of November, just received.
To begin with, there is no occasion for you to worry. I may be uncomfortable. I am in no danger. As for the discomforts - well, I am used to them. I cannot get coal very often, and when I do I pay twenty-six dollars a ton for it, and it is only imitation coal, at that. I cannot get washing done oftener than once in six weeks. Nothing dries out-of-doors in this country of damp winters. I am often forced to live my evenings by candle-light, which is pretty extravagant, as candles are costly, and it takes a good many to get through an evening. They burn down like paper tapers in these days.
When I don't write it is simply because I have nothing more interesting than things like that to tell you. The situation is chronic, and, like chronic diseases, much more likely to get worse than to get better.
You should be grateful to me for sparing you, instead of blaming me.
I might not have found the inspiration to write today if something had not happened.
This morning the town crier beat his drum all over the hill, and read a proclamation forbidding all foreigners to leave the commune during the next thirty days without a special permit from the general in command of the 5th Army Corps.
No one knows what this means. I have been to the mairie to enquire simply because I had promised to spend Christmas at Voulangis, and, if this order is formal, I may have difficulty in going. I have no desire to celebrate, only there is a child there, and the lives of little children ought not to be too much saddened by the times and events they do not understand.
I was told at the mairie that they had no power, and that I would have to address myself to Monsieur le General. They could not even tell me what form the request ought to take. So I came home, and wrote the letter as well as I could.
In the meantime, I am distinctly informed that until I get a reply from headquarters I cannot go out of the commune of Quincy-Segy.
If I really obey the letter of this order I cannot even go to Amelie's. Her house is in the commune of Couilly, and mine in Quincy, and the boundary line between the two communes is the path beside my garden, on the south side, and runs up the middle of my road from that point.
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 passed 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 Dick.
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 Dick."
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 space 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.