CHAPTER IV

THE BURIAL OF PÈRE CAFARD

CHÂLONS, _Sunday, 29th_.

Telegram that M. de Sinçay may be passing through. I would like to see his _grand seigneur_ contour decorate our 1860 establishment. Go to the _Bureau de la Place_, and nothing less than a general (Abbevillers) grasps the receiver and telephones for me to Bar-le-Duc—but without result. They are all in “our” _secteur_ “of a courtesy”!

Twelve-o’clock mass at Notre Dame. Again rolling music, and the green vestment of the priest especially beautiful at the end of that high gray Gothic vista. Many, many military. I thought of an English officer who said to me not long ago:

“See how the soldier is exalted in the New Testament. It is certainly not the man of law, the money-changer, the man of politics, nor governors. When Christ has an especial lesson to show, how often He shows it through the soldier, even unto the servant of the centurion.”

On returning, found Mrs. S. and Miss E. arrived from the village of the fifteenth-century towers,[12] and the khaki-clad sons of Mars from over the seas, their hearts filled with patriotism and their tank with American _essence_. Coffee under the chestnut-tree, lovely sun filtering through, and the little white butterflies flying about the little white ash-tree; and we told stories, being all of us souls that laugh, which we did, till we couldn’t breathe, at the story of the woman’s-preparedness meeting in a certain transcendental town where the head of the assembly in solemn accents besought as many as felt drawn to such work to become automobilists—“and the moment the Germans set foot in New York rush the virgins to the West, preferably Kansas City.” In the town of brotherly love, where a like assemblage was held, an immediate position was available, March, 1917, with a commission of major-general, to look after dead soldiers’ widows for another blinking female. _Oh! là, là!_—and when one thinks we’ve _got_ to win the war!

_Later._

Have just laid down _Le Mannequin d’Osier_, completely dazzled by that first chapter, so monstrously clever, so diabolically lucid, so icily logical, so magnetically cynical, and I said to myself, after all, “one can only write of war in between wars.” I long for a friend to read with me the pages where M. Roux, on short leave during his years’ military service, says to M. Bergeret, “_Il y a quatre mois que je n’ai pas entendu une parole intelligente_,” to the paragraph where M. Bergeret says, “_Mais nous sommes un peuple de héros et nous croyons toujours que nous sommes trahis_.” It stimulated a desire for the discussion of things as they are, over against what one idiotically hopes they may be, with a bit of imagination concerning the future thrown in.

_July 29th, evening._

In the afternoon we all went to another theatrical representation in the big hall, given by the _1er Régiment de Marche des Zouaves_. Again immense concourse. Again the “Marseillaise,” and again the _Lion d’Orient_ made his majestic entry, and dozens of generals and high officials followed him, and again all sat forming their glittering hemicycle in front of the stage. Again a few nurses, some wives of officers, and the thousands of _poilus_.

A great poster read: “_Vous êtes priés d’assister au convoi, service, et enterrement du Père Cafard, assassiné par le Communiqué._

“_Le deuil sera conduit par le Pinard, le Jus, la Gniole, le Tabac, et tous les membres du Chacal hurlant._”

It appears that those of the 1st Zouaves still in hospital had had a rise in temperature at the thought that their representation might not equal that of the Moroccan Division of Friday. The _Compère_ was made to look as much as possible like Colonel Rolland—adored by his men. “_On R’met Ca!_” has been given in the trenches all over the front, and was just as funny and amusing as the other, but there was a strange intermezzo about three o’clock, when the dreadful sun, shining through the glass panes of the sides (on the roof great squares of canvas had been spread), began to get fainter. It was like being in the hot-room of a Turkish bath. Suddenly a darkness fell, accompanied by a deafening and terrifying noise of a heavy rattling on the roof and a beating in at the sides; the voices and music were completely drowned and the performance had to be suspended. Even the officers were beginning to look about—when the lights suddenly went out and we found ourselves in Stygian blackness at 4.30 of a summer afternoon, the terrific noise continuing, with the under-note of the stirring of the thousands assembled. A nameless fear, or something akin to it, went through the vast assemblage. Finally we realized that it was heaven, not the enemy, bombarding us, as hailstones, even by the time they had gone through many hot hands, as big as turkey eggs, were passed about. There was the sound of breaking glass, water began to rush in, the heavy canvas, spread on the roof as protection against the sun, and also to prevent the light from being seen from the air, alone prevented the roof from breaking in. Finally the lights reappeared and the performance proceeded to the diminishing sound of heavy rain—but it was a strange experience. Even those generals of Olympic calm had begun to “think thoughts” at one moment. It would have been a big “bag,” had anything been doing, and we all knew it.

Mrs. S. and Miss E. have been persuaded to stay at the house by the Marne, rather than at La Haute Mère Dieu, and we have arranged to double up.

I am to motor back to Paris with them to-morrow.