Part 24 (2/2)
”You're looking splendid. When did you get here?”
”Did you come across Lucien, and Bataille's son?”
They hardly mention the war. They talk of the weather, the crops, the price of cattle, but never of battle. I have even found a certain extraordinary dislike for discussion of the subject. Or when they can be persuaded to speak, they laugh and tell of some weird feat.
”There are those who make the sh.e.l.ls, those who shoot them, and those who catch them. We're doing the catching just at present. There doesn't seem to be much choice!”
They return, just as they came, without noise, without tears.
”Gigot's son's gone back this morning.”
”Is that so? How quickly time flies!”
They take the road with a steady step, loaded down beneath their bundles. But they never turn their heads for a last good-bye.
”Aren't you going to mend my pick-axe, Maxence?” queried an old neighbour.
”Sorry, mother, but I've got to leave.”
”Well, then, it'll be for next time.”
”If next time there is!”
There is that terrible conditional ”If” in all such village conversations, just the same as in every conversation all over France.
Two years ago still another ”If” hung on every lip. The hope that it entertained seemed so vastly distant that no one dared give it open utterance. But each in his secret soul nurtured and cherished the idea, until at length those whispered longings swelled to a mighty national desire,
”If only the Americans . . .”
They have not hoped in vain. The Americans have come.
FINIS
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