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Authors: Georges Simenon
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stop.
“Where do you come from?” asked an elderly lady in white, who obviously belonged to the upper class.
“Fumay.”
I counted at least four trains in the station. There were crowds of people in the waiting rooms and behind the barriers, for barriers had been put up as for an official procession. The place was swarming with soldiers and officers.
“Where are the wounded?”
“But what about my wife, dammit?”
“She may have been on the train which has been sent to Rheims.”
“When?”
The more gently the lady in white spoke to him, the more fierce and aggressive he was—on purpose, for he was beginning to feel that he had certain rights.
“About an hour ago.”
“They could have waited for us, couldn’t they?”
Tears came into his eyes, for he was worried in spite of everything and perhaps he wanted to feel unhappy. That didn’t prevent him, a few moments later, from falling on the sandwiches some girls were passing in big baskets from car to car.
“How many can we take?”
“As many as you like. It’s useless hoarding them. You’ll find fresh sandwiches at the next station.”
We were given bowls of hot coffee. A nurse went by asking:
“Nobody sick or wounded?”
Feeding bottles were ready and an ambulance was waiting at the end of the platform. On the next line a train full of Flemings seemed to be on the point of pulling out. They had had their sandwiches and watched us inquisitively as we ate ours.
The Van Straetens are Flemish in origin; they settled at Fumay three generations ago and no longer speak their original language. In the slate-pits, though, they still call my father-in-law the Fleming.
“Take your seats! Watch out for the doors!”
So far they had kept us for hours in stations or sidings. Now they were dealing with us as quickly as possible, as if they were in a hurry to get rid of us.
Because there were too many people on the platform, I couldn’t make out the headlines of the newspapers on the bookstall. I only know that there was one in bold lettering with the word “troops.”
We were moving and a girl wearing an arm band was running alongside the train to distribute her last bars of chocolate. She threw a handful in our direction. I managed to catch one for Anna.
We were going to find similar reception centers at Rheims and elsewhere. The horse dealer had returned to his place in our car after being allowed to wash in the station lavatories, and he was treated as a hero. I heard Julie call him Jeff. He was holding a bottle of Cointreau which he had bought in the refreshment room along with two oranges whose scent spread throughout the car.
It was between Rethel and Rheims, toward the end ofthe afternoon, for we were not moving fast, that a countrywoman stood up grumbling:
“I can’t help it. I’m not going to make myself ill.”
Going over to the open door, she put a cardboard box on the floor, squatted down and relieved herself, still muttering between her teeth.
That too was significant. The conventions were giving way—in any case those which had been in force the day before. Today nobody protested at the sight of the horse dealer dozing with his head on Julie’s plump belly.
“You haven’t got a cigarette, have you?” Anna asked me.
“I don’t smoke.”
It had been forbidden in the sanatorium and afterward I hadn’t been tempted to take it up. My neighbor passed her one. I hadn’t any matches on me either, and because of the straw it worried me to see her smoke, although other people had been smoking since the previous day. Perhaps it was a sort of jealousy on my part, a feeling of displeasure which I can’t explain.
We spent a long time in a suburb of Rheims, looking at the backs of the houses, and in the station we were told that our train would be leaving in half an hour.
There was a rush toward the refreshment room, the lavatories, and the inquiry office, where nobody had heard of women, children, and invalids from a train
“Where do you come from?” asked an elderly lady in white, who obviously belonged to the upper class.
“Fumay.”
I counted at least four trains in the station. There were crowds of people in the waiting rooms and behind the barriers, for barriers had been put up as for an official procession. The place was swarming with soldiers and officers.
“Where are the wounded?”
“But what about my wife, dammit?”
“She may have been on the train which has been sent to Rheims.”
“When?”
The more gently the lady in white spoke to him, the more fierce and aggressive he was—on purpose, for he was beginning to feel that he had certain rights.
“About an hour ago.”
“They could have waited for us, couldn’t they?”
Tears came into his eyes, for he was worried in spite of everything and perhaps he wanted to feel unhappy. That didn’t prevent him, a few moments later, from falling on the sandwiches some girls were passing in big baskets from car to car.
“How many can we take?”
“As many as you like. It’s useless hoarding them. You’ll find fresh sandwiches at the next station.”
We were given bowls of hot coffee. A nurse went by asking:
“Nobody sick or wounded?”
Feeding bottles were ready and an ambulance was waiting at the end of the platform. On the next line a train full of Flemings seemed to be on the point of pulling out. They had had their sandwiches and watched us inquisitively as we ate ours.
The Van Straetens are Flemish in origin; they settled at Fumay three generations ago and no longer speak their original language. In the slate-pits, though, they still call my father-in-law the Fleming.
“Take your seats! Watch out for the doors!”
So far they had kept us for hours in stations or sidings. Now they were dealing with us as quickly as possible, as if they were in a hurry to get rid of us.
Because there were too many people on the platform, I couldn’t make out the headlines of the newspapers on the bookstall. I only know that there was one in bold lettering with the word “troops.”
We were moving and a girl wearing an arm band was running alongside the train to distribute her last bars of chocolate. She threw a handful in our direction. I managed to catch one for Anna.
We were going to find similar reception centers at Rheims and elsewhere. The horse dealer had returned to his place in our car after being allowed to wash in the station lavatories, and he was treated as a hero. I heard Julie call him Jeff. He was holding a bottle of Cointreau which he had bought in the refreshment room along with two oranges whose scent spread throughout the car.
It was between Rethel and Rheims, toward the end ofthe afternoon, for we were not moving fast, that a countrywoman stood up grumbling:
“I can’t help it. I’m not going to make myself ill.”
Going over to the open door, she put a cardboard box on the floor, squatted down and relieved herself, still muttering between her teeth.
That too was significant. The conventions were giving way—in any case those which had been in force the day before. Today nobody protested at the sight of the horse dealer dozing with his head on Julie’s plump belly.
“You haven’t got a cigarette, have you?” Anna asked me.
“I don’t smoke.”
It had been forbidden in the sanatorium and afterward I hadn’t been tempted to take it up. My neighbor passed her one. I hadn’t any matches on me either, and because of the straw it worried me to see her smoke, although other people had been smoking since the previous day. Perhaps it was a sort of jealousy on my part, a feeling of displeasure which I can’t explain.
We spent a long time in a suburb of Rheims, looking at the backs of the houses, and in the station we were told that our train would be leaving in half an hour.
There was a rush toward the refreshment room, the lavatories, and the inquiry office, where nobody had heard of women, children, and invalids from a train
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