"At our place, you know, same as everywhere in the Pas de Calais,
the outside doors of the houses are cut in two. At the bottom, it's
a sort of barrier, half-way up your body; and above, you might call
it a shutter. So you can shut the bottom half and be one-half
private.
"The top half was open, and the room, that's the dining-room, and
the kitchen as well, of course, was lighted up and I heard voices.
"I went by with my neck twisted sideways. There were heads of men
and women with a rosy light on them, round the round table and the
lamp. My eyes fell on her, on Clotilde. I saw her plainly. She was
sitting between two chaps, non-coms., I believe, and they were
talking to her. And what was she doing? Nothing; she was smiling,
and her face was prettily bent forward and surrounded with a light
little framework of fair hair, and the lamp gave it a bit of a
golden look.
"She was smiling. She was contented. She had a look of being well
off, by the side of the Boche officer, and the lamp, and the fire
that puffed an unfamiliar warmth out on me. I passed, and then I
turned round, and passed again. I saw her again, and she was always
smiling. Not a forced smile, not a debtor's smile, non, a real smile
that came from her, that she gave. And during that time of
illumination that I passed in two senses, I could see my baby as
well, stretching her hands out to a great striped simpleton and
trying to climb on his knee; and then, just by, who do you think I
recognized? Madeleine Vandaert, Vandaert's wife, my pal of
the 19th, that was killed at the Maine, at Montyon.
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