every station, as well as the ordinary staff, we started seeing an officer giving orders.
As we belonged to none of these categories, we kept being shunted into a siding to make room.
Once I overheard a telephone conversation in a pretty station red with geraniums, where a dog was stretched out across the doorway of the stationmaster’s office. The stationmaster, who was feeling hot, had pushed his cap back and was toying with his flag, which was lying on the desk.
“Is that you, Dambois?”
Another stationmaster explained to me that this wasn’t an ordinary telephone. If I remember rightly, it is called the block telephone and you can only speak to and hear thenearest station on it. That is how notice of a train’s approach is given.
“How are things with you?”
There were some hens behind some chicken wire, just like at home, and a well-kept garden. The stationmaster’s wife was doing the rooms upstairs and came to the window now and then to shake her duster.
“I’ve got the 237 here … I can’t keep them much longer, because I’m expecting the 161 … Is your siding free? … Is Hortense’s café open? … Tell her she’s going to have a crowd of customers … Right! … Thanks … I’ll send it on to you …”
The result was that we spent three hours in a tiny station next to an inn painted pink. The tables were taken by storm. Everybody drank. Everybody ate. Anna and I stayed outside, under a pine tree, and at times we felt embarrassed at having nothing to say to each other.
If I had to describe the place, I could only talk of the patches of sunshine and shadow, of the pink daylight, of the green vines and currant bushes, of my feeling of torpor and animal well-being, and I wonder whether, that particular day, I didn’t get as close as possible to perfect happiness.
Smells existed as they had in my childhood, the quivering of the air, the imperceptible noises of life. I think I have said this before, but as I am not writing all at one go but scribbling a few lines here, a page or two there, in secret, on the sly, I am bound to repeat myself.
When I began my story, I was tempted to start with a foreword, for sentimental rather than practical reasons. You see, at the sanatorium the library consisted mainly of books dating back before 1900, and it was the fashion for authors in the last century to write a foreword, an introduction, or a preface.
The paper in those books, yellow and speckled with brown spots, was thicker and shinier than in present-day books, and they had a pleasant smell which, for me, has clung to the characters in the novels. The black cloth of the bindings was as shiny as the elbows of an old jacket, and I found the same cloth again in the public library at Fumay.
I dropped the idea of a foreword for fear of seeming conceited. It is true that I may repeat myself, get mixed up, even contradict myself, for I am writing this mainly in the hope of discovering a certain truth.
As for the events which don’t concern me personally, I record them, when I witnessed them, to the best of my recollection. To find certain dates I would have had to look up the back numbers of the newspapers, and I don’t know where to find them.
I am sure about the date of Friday the 10 th , which must be in the history books now. I am sure too, more or less, about the itinerary we followed, although, even on the train, some of my companions started mentioning names of stations which we hadn’t seen.
A road which was deserted in the morning, in those days, could be swarming with life an hour later. Everything went terribly fast and terribly slowly. People were still talking about fighting in Holland when the Panzers had already reached Sedan.
Again, my memory may occasionally play tricks on me. As I said about the last morning at Fumay, I could reconstruct certain hours minute by minute, whereas with others I can only remember the general atmosphere.
It was like that on the train,
As we belonged to none of these categories, we kept being shunted into a siding to make room.
Once I overheard a telephone conversation in a pretty station red with geraniums, where a dog was stretched out across the doorway of the stationmaster’s office. The stationmaster, who was feeling hot, had pushed his cap back and was toying with his flag, which was lying on the desk.
“Is that you, Dambois?”
Another stationmaster explained to me that this wasn’t an ordinary telephone. If I remember rightly, it is called the block telephone and you can only speak to and hear thenearest station on it. That is how notice of a train’s approach is given.
“How are things with you?”
There were some hens behind some chicken wire, just like at home, and a well-kept garden. The stationmaster’s wife was doing the rooms upstairs and came to the window now and then to shake her duster.
“I’ve got the 237 here … I can’t keep them much longer, because I’m expecting the 161 … Is your siding free? … Is Hortense’s café open? … Tell her she’s going to have a crowd of customers … Right! … Thanks … I’ll send it on to you …”
The result was that we spent three hours in a tiny station next to an inn painted pink. The tables were taken by storm. Everybody drank. Everybody ate. Anna and I stayed outside, under a pine tree, and at times we felt embarrassed at having nothing to say to each other.
If I had to describe the place, I could only talk of the patches of sunshine and shadow, of the pink daylight, of the green vines and currant bushes, of my feeling of torpor and animal well-being, and I wonder whether, that particular day, I didn’t get as close as possible to perfect happiness.
Smells existed as they had in my childhood, the quivering of the air, the imperceptible noises of life. I think I have said this before, but as I am not writing all at one go but scribbling a few lines here, a page or two there, in secret, on the sly, I am bound to repeat myself.
When I began my story, I was tempted to start with a foreword, for sentimental rather than practical reasons. You see, at the sanatorium the library consisted mainly of books dating back before 1900, and it was the fashion for authors in the last century to write a foreword, an introduction, or a preface.
The paper in those books, yellow and speckled with brown spots, was thicker and shinier than in present-day books, and they had a pleasant smell which, for me, has clung to the characters in the novels. The black cloth of the bindings was as shiny as the elbows of an old jacket, and I found the same cloth again in the public library at Fumay.
I dropped the idea of a foreword for fear of seeming conceited. It is true that I may repeat myself, get mixed up, even contradict myself, for I am writing this mainly in the hope of discovering a certain truth.
As for the events which don’t concern me personally, I record them, when I witnessed them, to the best of my recollection. To find certain dates I would have had to look up the back numbers of the newspapers, and I don’t know where to find them.
I am sure about the date of Friday the 10 th , which must be in the history books now. I am sure too, more or less, about the itinerary we followed, although, even on the train, some of my companions started mentioning names of stations which we hadn’t seen.
A road which was deserted in the morning, in those days, could be swarming with life an hour later. Everything went terribly fast and terribly slowly. People were still talking about fighting in Holland when the Panzers had already reached Sedan.
Again, my memory may occasionally play tricks on me. As I said about the last morning at Fumay, I could reconstruct certain hours minute by minute, whereas with others I can only remember the general atmosphere.
It was like that on the train,
Similar Books
