III FÊTE DES MORTS, NOVEMBER, 1918

Church again, seemingly in company with the entire population, civil and military, after which I flanéd in the old streets of Masevaux, word having been brought that no motor was available for our projected trip to Dannemarie. Indeed, I had early noticed from my window much mounting in hot haste, accompanied by the lively sound of two kinds of firing. Some coup de main, I suppose.

I strolled about under an uncertain sun, occasionally sensible of that delicate, not unpleasant smell of bark and leather hanging on a windless air. About me was that world of blue-clad soldiers, black-robed women, and many children were playing in the pink and gray streets; a group of little girls were skipping rope to the words ein, zwei, drei, quatre, cinq, six!

The post-office of modern Teutonic origin still wears, high up and indifferently, the Double Eagle, though the more accessible Kaiserliches Post-Amt has been removed. A little farther down the street is the old inn of the “Golden Eagle” whose historic sign dates from Napoleonic days, and which, as was pointed out to me, turns its golden back disdainfully to the black, double face of the once proud eagle of the post-office.

And this inn of the “Golden Eagle” hangs its charming sign out on a corner of the square called “La Halle aux Blés” (the Grain Market), surrounded by sloping-roofed, roomy houses. In the center is a rose-colored fountain, with three diminishing rose-shaped basins around a carved central column.

And the cobblestoned square with its good fountain and its comfortable houses—there’s even a stable and a garage on one side—has something cozy about it, its atmosphere that of a place long used by human beings for the homelike customs of “the simple life,” which last bears no resemblance to that occasionally practised at great expense and inconvenience by those who “need a change” and can afford one.

American troops passed through the Halle aux Blés on the 30th of May of this year, again on the 4th of July, and on the 14th, too, always drawing themselves up at last in the Place du Marché, one end of which is my Place du Chapitre. There, under the lindens, General Hahn and General Boissoudy watched them deploy, while gaily attired Alsatian girls grouped about the fountain acclaimed them, and from every window hung the Stars and Stripes.

Then I found myself wandering out on the road to Belfort, past the high, grassy eminence known as the “Ringelstein,” once crowned by the proud castle of Duke Mason, founder of Masevaux. Traces of ancient walls embowered in ivy are still to be seen, and at its base are many old outbuildings of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, once dependencies of the Abbey and the Chapter, and when you are not expecting it you find old inscriptions and bits of carving plastered into them. On one high-roofed outhouse was a large crown and three fleurs-de-lis. Blasted through one end of the great rock of the Ringelstein rims the railway. And there is a near view of the red and green and yellow roofs of the houses of the chanoinesses confounding themselves with the autumn foliage of the trees which embower them.

I begin to know a little of the early history of Masevaux, enveloped in legends and many contrary tales—Masevaux, ruled now by abbots, now by feudal lords, belonging sometimes to the House of Austria, sometimes to the House of France.

And the first legend is that of its foundation. How the lord of the country, by name Mason, a nephew of Saint-Odile, was feasting in his castle of this same Ringelstein, and the wines of Burgundy and Alsace and of the Rhine were flowing, and a troubadour was reciting a tale of war and love, when suddenly Duke Mason cries out:

“Soul of my soul, misfortune is happening to my son! Night is falling. Where is he?” And he goes to the window and looks out. Some one answers:

“Fear not, illustrious father of so dear a child. He has doubtless tarried with the holy fathers of Moutiers.” But the night gets blacker, the lords and ladies drop their golden hanaps and the troubadour is still.

Then Mason, in the grip of deeper presentiment, cries out, “Who loves me to the succor of my son!” And they seek with torches for the child. Alas! the white body of Mason’s son, born of a dead, beloved wife, is found floating upon the little stream, and Mason, pressing what was once his child to his heart, cries out: “Nothing can ever give me joy again. I will build a monastery wherein to pass my days until God calls me from this heavy world.” And that is the origin of Masevaux—Masmunster. The legend has it, too, that on moonless nights the child returns, weeping, because he did not live long enough to read all the beautiful stories inscribed by the gods, the prophets and the wise, concerning the sons of men. And as I looked up at the great grass- and vine-covered rock whereon the castle of Mason once rose, the Doller flowing at its base, the cannon of the great war sounded. Down the white road was disappearing a battalion of blue-clad men, going toward the black and rust and yellow of the hills—a red cherry tree between me and them. Then I turned back into the town and hied me to the popote, where some half-dozen extremely agreeable men were awaiting me, as well as a sustaining repast.

The American communiqué was immediately and very appreciatively read out. Our victorious advance was continuing along the Meuse (known as the “Muse” by the doughboy), the First American Army attacking on the west bank in liaison with the Fourth French Army on the left. Then we looked over the Turkish armistice terms, quite satisfyingly comprehensive from the opening of the Dardanelles to promises on the part of the Turks not to speak to any of their former friends.

And we talked of how from the terrace of Versailles, where the German Empire was proclaimed, the statesmen of the world will watch the twilight descending upon Walhalla and its gods; and here in Alsace the crash of falling temples can be heard.

After lunch I went with Lieutenant Lavallée to see a bit of Alsace from within, for he was to invite various mayors of villages to go to Paris for the “Fêtes Alsaciennes,” to be held the middle of November, and also to select a discreet number of veterans of 1870 and school-children of 1918 to accompany them.

We went first to Gewenheim, a somewhat war-battered village and, as we entered it, Lavallée pointed out the iron plate on the sign-post, indicating the name of the village and the department. Like many others of the Haut Rhin (Upper Rhine), after 1870 it had been quite simply turned and marked in German. This proved most convenient and economical, for all the French Military Mission had to do when they came to Alsace in 1914 was to turn them back as they had been before 1870!

The mayor’s house, one of the usual dwellings with a small door for humans and a big door for harvests, had been much damaged. Passing in through a sagging entrance, we found the mayor, the classic, horny-fisted, wrinkle-faced mayor of a village, with cobwebs and straw and other substances adhering to his coat, but possessed of a certain air of dignity and authority notwithstanding. There was a moment’s silence after the lieutenant gave him the invitation, pride visibly wrestling with parsimony, accompanied by the working up and down of a very prominent Adam’s apple. He accepted finally with a sort of “I am a man” expression, but there was a quite apparent melting of his being when he found that it was the State that would defray expenses. Then the wife of his bosom, who had helped him make and save his money, came in and showed us some of their “best” shell-holes, and a statue of the Virgin of Lourdes under a large glass bell which had not a scratch, even, though everything around had been shattered.

There was also a lithograph of Henner’s red-headed “Alsatian Girl,” who hangs in every home and every railway station, and is used for loans and appeals and calendars and advertisements of complexion washes and hair-dyes; and she was once a charming creature, before familiarity bred contempt.

The worthy couple then fell to a discussion in Alsatian German as to which of the veterans would be possible candidates for the trip to Paris. There seemed to be something the matter with every one mentioned. Rudler, Franzi, was nice and it was a pity that his rheumatism prevented his getting about, as he had lost his dung-heap, though not his house, in a recent bombardment and needed distraction. It wasn’t quite clear to me how you could lose a possession of that kind, but I wasn’t at the front to ask questions, so I let it pass.

Handrupp, Hansi’s, eyes were giving him trouble. If he went, a boy would have to go to lead him about, and, even so, would he be welcome in Paris if it were known that his daughter, old enough to know better, had run away with a German?

First names, it will be noticed, came last, and last names first, a relic of German order. Another incautious but evidently esteemed veteran, by name Bauer, Seppi, had fallen from a hayrick last summer and would never walk again. It was like looking at the back of the web of Fate, and I found myself wondering with somewhat of exasperation, “for this had a hero’s death at Gravelotte or Villersexel or Saint-Privat been denied him, where angels would have awaited his strong, young body to take it to the heaven of those who die for country?” Suddenly the dulce et decora of so dying was quite clear to me, and Bauer, Seppi, who fell from the hayrick last summer, and all his still extant contemporaries, had the tragic part—as would these men of the great war some forty or fifty years hence, who were now going about with an astonished yet proud consciousness that, ex millibus, they had been chosen and been spared.

But as Lavallée very justly remarked, “What would happen to the world if everybody died young?” I suppose he is right, and I bethought myself that there are those who must await threescore and ten before the reasons for their having been born are apparent; the “Tiger,” for instance, and Moses, and many others.

We then visited the curé, living at the very end of the village toward the lines. He was called from the church where he was hearing confessions, and Lavallée proceeded to ask him which of the schoolboys he recommended; wideawake ones, without, of course, being obstreperous, were wanted. Something, disappearing almost as swiftly as it came, passed over the curé’s face. It was a look of sudden, nearly overwhelming desire to go himself, and the immediate realization of the impossibility of that or anything else that meant change.

On the round center-table was a book, Deo Ignoto, and L’Echo de Paris. A little harmonium with manuscript-music on its rack was near the bed; on the walls were shiny lithographs of three popes, and an illuminated Lord’s Prayer in German. As the upper rooms of the house were “unhealthy,” on account of the raids and bombardments, the curé lived and breathed and had his being downstairs in this one room, with a rather boisterous yellow dog that kept sniffing at my gaiters. He was a large man, with a naturally masterful eye, who would have been at home in many places, occupied with many things, but he had lived, and would die, Curé of Gewenheim. And he at least owed the Germans a temporary widening of his activities, for Gewenheim is but three kilometers from the firing-line.

Then we crossed the muddy street to the schoolhouse to confer with the nuns concerning little girls, and were greeted by a dark-eyed, sparkling-faced Sister, very gifted by nature, who would have graced any drawing-room. There was something of elegance even in the way she had the washing of the stairs cease to allow us to pass up, and in the way she removed piles of coarse linen from the chairs in the room to which she conducted us. Then another Sister, not so bright, though she evidently ranked the gifted one, came in, and together they pondered the names of possible little girls. I had a feeling of being behind the scenes, and recognized how orderly and reasonable is the working of a so-often fortuitously appearing Fate, as they decided who should, or should not, take the journey to Paris. I thought, too, that it would have been well-nigh intolerable to me, had I been a little girl in Gewenheim, not to be among those chosen to go. But there was no longing on either of their faces. Especially the charming one radiated happiness and content. And how true that nothing can enter the heart that is not already there! I wondered if I, to whom so much of life is known—its glories and its miseries—possessed what that graceful woman had found in the dullest routine of duty imaginable. She knew whither she was bound, also whence she had come. In comparison, shaking, shifting, uneasy, appeared the compass of my life....

A bottle of quite sour white wine was produced and they watched Lavallée and myself drink; no escape possible.

They are of the Sisters of the Divine Providence with their mother-house at Ribeauville, who have taught in the schools of Alsace for generations.

After leaving them, we visited the inn, entering into the Gastzimmer through a tiny antechamber of a shop, where thread and candles and oil for lamps, socks, and a few other strict essentials were sold. The black-toothed, thin-haired landlady, Tritter by name, might have been of any age, but a handsome boy of fifteen or thereabouts, with a bad cough, calling her “Mother,” gave a possible limit. A good-looking, high-complexioned girl appeared breathless from a bethumbed back door, arranging two little curls under her ears. After the greetings, Lieutenant Lavallée said:

“Have you had any news of your daughter Odile?”

“Not since last winter from Colmar,” both mother and sister answer; “the parcels we sent her, they cost each fifteen francs, have not been received. She was hungry when she wrote.”

Then was poured out a confused story concerning the capture of a squad of Germans with their gun, in the autumn of 1914. A few days after the event the sisters had been standing in the street in front of their door, when a German officer came up and said to Odile, the younger:

“You are wanted for a moment.” She followed him to another officer on horseback, waiting in a field. They had not seen her since. Then it appeared that it was the baker’s wife who through jealousy had denounced the pretty Odile (the rôle of the baker himself was not indicated), but such an expression of hatred for the baker’s wife, rather than for the Germans, came over the mother’s visage that I was reminded of faces in pre-Raphaelite pictures—I mean those on the goat side in Judgment Day scenes. It was evidently one of those obscure yet ruthless village tragedies set in the frame of equally ruthless war.

When we came out we copied an old inscription over the house door of a man, Louis Vogler by name, who, returning from a campaign, had been decorated with the Legion of Honor in 1816, and had recorded the fact for all time over his door, his decoration even being carved in with the rest.

Evidently a man who, having done a deed, was not content that it should be writ only in water (or blood), but had it put squarely and clearly over the door of the house to which he returned; and was he not justified? For here it is being recorded some hundred years after, instead of having been carried away on the great river of Napoleonic deeds.

Then, through several wet villages, groups of girls with their felt slippers stuck into their clacking wooden sabots (very comfortable footgear, it appears) pass groups of blue-clad soldiers, and words are exchanged. I couldn’t hear, but by the looks accompanying them and the giggles I judged them to be the eternal words exchanged in all ages between soldiers and future mothers of the race. And there is a verse, old as the army, which runs:

Everywhere along the road, through the mist, detachments of blue-clad men would appear and disappear. I thought with a touch of sadness, an esthetic sadness, to be sure, that this extreme beauty of dissolving distances would be lost when the world of blue-clad men would have disappeared, replaced by men in shabby, nondescript, civilian clothes, or by des types à melon ou à tube—those wearing derby hats or cylinders.

Near Rodern, between some lines of poplars, a helmeted cavalryman, with his detachment, rode by on a great black horse. He was bending slightly forward, his lance in his hand, his eyes looking straight ahead, his ample, light-blue tunic almost concealing his saddle. He was a pure French type, pale of face, with black hair, black mustache, slanting nose, and I knew him for the archetypal Gallic warrior as he has appeared through the ages, making epics for France.

At Bourbach-le-Haut, Lieutenant Lavallée was to invite a last mayor to partake of the trip to Paris, and hunt up some remaining veterans. Whatever gentle thirst I had had for mayors and veterans being now quite slaked, I went to the little church, instead of to the Mairie. Through the half-open door came light and chanting sounds. I went in to find a dim interior, with an ancient arch framing the altar space, in front of which was a narrow, black coffin. Only some very old bit of mortality, waxy and shrunken, could lie within. Women, children, and what may have been veterans were saying the rosary in German—the Sorrowful Mysteries—and I thought on my dead, and on that dear and holy brother born into the world on this day long years ago. In Alsace he had desired and received, dreaming and adolescent, the baptismal waters.

Sadness invaded me, even as the dreary night was invading the day, and I would have groaned aloud, but I saw Lieutenant Lavallée standing by me. Haunted by the mournful chanting, with its mysterious indications, “Jetz und in der Stunde unseres Absterbens, Amen,” I passed out into falling night and rain; dark masses of mountain loomed up, lighter spaces were the stretching valleys. Soon we found ourselves on the deep road to Masevaux, I lonelier than the loneliest of the dark and hurrying clouds.