There had been no men in the village for so long that even these soldiers, the invaders, seemed in their rightful place. The invaders felt it too; they stretched out in the sunshine. The mothers of prisoners or soldiers killed in the war looked at them and begged God to curse them, but the young women just looked at them.
7
In one of the classrooms of the independent school, the ladies of the village and some of the fat farmers' wives from the surrounding countryside had gathered together for the monthly "Packages for Prisoners" meeting. The village had taken responsibility for local children of prisoners of war who had been on welfare before the war. The Charity's President was the Viscountess de Montmort. She was a shy, ugly young woman who got flustered whenever she had to speak in public. On each occasion she stuttered; her hands would sweat; her legs trembled; in short, she was just as prone to stage fright as any member of the aristocracy. But she felt it was an obligation, that it was her personal responsibility, her vocation, to enlighten the peasants and middle classes, to show them the way, to plant the seed of righteousness within them.
"You see, Amaury," she explained to her husband, "I cannot believe there is any essential difference between them and me. Even though they disappoint me (if you only knew how crude and petty they can be!), nevertheless I persist in trying to find some spark within them. Yes," she added, looking up at him with tears in her eyes-she cried easily-"yes, our Lord would not have died for such souls if there had been nothing inside them… But their ignorance, my dear, they are steeped in such ignorance that it is truly frightening. So at the beginning of each meeting, I give them a little talk to help them understand why they are being punished and (go ahead and laugh, Amaury) I have sometimes seen a glimmer of understanding on their chubby faces. I do regret," the Viscountess thoughtfully concluded, "I do regret not having followed my vocation: I would have enjoyed preaching in an isolated region, working alongside some missionary in a savannah or virgin forest. Well, best not to think about it. Our mission is here where the Good Lord has sent us."
She was standing on a small platform; the classroom had quickly been cleared of its desks; a dozen or so pupils deemed the most worthy had been allowed to come and hear the Viscountess speak. They were scraping their shoes on the floor and looking vacantly into space with their large, dull eyes, "like cows," the Viscountess thought, feeling rather annoyed.
She decided to speak directly to them. "My dear girls," she said, "you have been the victims of our country's misfortunes at such a tender age…
One of the girls was listening so attentively that she fell off her wooden stool; the eleven other girls tried to stifle their riotous laughter in their smocks.
The Viscountess frowned and continued more loudly. "You play your childish games. You seem carefree, but your hearts are full of sadness. What fervent prayers you must offer to Almighty God, day and night, begging Him to take pity on our dear suffering France!"
She paused and nodded curtly to the teacher who had just come in: she was a woman who did not attend Mass and who had buried her husband in a civil ceremony; according to her pupils she hadn't even been baptised, which seemed not so much scandalous as unbelievable, like saying someone had been born with the tail of a fish. As this person's conduct was irreproachable, the Viscountess hated her all the more: "because," she explained to the Viscount, "if she drank or had lovers, you could understand her lack of religion, but just imagine, Amaury, the confusion that can be caused in people's minds when they see virtue practised by people who are not religious."
The presence of this teacher was so odious to the Viscountess that her voice took on the same burning passion that seeing the enemy stirs in our hearts, and it was with true eloquence that she continued, "But our prayers, our tears are not enough. I say this not only to you; I say it to your mothers. We must be charitable. But what do I see? No one is charitable; no one puts other people first. I am not asking you for money; alas, money doesn't mean very much any more," the Viscountess said with a sigh, remembering she had spent 850 francs on the shoes she was wearing (fortunately, the Viscount was the local Mayor and she had coupons for shoes whenever she pleased). "No, it isn't money, it's food I want to send in these packages to our prisoners of war, food we have in such abundance in this region. Each one of you is thinking of your own relatives, your husband, son, brother, father who is a prisoner, and nothing is too much for them; you send them butter, chocolate, sugar, tobacco, but what about the men who have no families? Oh, ladies, think of it, just imagine the state of these poor wretches who never receive any packages, never receive any letters! Come now, what could you do for them? I'll collect all the donations, I'll sort them all out; I'll send them to the Red Cross to distribute them to the different Stalags. What do you say, ladies?"
They said nothing; the farmers' wives looked at the village ladies, who pursed their lips and stared back at them.
"Come along now, I'll start," said the Viscountess sweetly. "I have an idea: we could send a letter written by one of the children here in the next package. A letter that in simple, touching words would reveal their hearts and express their sorrowful, patriotic feelings. Just think," the Viscountess continued in an impassioned voice, "just think of the joy a poor abandoned soldier will feel when he reads those words, when he can almost touch, in a way, the very soul of his country; their words will remind him of the men, the women, the children, the trees, the houses of his dear little home, and as the poet said, loving our home makes us love our country even more. But most of all, my children, let your hearts speak. Do not aim for stylistic effect: forget your letter-writing skills and speak from the heart. Ah, the heart," said the Viscountess, half closing her eyes, "nothing beautiful, nothing great is accomplished without heart. You could put a little flower from the fields in your letter, a daisy or a primrose… I don't think that would be breaking any rules. Do you like that idea?" the Viscountess asked, tilting her head slightly and smiling graciously. "Come, now, I've talked enough. It's your turn."
The notary's wife, a woman with hard features and a slight moustache, said sharply, "It's not that we don't want to spoil our dear prisoners. But what can we poor villagers do? We have nothing. We don't have enormous estates like you, Viscountess, or big farms like the country folk. We can barely feed ourselves. My daughter just gave birth and can't even get any milk for her baby. Eggs cost two francs each, if you can find any."
"Are you saying we farmers are running a black market?" asked Cécile Sabarie who was in the audience. When she got angry, her neck swelled up like a turkey and her face went purplish-red.
"I'm not saying that, but…"
"Ladies, ladies," the Viscountess said softly, and she thought despondently, "Well, there you have it, there's nothing to be done, they feel nothing, they understand nothing, they have base souls. What am I thinking? Souls? They're nothing more than stomachs with the gift of speech."
"It's hurtful to hear you say that," Cécile continued, "it's hurtful to see you with your houses and having everything you want and then to hear you cry poverty. Come on, everyone knows you villagers have everything. You hear me? Everything! You think we don't know you're getting all the meat? You buy up all the coupons. Everybody knows it. You pay a hundred for each meat coupon. If you've got money, you want for nothing, that's for sure, while we poor people…"