Read Online Suite Francaise by Irène Némirovsky - Free Book Online Page A

The Péricands stopped in a small town just off the main highway where they hoped to find a room. But all sorts of vehicles were already blocking the streets. The sound of creaking brakes filled the air and the ground next to the river looked like a gypsy camp. Exhausted men were sleeping on the grass, others were getting dressed. A young woman had hung a mirror on a tree trunk and was putting on make-up and combing her hair. Someone else was washing nappies in the fountain.
    The townspeople had come out on to their doorsteps and surveyed the scene with utter amazement. “Those poor people! But honestly, they look so awful!” they said, with pity and a secret feeling of satisfaction: these refugees came from Paris, the north, the east, areas doomed to invasion and war. But
they
were all right, time would pass, soldiers would fight while the ironmonger on the main street and Mlle Dubois, the hatmaker, would continue to sell saucepans and ribbons; they would eat hot soup in their kitchens and every evening close the little wooden gates that separated their gardens from the rest of the world.
    The cars were waiting for morning to fill up with petrol. It was already becoming scarce. The townspeople asked the refugees for news. No one knew anything. “They’re waiting for the Germans in the Morvan Mountains,” someone said. Such an idea was greeted with scepticism.
    “Come on, they didn’t get that far in ’14,” said the fat chemist, shaking his head, and everyone agreed, as if the blood spilled in ’14 had formed some mystical barrier to keep the enemy out for ever.
    More cars arrived, and still more.
    “They look so tired, so hot!” everyone kept saying, but not one of them thought to open their doors, to invite one of these wretches inside, to welcome them into the shady bits of heaven that the refugees could glimpse behind the houses, where wooden benches nestled in arbours amid redcurrant bushes and roses. There were just too many of them. Too many weary, pale faces, dripping with sweat, too many wailing children, too many trembling lips asking, “Do you know where we could get a room? A bed?” . . . “Would you tell us where we could find a restaurant, please, Madame?” It prevented the townspeople from being charitable. There was nothing human left in this miserable mob; they were like a herd of frightened animals. Their crumpled clothes, crazed faces, hoarse voices, everything about them made them look peculiarly alike, so you couldn’t tell them apart. They all made the same gestures, said the same words. Getting out of the cars, they would stumble a bit as if drunk, putting their hands to their throbbing temples. “My God, what a journey!” they sighed. “Hey, don’t we look gorgeous?” they asked with a giggle. “They say things are a lot better over there,” they would say, pointing over their shoulders to somewhere lost in the distance.
    Madame Péricand’s convoy had stopped at a little café near the railway station. They got out their basket of food and ordered some beer. At the next table, a beautiful little boy, very elegantly dressed but whose green coat was all crumpled, was calmly eating some bread and butter. On a chair next to him was a clothes basket in which a baby lay crying. With her experienced eye, Madame Péricand could tell immediately that these children came from a good family and that it would be all right to speak to them. So she talked kindly to the little boy and made conversation with the mother when she came back; she was from Reims, and looked enviously at the substantial snack the Péricand children were eating.
    “Can I have some chocolate with my bread, Mummy?” said the little boy in green.
    “My poor darling!” said the young woman, putting the baby on her lap to try to calm him down, “I don’t have any. I didn’t have time to buy some. You’ll have a lovely dessert tonight at grandmother’s.”
    “Would you allow me to offer you some