Man and Maid

"Of course they do."

"My niece Madelaine--a lighthead--dragged me to the Ritz to lunch last

week, before the wild rush cleared them off again--Mon Dieu! what a

sight there in that restaurant!--Olivier and the waiters are the only

things of dignity left! The women dressed to the eyes as Red Cross

nurses. Some Americans, and, yes, French--nursing the well English

officers I must believe--no nearer wounded than that!--floating veils,

painted lips--high heels--Heavens! it filled me with rage--I who know

the devoted and good of both nations who are not seen, and you

English--. But there it is easy for you with your temperament to be

good and really work--France is full of sensible kind Americans and

English--but those in Paris--they make me sick! Quarter of an hour twice

a day--to have the right to a passport to come--and to wear a

uniform--Pah! Sick, sick!--"

I thought of the fluffies!--they too played at something the first year

of the war, but now have given up even the pretence of that.

The Duchesse was still angry.

"My nephew Charles, le Prince de Vimont, eats chicken and cutlets on the

meatless days, he told me with pride, his maître d'hôtel--he of the

one eye--like thou, Nicholas, is able to procure plenty on the day

before from friends in the trade, and with ice--Mon Dieu!--and I pay

twenty-eight francs apiece for the best poulets for my blessés for

extra rations!--and ice!--impossible to procure--. Oh! I would punish

them all, choke them with their own meat--it is they who should be "food

for the guns" as you English say,--they, these few disgrace our brave

France, and make the other nations laugh at us."

I tried to assure her that no one laughed, and that we all understood

and worshipped the spirit of France, that it was only the few, and that

we were not deceived, but I could not calm her.

"It makes me weep" at last she said and I could not comfort her.

"Heloise de Tavantaine--my Cousin's Jew daughter-in-law--paid four

thousand francs for a new evening dress, which did not cover a tenth of

her fat body--Four thousand francs would have given my

blessés--Ah!--well--I rage, I rage."

Then she checked herself--.

"But why do I say this to thee Nicholas?--because I am sore--it is ever

thus--we are all human, and must cry to someone."

So after all there is some meaning in my journal.

"One must cry to someone!"