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By Root 2047 0

she spent with him, seeing that he ate and drank regularly, helping him to turn over with a strength of wrist one would not have suspected in such slender arms. Sometimes they talked, but more often said nothing, especially in the early days. But they never seemed bored; it was a very peaceful life in this most restful atmosphere – for him, still shattered by the battle, and for her, in her mourning dress, still heartbroken after her recent loss. At first he felt a little awkward because he was aware that she was above him in station, almost a grand lady, while he had never been anything more than a peasant and soldier. He could only just about read and write. But later he felt somewhat reassured when he saw that she treated him without any pride, as an equal, and that gave him the courage to show that he was intelligent in his own way, through his sweet reasonableness. Moreover he himself was amazed to feel that he had become more refined, more agile in mind, with new ideas. Was it something to do with the abominable life he had been leading for two months? He had emerged more delicate-minded from so much physical and moral suffering. But what finally reassured him was that he realized that she did not know all that much more than he did. After the death of her mother she had become at a very early age the Cinderella, the little housewife looking after her three men, as she called them – her grandfather, father and brother – and she had not had time for study. Reading, writing, a bit of spelling and arithmetic was about as far as she could go. The only reason why she still intimidated him and seemed so far above all other women was that he knew that beneath her exterior of an unremarkable little person, occupied with the trivial affairs of daily life, was a woman of the greatest goodness and the utmost courage.

They were one immediately when they talked about Maurice. She was devoting herself to him in this way because he was the friend, the brother of Maurice, his great help in time of need, and it was her turn to pay a debt of the heart. She was full of gratitude and of an affection which grew as she got to know how upright and wise he was and how reliable. And he, whom she cared for like a child, was also contracting a debt of infinite gratitude and could have kissed her hands for every cup of broth she gave him. This bond of tender understanding grew closer every day in the deep solitude in which they lived and shared the same troubles. When they finished their memories – details she untiringly asked for about their painful march from Rheims to Sedan – the same question always came up: what was Maurice doing now? Why wasn’t he writing? Was Paris completely cut off, that they heard no news? So far they had had only one letter from him, postmarked Rouen three days after his departure, in which he had explained in a few lines how he had found himself in that city after a big detour on the way to Paris. And then nothing for a week, absolute silence. In the mornings Dr Dalichamp, having dressed the wound, liked to linger there for a few minutes. He even came back sometimes in the evening and stayed longer, and thus he was the only link with the world, the great world outside, so convulsed by disasters. News only reached them through him, and his ardent patriotic heart boiled over with anger and grief at every defeat. So he hardly talked about anything except the invading march of the Prussians who since Sedan had been flooding steadily all over France, like a black host. Each day brought its own grief, and he would stay there lost in misery, slumped on one of the two chairs beside the bed, and, waving his trembling hands, tell of an ever worsening situation. Often his pockets were stuffed with Belgian newspapers which he left behind. Thus, weeks after the event, the echo of each disaster reached this hidden room and drew still closer, in a common bond of anguish, the two poor suffering souls shut in there.

So it was that Henriette read to Jean from old papers the happenings at Metz and the great and heroic battles which