Selected Writings of Gertrude Stein (82 page)

The next tiling was that General Weygand was appointed the head of the army and he said if they could hold out a month it would be all right. Nobody said anything. Nobody mentioned Gamelin’s name—nobody.

I once said to a farmer that Gamelin’s nose was too short to make a good general, in France you have to have a real nose, and he laughed; there was no secrecy about anything, but there was nothing to say.

We had the habit of going to Chambéry to do our shopping once a week; we always went on Tuesdays because that suited best in every way, and so it was Tuesday, and nobody was very cheerful. We had a drink in a café, Vichy for me and pineapple juice for Alice Toklas, and we heard the radio going. ‘What’s the news?’ we asked mechanically. ‘Amiens has fallen,’ said the girl.

‘Let’s not believe it,’ I said; ‘you know they never hear it straight.’ So we went to the news bulletin, and there it was not written up, and we said to the girl in charge, ‘You know, they are putting out false news in the town; they told us Amiens was taken.’ ‘No,’ she said, ‘but I will go and ask.’ She came back; she said, ‘Yes, it is true.’

We did not continue shopping, we just hurried home.

And then began the series of Tuesdays in which Paul Reynaud in a tragic voice told that he had something grave to announce.

That was that Tuesday.

And the next Tuesday was the treason of the Belgian king.

And he always announced it the same way, and always in the same voice.

I have never listened to the radio since.

It was so awful that it became funny.

Well, not funny, but they did all want to know if next Tuesday Paul Reynaud would have something grave to announce.

And he did.

‘Oh dear, what a month of May!’ I can just hear Paul Reynaud’s voice saying that.

Madame Pierlot’s little granddaughter said not to worry, it was the month of the Virgin, and nothing begun in the month of Virgin could end badly; and the book of prophecy had predicted every date, but exactly. I used to read it every night; there was no mistake, but he said each one of these
days was a step on in the destruction of the Third Reich, and here we were: I still believed, but here we were, one Tuesday after another; the dates were right, but oh dear!

Of course, as they were steadily advancing, the question of parachutists and bombing became more active. We had all gotten careless about lights, and wandering about, but now we were strict about lights, and we stayed at home.

II

I had begun the beginning of May to write a book for children, a book of alphabets with stories for each letter, and a book of birthdays—each story had to have a birthday in it— and I did get so that I could not think about the war but just about the stories I was making up for this book. I would walk in the daytime and make up stories, and I walked up and down on the terrace in the evening and made up stories, and I went to sleep making up stories, and I pretty well did succeed in keeping my mind off the war except for the three times a day when there was the French communiqué, and that always gave me a sinking feeling in my stomach, and though I slept well every morning I woke up with that funny feeling in my stomach.

The farmers who were left were formed into a guard to wander about at night with their shotguns to shoot parachutists if they came. Our local policeman, the policeman of Belley, lives in Bilignin, and he had an up-to-date anti-parachutist’s gun. He did not look very martial and I said to him, ‘What are you going to do with it?’ and he said, ‘I—I am not afraid.’ Well, Frenchmen are never afraid, but they do like peace and their regular daily life. So now nobody talked about the war; there was nothing to say about that. They talked about parachutists and Italy and that was natural enough—we are right here in a corner made by Italy and Switzerland.

The women did say, ‘They are advancing all the time, the rascals,’ but the men said nothing. They were not even sad; they just said nothing.

And so that month was almost over; and then one day, it was a Sunday, I was out walking with Basket just before
lunch, and as I came up the hill Emil Rosset and the very lively servant they had, who had been with them for twenty-five years and had had a decoration and reward by the government for faithful service on a farm, and who in spite of all that is very young and lively, were sta ding pointing and said, ‘Mademoiselle! Mademoiselle! Did you see them?’ ‘What?’ I said. ‘The airplanes—the enemy airplanes! There they go, just behind the cloud!’

Well, I just did not see them; they had gone behind the clouds.

There were eight, they told me, and were flying very feebly.

We have a range of hills right in front of the terrace; on the other side of these hills is the Rhone, and that is where they had come from.

Of course we were all really excited; enemy airplanes in a city are depressing, but in the open country, with wooded hills all around, they are exciting.

We have several very religious families in Bilignin and one with four girls and a boy, and they all go into Belley to Mass, and Madame Tavel said to me, ‘I knew it’—it was her day to stay home with the animals—‘I knew it: they always come on Sunday and burn the church.’ She had been a young girl in French Lorraine in the last war and met her husband there, who had been a prisoner.

‘But,’ she said, ‘of course we have to go to Mass just the same.’

It was she who later on said to her little girl, who was to go out into the fields with the cows and who was crying, Madame Tavel said, ‘Yes, my little one, you are right to cry. Weep. But, little one, the cows have to go, and you with them all the same.
Tu as raison, pleures, ma petite
.’

We went over to Culoz, which is about twelve kilometres away, to see our friends and to hear the news. Culoz is the big railroad station in this part of the world where trains are made up for various directions, and there they had dropped bombs. All the veterans of Culoz turned out to see the bombs drop and they were disappointed in them; they found them to be bombs of decidedly
deuxième catégorie
, very second-rate indeed.

It was the only time we had bombs really anywhere near us, and one of the German airplanes was brought down near a friend’s house not far away and a country boy seventeen years old brought in the aviators, and it was a pleasant interlude, and we could all talk again and we had something to talk about and the veterans all were very pleased for the first time in this war; one of our friends remarked that it really was a
fête pour les anciens combattants.

The war was coming nearer. The mayor of Belley came to Bilignin to tell the mothers that two of their sons were killed.

It was sad; they were each one the only sons of widows who had lost their husbands in the last war, and they were the only ones, now the war is over we know, who were killed anywhere in this countryside.

They were both hard-working quiet fellows twenty-six years old, and had gone to school together and worked together and one of them had just changed his company so as to be near the other, and now one bomb at the front bad killed them both.

That month was over and June was commencing.

I had finished the child’s book and had settled down to cutting the box hedges. We have what they call a
jardin de curé
, with lots of box hedges and little paths and one tall box pillar, and I found that cutting box hedges was almost as soothing as sawing wood. I walked a great deal and I cut box hedges, and every night I read the book of prophecy and went promptly to sleep.

And none of us talked about the war because there was nothing to say.

The book of prophecy once more gave the significant days for June and they were absolutely the days that the crucial events happened, only they were not the defeat of Germany but the downfall of France.

It made me feel very Shakespearean—the witches’ prophecy in
Macbeth
about the woods marching and Julius Cæsar and the Ides of March; the twentieth century was just like that and like nothing else.

And then Italy came into the war and then I was scared, completely scared, and my stomach felt very weak, because
—well, here we were right in everybody’s path; any enemy that wanted to go anywhere might easily come here. I was frightened; I woke up completely upset. And I said to Alice Toklas, ‘Let’s go away.’ We went into Belley first and there were quantities of cars passing, people getting away from Besançon, both of us and all the Belleysiens standing and looking on; and I went to the garage to have my car put in order and there were quantities of cars getting ready to leave, and we had our papers prepared to go to Bordeaux and we telephoned to the American consul in Lyon and he said, I’ll fix up your passports. Do not hesitate—leave.’

And then we began to tell Madame Roux that we could not take Basket with us and she would have to take care of him, but not to sacrifice herself to him; and she was all upset and she said she wished we were away in safety but that we would not leave, and she said the village was upset and so were we, and we went to bed intending to leave the next morning.

I read the book of predictions and went to sleep.

The next morning I said, ‘Well, instead of deciding let us go to see the
préfet
at Bourg and the American consul at Lyon.’

We went; it was a lovely day, the drive from Bourg to Lyon was heavenly. They all said, ‘Leave,’ and I said to Alice Toklas, ‘Well, I don’t know—it would be awfully uncomfortable and I am fussy about my food. Let’s not leave.’ So we came back, and the village was happy and we were happy and that was all right, and I said I would not hear any more news—Alice Toklas could listen to the wireless, but as for me I was going to cut box hedges and forget the war.

Well, two days after when I woke up, Alice Toklas said sooner or later we would have to go.

I did not have much enthusiasm for leaving and we had not had our passports visaed for Spain, and the American consul had told us we could, so I said, ‘Let’s compromise and go to Lyon again.’

The car’s tire was down and Madame Roux said, ‘You see, even the car does not want to leave.’

Just then Balthus and his wife came along; they had come
down from Paris, sleeping two days in their little car, and they were going to their summer home in Savoy and after, if necessary, to Switzerland, Madame Balthus being Swiss. Well, anyway we went to Lyon.

On the way back we were stopped every few minutes by the military; they were preparing to blow up bridges and were placing anti-aircraft guns and it all seemed very near and less than ever did I want to go on the road.

And at the same time when Alice Toklas would say about some place on the road, ‘Look, what a lovely house that is!’ I said, ‘I do not want to look at it—it is all going to be destroyed.’

So just before we got to Belley, at a little village near a little lake, there were Doctor and Madame Chaboux.

‘What,’ said we, stopping, ‘are you doing here?’

‘We are paying for our year’s fishing rights,’ they said, ‘and you?’ said they. ‘Well,’ said we, ‘we are trying to make up our minds what to do, go or stay.’

‘Now,’ said I, ‘tell me, Doctor Chaboux, what shall I do?’

‘Well, we stay,’ said they. ‘Yes,’ said I, ‘but a doctor is like a soldier—he has to stay.’

‘Yes,’ said they.

‘But now how about us? Should we or should we not?’

‘Well,’ said Doctor Chaboux, reflecting, ‘I can’t guarantee you anything, but my advice is stay. I had friends,’ he said, ‘who in the last war stayed in their homes all through the German occupation, and they saved their homes and those who left lost theirs. No,’ he said, ‘I think unless your house is actually destroyed by a bombardment, I always think the best thing to do is to stay.’ He went on, ‘Everybody knows you here; everybody likes you; we all would help you in every way. Why risk yourself among strangers?’

‘Thank you,’ we said, ‘that is all we need. We stay.’

So back we came and we unpacked our spare gasoline and our bags and we said to Madame Roux, ‘Here we are and here we stay.’

And I went out for a walk and I said to one of the farmers, ‘We are staying.’

‘
Vous faites bien
,’ he said, ‘
mademoiselle.
We all said,
“Why should these ladies leave? In this quiet corner they are as safe as anywhere,” and we have cows and milk and chickens and flour and we can all live and we know you will help us out in any way you can and we will do the same for you. Here in this little corner we are
en famille
, and if you left, to go where?—
aller, où?’

And they all said to me, ‘
Aller, où
?’ and I said, ‘You are right—
aller, où?
’

We stayed, and dear me, I would have hated to have left.

III

The Kiddie has just written me a letter from America and he says in it, ‘We have been wondering what the end of war in France will mean for you, whether you could endure staying there or the exact opposite, whether you could endure not staying there.’

So I said to Alice Toklas, ‘I am cutting the hedges, even the very tall one on a ladder, and I am not reading the prediction book any more, and I am walking and I am not knowing what the news is,’ and Alice Toklas began making raspberry jam—it was a wonderful raspberry year—and the long slow days passed away.

They did not really pass.

One day I said to her, ‘Ten days ago when we were in Lyon,’ and she said, ‘Nonsense, it was three days ago.’ Well, it seemed like ten, but the days all the same did pass one day at a time.

In the afternoons Basket and I always walked.

We walked in the country roads and every now and then a little girl would appear through the bushes; she was sitting with the cows and knitting, but when she heard us she came to the road. They are often blue-eyed, the little girls, as we are in the hills, and hills seem to make people’s eyes blue, and she would say, ‘How do you do, Mademoiselle?
Vous êtes en promenade
—you are out for a walk,’ and I would say, ‘Yes, it is a nice day,’ and she would say, ‘Yes,’ and I would say, ‘And you are alone,’ and she would say, ‘Yes, my mother was here, but she went home—perhaps she will come again.’ and then she would say, ‘And have you heard the airplanes?’ and
I would say, ‘No, have you?’ and she would say, ‘Oh yes,’ and I would say, ‘Were they German or French?’ and she would say, ‘I do not know,’ and I would say ‘Perhaps they are French,’ and she would say, ‘Perhaps,’ and then I would say good-bye and she would say good-bye and disappear back through the bushes into the field, and it was always the same conversation and it was a comfort to us both, to each little girl and to me.