Chapter 6 No.6

The Boche aeroplane was by no means a novelty to the Parisian. Its first apparitions over the capital (1914) were greeted with curious enthusiasm, and those who did not have a field glass handy at the time, later on satisfied their curiosity by a visit to the Invalides, where every known type of enemy machine was displayed in the broad court-yard.

The first Zeppelin raid (April 15th, 1915) happened toward midnight, and resulted in a good many casualties, due not to the bombs dropped by the enemy, but to the number of colds and cases of pneumonia and bronchitis caught by the pajama-clad Parisian, who rushed out half covered, to see the sight, thoughtlessly banging his front door behind him.

But the first time that we were really driven to take shelter in the cellar was after dinner at the home of a friend who lives in an apartment house near the Avenue du Bois. We were enjoying an impromptu concert of chamber music, when the alarm was given, swiftly followed by distant but very distinct detonations, which made hesitation become imprudence.

The descent to the basement was accomplished without undue haste, or extraordinary commotion, save for an old Portuguese lady and her daughter who lost their heads and unconsciously gave us a comic interlude, worthy of any first-class movie.

Roused from her sleep, the younger woman with self preservation uppermost in her mind, had slipped on an outer garment, grabbed the first thing she laid her hands on, and with hair streaming over her back, dashed down five long flights of stairs.

At the bottom she remembered her mother, let forth an awful shriek, and still holding her bottle of tooth wash in her hands, jumped into the lift and started in search of her parent.

In the meantime, the latter on finding her daughter's bed empty, had started towards the lower floors, crossing the upward bound lift, which Mademoiselle was unable to stop.

Screams of terror, excited sentences in Portuguese-in which both gave directions that neither followed, and for a full ten minutes mother and daughter raced up and down in the lift and on the stairway, trying vainly to join one another.

A young lieutenant home on leave, at length took pity on them and finally united the two exhausted creatures who fell into each other's arms shrieking hysterically:

"If we must die-let us die together!"

The concierges and the servants began arranging chairs and camp stools around the furnace; the different tenants introduced themselves and their guests. Almost every one was still about when the signal was given, and this cellar where the electric lamps burned brightly soon took on the aspect of a drawing-room, in spite of all. One lone man, however, stood disconsolate, literally suffocating beneath a huge cavalry cape, hooked tight up to his throat. As the perspiration soon began rolling from his forehead, a friend seeking to put him at his ease, suggested he open up his cloak.

The gentleman addressed cast a glance over the assembled group, broadened out into a smile, and exclaimed-

"I can't. Only got my night shirt underneath."

The hilarity was general, and the conversation presently became bright and sparkling with humorous anecdotes.

The officers held their audience spellbound with fear and admiration; the women talked hospital and dress, dress and hospital, finally jesting about the latest restrictions. One lady told the story of a friend who engaged a maid, on her looks and without a reference, the which maid shortly became a menace because of her propensity for dropping and breaking china.

One day, drawn towards the pantry by the sound of a noise more terrible than any yet experienced, she found the girl staring at a whole pile of plates-ten or a dozen-which had slipped from her fingers and lay in thousands of pieces on the floor.

The lady became indignant and scolded.

"Ah, if Madame were at the front, she'd see worse than that!" was the consoling response.

"But we're not at the front, I'll have you understand, and what's more neither you nor I have ever been there, my girl."

"I beg Madame's pardon, but my last place was in a hospital at Verdun, as Madame will see when my papers arrive."

General laughter was cut short by the sound of two explosions.

"They're here. They've arrived. It will soon be over now," and like commentaries were added.

A servant popped the cork of a champagne bottle, and another passed cakes and candied fruit.

An elderly man who wore a decoration, approached the officers.

"Gentlemen," said he, "excuse me for interrupting, but do any of you know the exact depth to which an aeroplane bomb can penetrate?"

The officers gave him a few details, which, however, did not seem to satisfy the old fellow. His anxiety became more and more visible.

"I wouldn't worry, sir, if I were you. There's absolutely no danger down here."

"Thank you for your assurance, Messieurs," said he, "but I'm not in the least anxious about my personal safety. It's my drawings and my collection of porcelains that are causing me such concern. I thought once that I'd box them all up and bring them down here. But you never can tell what dampness or change of temperature might do to a water colour or a gouache. Oh! my poor Fragonards! My poor Bouchers! Gentlemen, never, never collect water colours or porcelains! Take it from me!"

At that moment the bugle sounded-"All's well," and as we were preparing to mount the stairs, the old man accosted the officers anew, asking them for the titles of some books on artillery and fortification.

"That all depends to what use you wish to apply them."

"Ah, it's about protecting my collection. I simply must do something! I can't send them to storage, they wouldn't be any safer there, and even if they were I'd die of anxiety so far away from my precious belongings."

"Good-nights" were said in the vestibule, and the gathering dispersed just as does any group of persons after a theatre or an ordinary reception. But once in the street, it was absolutely useless to even think of a taxi. People were pouring from every doorway, heads stuck out of every window.

"Where did they fall? Which way?"

In the total obscurity, the sound of feet all hurrying in the same direction, accompanied by shouts of recognition, even ripples of laughter, seemed strangely gruesome, as the caravan of curious hastened towards the scene of tragedy.

"No crowds allowed. Step lively," called the sergeants-de-ville, at their wits' end. "Better go back home, they might return. Step lively, I say!"

It happened thus the first few visits, but presently the situation became less humorous. One began to get accustomed to it. Then one commenced to dislike it and protest.

Seated by the studio fire, we were both plunged deep in our books.

"Allons!" exclaimed H. "Do you hear the pompiers? The Gothas again!"

We stiffened up in our chairs and listened. The trumpets sounded shrilly on the night air of our tranquil Parisian quarter.

"Right you are. That means down we go! They might have waited until I finished my chapter, hang them! There's no electricity in our cellar," and I cast aside my book in disgust.

Taking our coats and a steamer rug we prepared to descend. In the court-yard the clatter of feet resounded.

The cellar of our seventeenth century dwelling being extremely deep and solidly built, was at once commandeered as refuge for one hundred persons in case of bombardment, and we must needs share it with some ninety odd less fortunate neighbours.

"Hurry up there. Hurry up, I say," calls a sharp nasal voice.

That voice belonged to Monsieur Leddin, formerly a clock maker, but now of the Service Auxiliare, and on whom devolved the policing of our entire little group, simply because of his uniform.

His observations, however, have but little effect. People come straggling along, yawning from having been awakened in their first sleep, and almost all of them is hugging a bundle or parcel containing his most precious belongings.

It is invariably an explosion which finally livens their gait, and they hurry into the stairway. A slight jam is thus produced.

"No pushing there! Order!" cries another stentorian voice, belonging to Monsieur Vidalenc, the coal dealer.

"Here! here!" echo several high pitched trebles. "Très bien, très bien. Follow in line-what's the use of crowding?"

Monsieur Leddin makes another and still shriller effort, calling from above:

"Be calm now. Don't get excited."

"Who's excited?"

"You are!"

"Monsieur Leddin, you're about as fit to be a soldier as I to be an Archbishop," sneered the butcher's wife. "You'd do better to leave us alone and hold your peace."

General hilarity, followed by murmurs of approval from various other females, which completely silenced Monsieur Leddin, who never reopened his mouth during the entire evening, so that one could not tell whether he was nursing his offended dignity or hiding his absolute incompetence to assume authority.

Places were quickly found on two or three long wooden benches, and a few chairs provided for the purpose, some persons even spreading out blankets and camping on the floor.

The raiment displayed was the typical negligée of the Parisian working class; a dark coloured woollen dressing gown, covered over with a shawl or a cape, all the attire showing evidence of having been hastily donned with no time to think of looking in the mirror.

An old lantern and a kerosene lamp but dimly lighted the groups which were shrouded in deep velvety shadows.

Presently a man, a man that I had never seen before, a man with a long emaciated face and dark pointed beard, rose in the background, holding a blanket draped about him by flattening his thin white hand against his breast. The whole scene seemed almost biblical, and instantly my mind evoked Rembrandt's masterpiece-the etching called 'The Hundred Florin Piece,' which depicts the crowds seated about the standing figure of our Saviour and listening to His divine words.

But the spell was quickly broken when an instant later my vision coughed and called-

"Josephine, did you bring down the 'Petit Parisien,' as I told you?"

Ten or fifteen minutes elapsed, and then a rather distant explosion gave us reason to believe that the enemy planes were retiring.

"Jamais de la vie! No such luck to-night. Why we've got a good couple of hours ahead of us, just like last time. You'll see! Much better to make yourself as comfortable as possible and not lose any sleep over it."

The tiny babies had scarcely waked at all, and peacefully continued to slumber on their mothers' knees, or on improvised cots made from a blanket or comforter folded to several thicknesses.

The women soon yawned, and leaning their backs against the wall nodded regularly in spite of their efforts not to doze off, and each time, surprised by the sudden shock of awakening would shudder and groan unconsciously.

Tightly clasped in their hands, or on the floor between their feet lay a bag which never got beyond their reach, to which they clung as something sacred. Certain among them were almost elegant in their grey linen covers. Others had seen better days, while still others dated back to the good old times of needlework tapestry. There were carpet, kit and canvas bags, little wooden chests with leather handles, and one poor old creature carefully harboured a card-board box tied about with a much knotted string.

What did they all contain? In France amid such a gathering it were safe to make a guess.

First of all, the spotless family papers-cherished documents registering births, deaths and marriages. A lock of hair, a baby tooth, innumerable faded photographs, a bundle of letters, a scrap of paper whereon are scrawled the last words of a departed hero, and way down underneath, neatly separated from all the rest, I feel quite sure the little family treasure lies hidden. Yes, here is that handful of stocks and bonds, thanks to which their concierge bows to them with respect; those earnings that permit one to fall ill, to face old age and death without apprehension, the assurance the children shall want for nothing, shall have a proper education-the certitude that the two little rooms occupied can really be called home; that the furniture so carefully waxed and polished is one's own forever. Bah! what terrors can lack of work, food shortage, or war hold for such people? Thus armed can they not look the horrid spectres square in the face? The worst will cost but one or two blue bank notes borrowed from the little pile, but because of the comfort they have brought they will be replaced all the more gayly when better days shall come.

All this ran through my brain as I watched those hands-big and small, fat and thin, young and old, clasping their treasure so tightly, and I couldn't help feeling that gigantic convulsive gesture of thousands of other women, who all over the great Capital at that same moment were hugging so lovingly their little all; the fruit of so much toil and so much virtue.

My reflections were cut short by a deafening noise that roused my sleeping companions. The children shrieked, and the women openly lamented.

"That was a close call," commented Monsieur Neu, our concierge.

Five or six boys wanted to rush out and see where the bomb had fallen. They were dissuaded, but with difficulty.

An elderly man had taken his six year old grandson on to his knee, and that sleepy little Parisian urchin actually clapped his hands and crowed over the shock.

"Jiminy, that was a fine one!"

"That's right, my child," pompously exclaimed the grandsire. "Never, never forget the monsters who troubled your innocent sleep with their infamous crimes."

"Oh, cut it out, grandpop," was the somewhat irreverent reply. "Aren't you afraid you might miss forty winks?" and then turning to his mother, "I say, mamma, if one of them lands on our house, you promise you'll wake me up, won't you? I want to see everything, and last time and the time before, I missed it!"

"Yes, darling, of course, but go to sleep, there's a good boy."

A tall, good-looking girl over in one corner openly gave vent to her sentiments.

"The idiots! the idiots! if they think they can scare us that way! They'd far better not waste their time, and let us sleep. It isn't a bit funny any more, and I've got to work just the same to-morrow, Boche or no Boche!"

Two rickety old creatures clasped each other in arms, and demanded in trembling voices if there was any real danger! This produced a ripple of merriment.

Monsieur Duplan, the butcher, then asked the ladies' permission to smoke, the which permission was graciously accorded.

"Why, if I'd only thought, I'd have brought down another lamp and my work. It's too bad to waste so much time."

"I have my knitting. You don't need any light for that."

"Where on earth did you get wool? How lucky you are!"

From Monsieur Leddin's lips now rose a loud and sonorous snore.

"Decidedly that man is possessed of all the charms," giggled a sarcastic neighbour.

"Yes, it must be a perfect paradise to live with such an angel, and to feel that you've got him safe at home till the end of the war. I don't wonder his poor little wife took the children and went to Burgundy."

"Why isn't he at the front?" hissed some one in a whisper.

"Yes-why?"

"There are lots less healthy men than he out there. The fat old plumber who lived on the rue de Jouy, and who can hardly breathe, was taken--"

"And the milkman who passed a hundred and three medical inspections and finally had to go."

"If you think my husband is overstrong, you're mistaken."

"And mine, Madame, how about him?"

Something told me that Monsieur Leddin's fate was hanging in the balance on this eventful evening.

"Shake him up, Monsieur Neu, he doesn't need to sleep if we can't. We've all got to work to-morrow and he can take a nice long nap at his desk."

"Oh, leave him alone," put in Monsieur Laurent, the stationer, who was seated near me. "Just listen to those fiendish women. Why they're worse than we are about the slackers. After all, I keep telling them there must be a few, otherwise who's going to write history? And history's got to be written, hasn't it?"

"Most decidedly," I replied.

And having at length found a subject of conversation that I had deigned approve, he continued,

"Just think of what all the poor kids in generations to come will have to cram into their heads! The names of all the battles on all the Fronts and the dates. It makes me dizzy! I'm glad it's not up to me. I like history all well enough, but I'd rather make it than have to learn it."

Monsieur Laurent did not speak lightly. He had veritably helped to make history, having left his right foot and part of his leg "Out there" on the hills of Verdun.

I asked him how he was getting along since his return.

"Better than ever! Excellent appetite-never a cold-never an ill. I'll soon be as spry as a rabbit. Why, I used to be too heavy, I always fell asleep after luncheon. That campaign set my blood to rights. I'm ten years younger," he exclaimed, pounding his chest.

"That's a good strong-box, isn't it?" and he coughed loudly to thoroughly convince of its solidity.

"France can still count on me! I was ready for war, and I shall be prepared for peace."

"Just wait till it gets here," murmured some woman.

THE COURTYARD LEADING TO MADAME HUARD'S CELLAR

"It'll come, it's bound to come some time," he cried, evidently pursuing a favourite theme. "And we'll like it all the better for having waited so long."

Monsieur Laurent has firm faith in the immediate business future.

"Voilà! all we've got to do is to lay Germany out flat. Even then the economical struggle that will follow the war will be terrible," he prophesies. "The French must come to the fore with all the resources of their national genius. As to myself, I have my own idea on the subject."

We were fairly drinking in his words.

"You've all doubtless seen the sign that I put up in my window?"

We acquiesced.

"Well, it was that sign that opened my eyes."

I was all attention by this time, for I distinctly remembered the above mentioned sign. It had puzzled and amused me immensely. Painted in brilliant letters, it ran as follows:

EXCEPTIONAL BARGAIN:

For men having their left foot

amputated and wearing size No. 9.

3 shoes for the right foot-two

black and one tan; excellent

quality, almost like new.

For sale, or exchange for shoes

belonging to the left foot. Must be

of same quality and in like condition.

"I haven't yet made any special effort to ascertain whether there are more amputations of the left than of the right foot," continued Monsieur Laurent; "I suppose it's about equal. Well, my plan is just this. As soon as there's peace I'm going to set up shop on the rue St. Antoine, or the Place de la Bastille. I'll call it 'A la botte de l'amputé,' and I sell my shoes separately instead of in pairs. There's a fortune in it inside of five years."

"Just hear him raving," sighed his wife. "You know well enough, Laurent, that just so soon as the war is over we're going to sell out, and with the money, your pension, and what we've saved up, we'll go out to the Parc St. Maur, buy a little cottage and settle down. I'll raise a few chickens and some flowers, and you can go fishing in the Seine all day long."

"But the economical struggle?"

"You let the economical struggle take care of itself. Now, with your mad idea, just suppose those who had a right foot all wanted tan shoes, and those who had a left couldn't stand anything but black? I'd like to know where you'd be then? Stranger things than that have happened."

Laurent gazed at his wife in admiration.

"With all your talk about the future, it seems to me we've been down here a long time since that last explosion."

One woman looked for her husband but could not find him. The Rembrandt Christhead had also disappeared.

A tall fifteen year old lad who stood near the door informed us that they had slipped out to see.

"So has Germain."

"Then you come here! Don't you dare leave me," scolded the mother. "Can you just see something happening to him with his father out there in the trenches?"

Monsieur Neu and two other men soon followed suit.

The big boy who had so recently been admonished managed to crawl from beneath his mother's gaze and make his escape.

"If ever I catch him, he'll find out what my name is," screamed the excited woman, dashing after him into the darkness.

Then, presently, one by one we took our way towards the hall, and the cellar seemed empty.

The tall boy came back to the entrance, all excitement.

"We saw where it fell!" he panted. "There are some wounded. The police won't let you go near. There's lots and lots of people out there. Where's mamma?"

"She's looking for you!"

He was off with a bound.

The instinct to see, to know what is going on is infinitely stronger than that of self preservation. Many a soldier has told me that, and I have often had occasion to prove it personally.

Some of the women started towards the street.

"We're only going as far as the door," said they by way of excuse. "You're really quite safe beneath the portico." And they carried their babies with them.

So when the final signal of safety was sounded, there remained below but a few old women, a couple of very small children, and Monsieur Leddin, whom nothing seemed to disturb.

The mothers returned to fetch their children. The old ladies and Monsieur Leddin were aroused.

"C'est fini! Ah!"

And in the courtyard one could hear them calling as they dispersed.

"Good-night, Madame Cocard."

"Good-night, Madame Bidon."

"Don't forget."

"I won't."

"Till next time."

"That's it, till next time."

A young woman approached me.

"Madame, you won't mind if I come after them to-morrow, would you?" she begged with big wistful eyes. "The stairway is so dark and so narrow in our house, I'm afraid something might happen to them."

"Mercy me! you're surely not thinking of leaving your babies alone in the cellar?"

"Oh, Madame, it's not my babies. Not yet," and she smiled. "It's my bronze chimney ornaments!"

"Your what?"

"Yes, Madame, my chimney ornaments. A clock and a pair of candlesticks. They're over there in that wooden box all done up beautifully. You see Lucien and I got married after the war began. It was all done so quickly that I didn't have any trousseau or wedding presents. I'm earning quite a good deal now, and I don't want him to think ill of me so I'm furnishing the house, little by little. It's a surprise for when he comes home."

"He's at the front?"

"No, Madame, in the hospital. He has a bad face wound. My, how it worried him. He wanted to die, he used to be so handsome! See, here's his photograph. He isn't too awfully ugly, is he? Anyway I don't love him a bit less; quite the contrary, and that's one of the very reasons why I want to fix things up-so as to prove it to him!"