Once out of bed the first thing Blanche did was decide what she would wear, selecting from the bonnetière a light short-sleeved blouse of batiste, from the armoire a suit of gray tweed, then stockings and undergarments from the drawer of the chest, on which a couple of perfume bottles sit forgotten. Hesitating between two pairs of shoes—lower or higher heels?—but not over her hat, a rice-straw affair trimmed with black velvet. After a scant hour in the bathroom, freshly bathed and dressed, she consulted the mirror on the bonnetière with a critical eye, smoothing a lock of hair, adjusting a pleat. As she left her bedroom she passed the writing desk, which had played no part in this morning’s activity; the desk is used to this, serving simply as a repository for the letters Charles and Anthime each regularly sends separately to Blanche and which lie bound by ribbons of contrasting colors in two different drawers.
Ready now, Blanche went quietly downstairs and on her way through the hall to the front door, made a detour to avoid the dining room. There—harsh grating of the bread knife against crust, clinking of teaspoons amid the aroma of chicory—her parents were finishing their breakfast: little audible conversation between Eugène and Maryvonne Borne; rumbling ingestion from the factory owner, melancholy sighs from the factory owner’s wife. Pausing at the front door by the wicker umbrella stand lined with waterproof canvas, Blanche chose a parasol of checked cretonne.
Once outside, she went toward the street entrance to the garden, the main walk of which—white gravel, carefully raked—branches out into lesser paths leading past the shrubberies, pond, arbors, and ornamental trees, including a worn-out palm that has been holding on for too long in this climate. Blanche has also avoided, but with fewer precautions, the hunched figure of the lame gardener—who is as deaf as the palm tree and busy watering the grass borders and flower beds—by simply walking more softly on the crunching gravel until reaching the cast-iron front gates.
Outside, the sounds of Sunday: everything is quieter than on weekdays, the way it is on any Sunday but it’s not just that, not the same silence as usual, it’s as if a residual echo has remained of the clamor and fanfares and ovations of recent days. Early this morning the oldest municipal employees still left in town finished sweeping up the last bedraggled bouquets, rumpled rosettes, tattered banners, and dried-out tear-stained handkerchiefs before hosing down the pavements. A few errant items have been placed in the lost-and-found department: a cane, two torn scarves, and three dented hats, tossed in the air with patriotic fervor and whose legitimate wearers have not yet appeared but are awaited in due course.
The atmosphere is also calmer because there are fewer people in the streets, and fewer young men in particular, or only ones so young that, convinced along with everyone else that this conflict will be brief, they’re ignoring it and don’t let it bother them. The few boys of her age Blanche encounters, who all seem more or less unwell, have been declared unfit for military service, at least temporarily; this might change in the future but they’re not concerned about that either. The nearsighted, for example, currently exempt and protected by their glasses, never dream for an instant that they might be traveling with them one day on a train to the east, with a spare pair of spectacles, if possible. Likewise for the deaf, the flat-footed, those with nervous complaints. As for malingerers or men who, confident of their connections and officially “unfit”, don’t even bother to pretend, they prefer not to show themselves too much for the moment. The brasseries are deserted, their waiters have disappeared: it’s up to the bosses to sweep their terraces and doorsteps themselves. The dimensions of this town drained almost empty of its men thus seem to have expanded: other than women, Blanche sees only old fellows and kids, whose footsteps sound hollow on a stage too large for them.
4
HADN’T REALLY BEEN THAT bad either, in the train, just uncomfortable. Sitting on the floor they had devoured their provisions, sung every possible song, and booed Kaiser Willy, drinking right along. In the twenty or so stations where the convoy had stopped, they hadn’t been allowed off the train to take a look at the towns but—through windows open to air that was too hot, speckled with sparks, almost solid with a heat coming from who knew where anymore, August or the locomotive and probably both, piling up—at least they’d seen a few airplanes. Some of these, in flight, were crossing a perfectly smooth sky at various altitudes, following or encountering and passing by one another bound on some unimaginable mission; others were sitting around higgledy-piggledy, surrounded by men in leather helmets, on requisitioned fields lying next to the tracks.
The men had heard about them, looked at photos in the newspaper, but no one had yet actually seen any of them, these seemingly fragile airplanes, except Charles no doubt—always au courant with everything, he had even climbed inside or rather onto a few, since there were no cabins yet—but Anthime had looked for him in vain among his fellow passengers. The landscape having about exhausted its attractions, Anthime turned aside to find some other way to kill time: cards, at that point, seemed just the thing, and along with Bossis and Padioleau—Arcenel being still too disabled by his derrière to join them—Anthime managed to claim a corner to launch a game of manille[6] beneath the soon-empty canteens swinging by their straps from hooks.
Then, since three-handed manille was a tricky business, and with Padioleau falling asleep as Bossis grew drowsy as well, Anthime shut down the game to go exploring in the neighboring cars, looking vaguely for Charles without really wanting to see him, assuming he was off by himself, contemptuous as always of his fellow men but surrounded by them of necessity. Well, not at alclass="underline" Anthime eventually spotted him comfortably installed by a window in a car with seats, taking pictures of the landscape in the company of a clutch of noncommissioned officers whose photos he was also taking, along with their addresses so he could send them their portraits later on. Anthime wandered off.
In the Ardennes, they’d hardly gotten off the train, hardly had the time to get used to this new landscape of dense forests and rolling hills, hadn’t even learned the name of this village where their first camp was or how long they’d be there—when some sergeants lined the men up and the captain made a speech at the foot of the cross on the main square. They were a little tired, didn’t feel much like muttering jokes to one another anymore but they listened to it, this speech, standing at attention looking at trees of a kind they’d never seen before, as the birds in these trees began to tune up, getting ready to play taps in the twilight.
The captain, named Vayssière, was a puny young man with a monocle, a curiously ruddy complexion, and a limp voice: Anthime had never seen him before, and his morphology gave no hint as to why or how he could ever have desired and pursued a combative vocation. You will all return home, Captain Vayssière promised in particular, raising his voice to the limit of its power. Yes, we will all go home to the Vendée. One vital point, however. If a few men do die while at war, it’s for lack of hygiene. Because it isn’t bullets that kill, it is uncleanliness that is fatal and which you must combat first of all. So wash, shave, comb your hair, and you will have nothing to fear.
After that pep talk, as the men were breaking ranks, Anthime happened to find himself next to Charles, near the field kitchen just being set up. Charles did not seem any more inclined than usual or than in the train to chat about the war or the factory, but regarding the latter, well, he clearly couldn’t slip off down one of his hallways claiming urgent correspondence to attend to as he’d always done before, so he was forced to deal with Anthime’s concerns. And they were both dressed alike now, which always helps communication. About the factory, Anthime asked anxiously, what are we going to do? I have Mme. Prochasson to take care of everything, explained Charles, she has the files in hand. It’s the same for you, you have Françoise in the accounts department, you’ll find everything in order when you get back. But when’s that, wondered Anthime. It won’t take long, Charles insisted, we’ll be back for the September orders. Hmm, said Anthime, we’ll see about that.
6
manille: