The functionaries and police had dropped their masks of
official politeness, and were just friendly. At the hotels,
so like school two days before the term begins, the impersonal
valet, the chambermaid of the set two-franc smile, and the
unbending head-waiter had given place to one's own brothers
and sisters, full of one's own anxieties. "My son is an
aviator, monsieur. I could have claimed Italian nationality
for him at the beginning, but he would not have it." . . .
"Both my brothers, monsieur, are at the war. One is dead
already. And my fiance, I have not heard from him since
March. He is cook in a battalion." . . . "Here is the
wine-list, monsieur. Yes, both my sons and a nephew, and--I
have no news of them, not a word of news. My God, we all
suffer these days." And so, too, among the shops--the mere
statement of the loss or the grief at the heart, but never a
word of doubt, never a whimper of despair.
"Now why," asked a shopkeeper, "does not our Government, or
your Government, or both our Governments, send some of the
British Army to Paris? I assure you we should make them
welcome."
"Perhaps," I began, "you might make them too welcome."
He laughed. "We should make them as welcome as our own army.
They would enjoy themselves.
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