France Is Waiting
by MADAME X
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AUGUST 22, 1941. — This morning, at the grocer’s, somebody said very casually: “After all, we have been defeated; what we should do now is to follow the Maréchal. But there are ringleaders who stir the people, and everybody knows who is behind them.” Then, with my most innocent look, I answered, “You should listen to the English radio every day; it constantly warns us to keep quiet and not to shed blood uselessly.” As if bitten by a snake, stunned by surprise, she remained open-mouthed, speechless. In fact, I had answered her insinuation about those who drive the French into revolt. It freed my mind and I had only spoken the truth.
I had come to buy a bottle of wine that must last me ten days — by German order. It is more than I need, but for those who work in the fields and who are accustomed to another diet, it is not very much.
August 24. — There is gloom about everybody: we see starvation coming when the trains loaded with foodstuffs go up north. Poor Pétain! If you knew, or rather if he knew, how I pity him. The more difficulty Hitler has in Russia, the more exacting his demands wall be. How I envy England! She can fight and give vent to her rage; she will not be any more ruined than we who give every day four hundred million francs. And what a comfort to be able to act. Well, our turn will come, perhaps.
October 5. — The weather is perfect, without any sun or wind, very mild, with everything still in bloom, since no frost has come yet to wither the flowers.
Mile P. calls on me every evening from eight to nine. She is very religious and says we must pray more than ever, that it will turn the scales. When a woman of such sound judgment and of so little emotion speaks with such conviction, you are tempted to believe her; and even if you do not succeed, it helps you. She has been editor of a women’s magazine and sometimes she had to make up for the mistakes of associate editors who were no small fry. She has spoken in public many times, but has never really enjoyed it. She has exactly my ideas about the war. She was more dejected over collaboration than I was, but she is finally resigned, as you resign yourself to bad weather. After having lost her home at S. and all her belongings there, she lives here in a simplicity to which only mine is equal. The intrigues of the small town leave her almost indifferent, though she enjoys seeing the ridiculous side of them. She lives apparently without regret, sustained by a quiet hope which is like a little flame, faithful and persistent.
October 25. — You saw that three Germans were murdered? Fifty French have been shot and a hundred more await the same fate. If I did not have great pity — and you know to what degree — for these innocent victims and their families, I should rejoice over these measures that raise, between the Germans and us, an insuperable barrier.
October 28. — I do not know whether I express myself well enough; my thoughts are so confused sometimes. My mood has never been so uncertain — one day full of hope, the morrow discouraged; another day, between the two. I cannot help thinking of the burying of the troops of the Reich in the mud and snow, far from home and family, and I have to resist something like pity, as when you see on the side of the road a miserable creature left half crushed, dying in solitude.
November 5. — Monsieur L., the grocer, expects war between Japan and the United States next spring. He thinks that Japan will wait until Germany has finished up Russia and is able to lend her a hand. If it is so, I tremble for the United States; they are strong but they are not a warlike nation, for which I congratulate them, but it might cause them some worry. Has sufficient proof been given that the Germans needed years to prepare for the crushing of Europe?
German mothers and wives are learning what it means to lose those they love. If they are forbidden to weep in public it cannot be that their soul is not full of sorrow. It is not more victory they are waiting for, but the return of their dear ones — and how many will be missing!
November 11. — We have been forbidden to celebrate this anniversary. Do they imagine that we feel like it? We have prayed this morning for the dead of the other war and this one. But this eleventh of November is more comforting than the one of last year. It is cold in Russia. Yesterday the radio spoke of our great generals, quoted the watchword of Joffre, recalled the Battle of the Marne. What in the world is happening? Have we a right to speak of our past victories? Are we also permitted to wish for more in the future? I could not believe my ears.
Sept Jours is an illustrated weekly. In a recent issue they talk about a certain Lewis who is giving President Roosevelt plenty of trouble. He has won the support of five million fanatic trade-unionists. Roosevelt wants all-out help to England; Lewis detests and denounces the English upper classes. Roosevelt wants to arm America immediately and Lewis claims that the workers should have the right to control the industries, and that the profits should be limited. The conclusion of the article was very striking, though perhaps lacking many points: “Fight between two philosophies, two policies, two men.”
November 19. — They are stopped near Moscow, but for how long? The whole of Europe has been condemned to hard labor. Millions of prisoners provide German factories with manpower.
Something is taking place here that just breaks my poor heart with pity and indignation. All the statues of our great men (La Fontaine, Musset, Camille Desmoulins, not to mention others) that have the ill luck to be made of bronze are sent to the crucible for the purpose you can easily guess. Unfortunate La Fontaine! He knew humankind so well that he would not be surprised. The Wolf and the Lamb are always among us. If I could prevent that sacrilegious destruction, I should not, because it. stirs in people’s minds the feelings that will find a way to express themselves one day.
November 27. — The English radio gave an optimistic review of the general situation in Russia and Africa, and concluded: “What would be left to Hitler if he did not have Vichy?” I suppose there was some irony in it. I hold that the Vichy government is a very small thing and that Hitler does not have to ask its permission if he wants this or that. The clauses of the Armistice are a mere scrap of paper. Let the United States remember that before they bear us any grudge.
To tell the truth, Hitler does not cater to Vichy but to the French people; French opinion, reduced to such miserable means of expression, can still manage to raise its voice: one sentence printed here, a defiance to the Germans in Paris or elsewhere, an act of sabotage (and unfortunately they will multiply), and above all, that wall that surrounds the German in France and shuts him off from people always and everywhere. It is clear enough that these people refuse collaboration! Then the Germans will have to impose it upon them; but the moment is coming when Hitler will count his soldiers. The services of repopulation, so efficiently trained beyond the Rhine, do not work, however, in the same rhythm as the blitzkrieg — in spite of the official warnings to men on leave. So they must not let France slip down into violence; they must “talk” with Vichy.
But the English and the Americans who stare at Vichy with hypnotized eyes, how mistaken they are! Vichy is not France; Vichy will not change France. Vichy had its time of usefulness and perhaps of grandeur when France was spilling herself over the roads in immense confusion. But since that time, the country has grown in its hatred of the conqueror and its own consciousness of what it wants to save and to be. There is not one Frenchman who in His own way has not groped out of the darkness of defeat toward the beacon of our tradition and our future. Everyone remembers something, loves something, more than anything else; everyone longs for something. This multitude of wills, each one working by itself to express its preference and its hope, is now converging even though modern means of communication are lacking. Such unity was forged in the fifteenth century, and before. It is the mystery of the native soil and the sky that makes all these provinces into a unity; at a given moment, something that everyone feels in his blood swells, overflows, and sweeps away all our discords and our differences like bits of straw. That is behind Vichy; that, Vichy must keep in check. One time Pétain embodied the country, he still was Verdun; but since, everyone has lived his own Verdun. We no longer believe in the wisdom of old men.
December 7. — You should have seen me, awhile ago, trying a dance-step around the table. I went to B. yesterday and came back with a railway agent whose work takes him everywhere. He assured me that the chances of collaboration are dead. Everywhere people are ready to act when they are given the signal.
And this morning, at the seven o’clock Mass, Mile P. told me the impressions of her friend’s husband, who is in charge of the shipment of food between Paris and Marseille. The situation is more and more strained in the capital. The occupying forces are more and more hated. They are becoming like snarling dogs — a bad sign among victors. Wagnerian serenity seems to be deserting them. Finally, the opinion is spreading that Hitler will have in Russia the same fate as Napoleon.
Then, when I returned from Mass, realizing that I perhaps was not mistaken in my hopes, I could not resist my joy any longer and I have had to express it. My Lord! What a surge of my whole being when I think that it may be true, that we are not mistaken! I do not ask a victory in the Louis XIV style, with triumphal gates, but merely the failure of the Germans’ plans.
People speak of Polish men enlisted in Africa; their hatred is so great that it makes one fear for the inhabitants if they ever enter Germany.
December 8. — I have room for only one more line. The world is on fire this time; shall we have anything left to eat and a stone for our head?
December 14. — The battle will not be easy for the United States to win. One hundred million Japanese of complete sobriety, which makes strong men; iron discipline, a perfect organization, the conviction that they fight for their existence— that is more than they need to win success. But the others fight for their splendid share in the sun, and that will give them a courage that may reach heroism.
January 11, 1942. — The Swiss radio has made a general survey of the international situation. At the end the speaker proved that when peace is re-established spiritual values should be dominant and that the world then would need France. I lost myself in his words and for a minute I saw my country ruling the world, all the dreams of her poets come true, according to the ideals of liberty, justice, and beauty. I am always amazed that words can inspire us so much, even when we neither see nor know the one who pronounces them.
January 21.—Sept Jours has published an article about mobilization in the United States. It made a great stir. At the end the writer says: “The question is to know whether ‘materialism,’ which has become the religion of the United States, has not weakened the human quality of the soldier, for, in an army, morale is more important than matériel.” You can see the commonplaces and simplifications of the journalists; probably there is some truth in it. A letter from a German soldier in Russia speaks of “the struggle going on in that hell, sustained by the will to fight, friendship, and that inner spring which is the very essence of the conqueror.” A private writing these words! But I have a distrust of heroism, especially when it rises to these heights. Let us wait and see our young Germanic heroes in the delights of Capua after a secure conquest. Their virtue is obligation; their discipline, obedience.
January 26. — January is approaching its end; the cold has been terrible. It will take some time before America can take the offensive. And if the Japanese came to terms with the Chinese we should all turn as yellow as daffodils — including the Germans.
Those who did not like England must recognize that she is paying for her mistakes. Heavens, what a situation! Fought on every front, and without enough soldiers! The British Lion is having a bad time; but nothing is lost as long as Russia has her adversary on the run.
February 20. — Yesterday was market day. It had snowed during the night and then came a sharp frost. Not a single basket of vegetables in the market. Impossible to pull them. But — a most unusual thing — a woman had brought two ducks and she settled herself down to sell them. If it had been less cold I should have stayed to the end to see who took them. They certainly must have brought more than one hundred francs each. Think of it: meat without a ration card!
Let us hope that the wheat is not going to freeze!
They are trying to get food to Greece; everybody makes a great effort. They have evacuated nine thousand children from the country: one thousand are in Turkey, three thousand scattered in various places, and Switzerland, more admirable than ever, has taken the others.
March 9. — If I must leave this world before seeing you again, think that you have only missed seeing an old face and an old body, and that my soul keeps living in you.
I called on the J’s. We spoke of the bombings by England. I would not toll anybody but you that I was amused, entirely within myself. Imagine their indignation: France had stopped fighting; she had no choice and had to obey and work for the victors; but at least it was not war, and those who have chosen to fight on attack her. I do know that there are innocent victims, but their death will not be useless. I understand, perhaps better than those who are so indignant, in what a position France is going to find herself; but that position is not caused by the English: war made it inevitable.
This morning again they announced another bombing. I wish I could know whether I would feel the same if S. were a military objective. It seems to me I should, because those destructions mean that the fight has been resumed; there is something in them that gives courage and hope. And anyway, how would you explain, otherwise, the cheers and the acclamations of the Parisian population on the arrival of the British planes?
For such a long time we had been merely surviving; that was hard on me. What a complexity of things! In spite of the suffering the Armistice brought to me, I was relieved at the same time, as all the French were; for it gave satisfaction to a very deep and animal instinct to see that bloodshed had ceased. But things have changed and we change.
March 12. — Right now we are living through perhaps the most tragic time of the war. What is spring going to bring us? Apprehension has overtaken me; my friends in their turn try to cheer me up and it is my turn to be weak. I try to get the food I need; usually I succeed with a little help. They bring me some cottage cheese once a week and some vegetables for soup. The dandelions are here; I have them for dinner twice a week. One must help the women who pick them in the fields. It is true that anything edible can be sold. The Jerusalem artichokes that had been neglected for so long are very much sought; I have them twice a week, too. I hope you have all you need.
The German authorities have done everything to convince us that the bombings of Billancourt were a cruel thing, inhumane indeed. The French have received orders to show indignation, but the French hate to do anything by order. A memorial service has been celebrated in Notre Dame for the victims. German officers have expressed their “sympathy” and their disapproval of that unexpected act ol cruelty. One is a good Christian or not!
In Paris young men and even middle-aged men disappear mysteriously. Mothers and wives try to get an explanation from the German authorities. They are met by officers (because the soldiers are becoming scarce) who receive them with arrogance and irony: these men who have disappeared have been mobilized by compulsion for the Russian front.
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March 20. — I have finally succeeded in tuning in on Boston [Station WRUL]. These broadcasts are splendid and must not please the Germans too much. I see that they like France in America, that they understand her position, and that our people remain French.
All the French worthy of the name accept the bombings of factories and wait for more, even though it means, alas! more victims. But what can be done? War goes on. The Renault factories are completely destroyed and others, the names of which escape me, and whose owner is quoted as saying: “All work is stopped, but if that is necessary to drive the Germans out of France I shall not complain.”
France is magnificent in her fighting spirit. The Boston radio told us about SaintExupéry, Maritain, and others who “are bringing the knowledge and appreciation of French thought to the Americans.” You can imagine how all that warms my heart. It is the only country from which I wish our liberty to come. I know that it will be freely given. Anyway, we shall have paid dearly enough for it, but what is that if we are free one day?
March 25. — Every evening at ten o’clock, I am quite near you via the Boston radio. And what I heard last night seemed to me so fortifying that I could not restrain my tears (I am decidedly getting older). That great country at last sees the imperious motives that prevent the little one from showing its friendship, from following the impulse that carries its thought beyond the ocean, and from taking part — at least now — in the struggle that is being carried on to save liberty for the world. That impression is probably very sentimental and somewhat colored by illusion; but it was so spontaneous that I wanted to share it with you.
March 27. — I want to write this to you immediately and thus double my joy in it: this morning the Swiss radio told us that President Roosevelt, after the formal promise by the French government not to cede any base to any country and not to send any supplies to General Rommel, was going to resume the food shipment to North Africa. Think what that means! That great and generous country understands our position and the menace of a break with her is lessened.
April 2. — Well, the wheat has frozen in some areas; in many places it is too late to start again. When I saw the blanket of snow melting in the sun and then the temperature drop during the night, I was afraid it would happen. People said: “Wheat does not freeze so easily.” In the years of prosperity, no; but in years of disaster everything goes wrong, as if things, like people, were weakened in their power of resistance.
April 7. — We went for a walk in the fields along the D. I have picked a bunch of mauve flowers (I do not know their name) and daisies. I like to watch them. They are tightly closed when I get up to hear the Swiss radio; at ten o’clock these ladies begin to display their collar (as our poet says); then they show me their golden hearts until dusk comes. They do not receive orders from men; for them night is night, and day is day. They are lovely, fringed with pink.
April 19. — Laval is back in power; but I think that Pétain, who is still called the “Chief of State,” has “remembered to save the furniture,” as they say when there is a fire. Darlan is still head of the three powers — land, air, and navy — under the control of the Maréchal. I hope they will agree at least in the spirit of patriotism.
Jean Nohain, formerly known under the name of Jaboune, does not spare his efforts over the radio. I am reminded of a tale he was telling us yesterday. Three little children were about to come to the earth, but they had heard such horrible stories about our world that they implored God not to let them come if they could not be given a place where life would be bearable. God who listens to the prayers of small children (this is my personal addition) glanced at our planet and felt embarrassed. Then He said: “I have found that there still is, on that terrible globe, a country where the earth is good, the inhabitants human, the lakes blue and the fields green.” And he had the three small children born on the soil of France. It is a pretty tale, is it not? And told by Jean Nohain, you could believe it actually happened. He does not understand marriage without children; he has four himself, and one can see how he loves them. How I prefer things like that to the broadcasts where you find real French thought is completely missing, by order!
April 30. — The country waits while working, which is the best way of waiting. They are sending out a call for wheat. Is it hidden or is it really lacking as some say? However, he who is master of the hour pretends he had given us a recipe to avoid starvation. Probably the French did not apply it, or they thought the return of eight hundred thousand peasant prisoners would work out better. It will be hard to bridge the gap between the two crops. I am almost ashamed to have all I need.
There are buckwheat pancakes for sale. The fastidious swallow them making expressive faces, but I like them as a substitute for a missing piece of bread. I am fortunate in that I never was a great lover of delicate food.
The United States has half broken with our country. In fact the so-called Free Zone is just as much slave as the other; even here the Germans come and go every day. Until now I have been able to avoid seeing them. Every Friday evening, the Swiss radio gives an “international review.” The chief editor of the Journal de Genève was the chosen speaker recently. He drew a picture of France that would bring tears from your eyes. I think he was speaking partly for America when he recalled all that makes our unfortunate position: the length of the occupation, the daily indemnity, the deduction Germany levies on our whole production (60 per cent on French production, 80 per cent on importations), the interruption of trade, war going on on our soil, ceaseless bombings, victims of every kind, without our having the profit or the relief of taking part in it.
I should like to meet that man one day, to express to him my gratitude for his defense of our miserable country and for his disguised appeal to the compassion of those whose friendship is so precious to us — so precious that, although we expect no shipment of food from the United States, our heart is distressed when they announce that our relations have again become strained. How could we bear our hardships? It will be solitude, complete abandonment, if that country does not want to understand us.
May 3. — They say that Hitler may have decided to stop shooting the hostages; they may be sent to Germany and condemned to hard labor in every kind of job. If those rapacious people are not finally victorious, at least they will have done everything to make themselves known and liked as they deserve. The way he acts, one could believe that Hitler is advised by his enemies.
A man who lives in Paris comes here every other week on a business trip. He speaks German very well and takes advantage of it to talk to the Germans in occupation, all of them old and broken now, for the others are at the front. One of these interesting characters was telling Monsieur R. that their regime would end in murder, into which it already is walking knee-deep. Nobody is assured of saving his head, not even (or rather especially not) the chiefs. You may think it exaggerated, but the Parisians will have nothing to do with the air-raid shelters and they rush to the windows as soon as the air alarm is given.
May 11. — How often I heard these remarks whose meaning is always the same: Germany cannot win the last battle. A prisoner writes: “My cousin suffers from very serious internal disorders.” Another: “The bells are gone without hope of ever returning.” These two small sentences, very small, give us a very great hope. In 1918, the melting of the bells had taken place a short time before the collapse of Germany. But nothing definite yet in the communiqués; Germany announces the loss of a position only when she has taken it back.
May 14. — Never has there been so much celebrating, so much burning of incense to the memory of Jeanne d’Arc. It would be all very well to stick to our gratitude if there were not a flavor of submission to the enemy. To me there is only one enemy, against whom I wish we had a like heroine to oppose if these times could still produce such beings!
Boston gives us every night fifteen minutes of news; they tell me nothing that I do not know since I have listened to other stations before; but then comes another quarter of an hour of “political comments” that gives me the greatest curiosity. I never feel sleepy until after that country has given her interpretation of world events; I should rather say French events. France! I feel at the same time proud and moved and also distressed to see my country daily at the bar — moved by that friendship which I can feel sincere, but sorry that the great United States has to blame us. Don’t Americans know that they cannot ask the least thing from us without our being peremptorily forbidden to answer?
I notice that they are better informed than we are on what takes place in this martyred France. All the comments last night were about the victims who fall nearly every day, shot down by our masters. I did not realize that there were so many of them. In one week one hundred fifty hostages were executed. It is a small army that has paid with its life for France’s love of independence. Is the sorrow you feel when you lose your loved ones on the battlefield in any way comparable to your indignation and impotent fury? Then, let those who give us understanding and friendship stop asking what we cannot give; let them be satisfied with our wishes and our hopes, which are immense.
Last night, at seven, the Sovereign Pontiff spoke. The station gave us a beautiful translation of his exposé that was an appeal for peace; though he admitted that the time, alas! had not come yet. One sentence remains clearly in my mind: “There are peoples who take might for right. . . .” No possible ambiguity: the Pope is on the side of those whom injustice will always stir.
At noon the Swiss radio quoted a sentence from Stalin to the Poles: “After the war, you will have your country greater than ever, organized according to President Roosevelt’s desires. . . .” Courage is not what the Poles need, nor the Belgians, nor the Dutch. But the strength and the courage of somebody bound in chains are useless.
These days are dark; the end is coming. We are bowed down by fear; we do not dare to think seriously of the chances the world may have for liberation; we dare not reckon what looked, even recently, like a possibility. Happy are those whom something prevents from thinking. They will awake free or slaves, but they will not have suffered that terrible uncertainty.
June 28. — Events are becoming more disturbing. The Saint John’s Day celebration (they have re-established the feux de joie, never so badly named) has not succeeded in making us forget our great cares; I mean our workers sent to Germany. The occupying forces deprive us of raw material; factories must be closed; then unemployment; so that the order of Hitler looks like something reasonable; but in truth it is a horrible blackmail. To be obliged to accept that is the worst humiliation for French people.
July 25. — I had an opportunity to speak to Doctor S. I asked him whether his confidence was still unimpaired. “Absolutely,” he said. “I consider all the present military drawbacks as things of little importance. Since Germany did not win the war in 1941, she cannot win it now. It is impossible for her to fight victoriously against England and the United States together, whose power increases each day.” My hope strengthened by that statement; I felt lighthearted, and back home I could not help singing a little. As the neighbors had heard me, I told them why I felt so gay — not that I have to give them reasons for my conduct; but it is a good thing to spread these favorable impressions which live in everybody — with moments of doubt, it is true, but not too long, fortunately. We suffer so many miseries that only the thought of a total deliverance one day can make them bearable. I notice how some have changed, since the result of collaboration has been to send workers to Germany, instead of the Germans leaving France (as some naïve souls were expecting), and since the bombing of the Rhine has made the German population overflow on our soil — and to these every honor is due.
July 29. — I cannot tell you more of the pretty things Nohain was giving us over the radio. The broadcast, “Children Singing,” has been suppressed. No reason was given. In my opinion there was too much real gayety there. Probably we are not entitled to that hour when we could forget our position at a time when the nerves of our neighbors beyond the Rhine are strained to the breaking point — strange position for victors.
July 31. — At noon, Switzerland read us the Message from President Roosevelt on the occasion of their national day, which is tomorrow. The message is a picture of the man: he congratulates the little country for all the good it has done for the victims of war. I was wondering — queer idea — how I should feel if the same words had come from Hitler. But God Himself cannot make a circle a square, and that would be easier than to humanize Hitler. This very morning Hitler was warning England, through the voice of his acolytes. He does not advise her to attempt the opening of a second front; he wants her to realize how difficult the operation would be: “The English Army would not enter Berlin in triumph but in fetters.” I was waiting for the same counsels of caution concerning the air raids over Germany.
They say that in Paris the inhabitants do not miss one occasion of jeering at the official decrees. For instance, the Jews must wear a star of yellow fabric showing the word “Jew ” in black. So the Parisians have their dogs wear yellow collars with the name of the animal in black letters. How French that is, and how difficult for the Germans to understand, I suppose!
The other day I saw a woman with her two children. She was in tears; her husband, who was a prisoner, had succeeded in escaping. He was captured, and because he is a Jew his case is clear! How many tragedies of that kind! They are engulfed in the immense one in which we are involved; but those people suffer atrociously.
August 7. — I cry to America in my distress. They tel! us from Moscow that the situation is serious, very serious. Only one hope: that the United States, in their immense effort, make useless the victory that the Germans have won thus far over the Russians. Never have we been so miserable. I do not speak of the privations that we bear without complaint; I speak of the impossibility of reacting against the authority of the occupying forces. They send our workers to Germany, and, to make the servitude complete, they have just issued an order “allowing” the soldiers of our beautiful colonial army — once under Weygand, — to enlist for the eastern front “in order that France shall not keep aloof from that crusade against bolshevism, plague of civilized peoples.” In Paris and in the Occupied Zone, if a young man does not want to go, he has his food ration cards suppressed; that always works. People from Cologne and other cities bombed by the English overflow to our country. These are allowed to have double ration cards and priority everywhere; and you are requested not to show your disappointment if, when your turn has come, there is nothing left to be bought. When they reported this to me, I felt my heart jump with indignation — indignation that even I must repress; caution requires that you remain impassible.
The wife of an industrialist from the South was telling me that patriotism awakens in that region which I sometimes accused of passivity. There are priests who take it upon themselves to receive and place groups of young men from the Occupied Zone who prefer anything to the deportation to Germany. The farmers do all they can for these young people who had not studied to become farm hands. The same person also told me that the religious feeling is deepening, as a reaction against Nazi principles. Of course, all that gives pleasure and refreshes your soul a little; but I do not know whether the United States realizes clearly our situation: the Armistice does not exist any more; you must obey or starve to death. I remember the bitter tears I shed the day when, for the first time, I saw the word “collaboration” printed in the press. It was that day that we really were defeated; I could feel it so well! What is the use today of our patriotism? We must obey or see children die under the eyes of their mother; for there is no longer a father at home. Prisoner of a new king, he has been sent to the enemy factory or to some fighting line.
August 8. — Lately I was telling a peasant man (about fifty years old) that his difficulties would not always last. He answered in a tone that I cannot express: “Sure! And if it is the others who win (and his finger was pointing at the ground, which made me think that he meant the Germans) we shall have been well advised to get used to misery, because there will be nothing changed.” Is it not true? Could he be more clear-minded? And they all are like that. “ Why, Madame,” an old peasant woman told me, “we want to remain French; we, in the family, have always been French.” How much I like to hear them talk that way; it seems to me that we all are brothers.
August 14. — A landing of Allied troops? Many wish it, but think of what a possible failure would mean! A Jewish woman, belonging to a family that has been French for generations, listens to the American broadcasts that give her the courage to live. Imagine what she can expect — she and her relatives; in the Occupied Zone, they have been arrested — women on one side, men on the other, and the children apart without identification papers or anything else that would permit their parents to recognize them one day. I simply should lose my reason in such circumstances!
When the broadcasts from Boston, speaking of France, separate her from her government and promise her, whatever the latter may do, their understanding, they are right: they reach the common man. I just came across M. D.’s son. He asked me whether you still were “over there.” “Let ‘them’ come,” he said. “I will join them with all my heart, and I shall not be alone.”
I had dinner last night with the M’s. X. Y. had met the former Minister, and reported his saying that the end was not near yet, but that all fear of seeing the Axis win the victory over the rest of the world should be dismissed. That cast on the company that air of satisfaction that no other cause can produce these days. But really, is that hope justified, at a time when the Russians are pushed back, when the submarines, thicker than fish, are everywhere at the Allied ships — even down the Saint Lawrence, the Japanese announce?
August 17. — Sometimes, when I read again one of the pages I have written to you, I remain surprised at what I have said. Not that I disavow it, heaven knows! but because all that concerns France pours from me as my very breath, without my being conscious of it.
This morning a peasant man told me that, having seated himself for a bite, he had unwrapped his bread from a piece of newspaper and involuntarily had begun to read. What he read was this: Hitler tells the world that the whole of Europe will soon be his and will help him, willing or not, with all its resources; that the United States and England will have no power against it. And that man, who never reads the newspaper, had been struck by the air of truth of that article, and he was wondering what the future would be under these conditions. I tried to bring back the reassuring feeling that the words of X. Y. had given me. Of course, I “proved” to the peasant man that our press is under the orders of the victors, as are our food products and other things; that such a view could be inspired by the fear of defeat as well as by the hope of victory. Finally I reassured him, wondering myself to what extent I was right. France is in such misery that it hardly can be worse; unless real starvation comes, we cannot suffer more.
August 31. — At last this is the end of August. Quick, quick, let the months pass by and let the dawn of our liberation come. I have stood the suffering of our defeat; shall I stand the joy of our recovered liberty? There are quite a few “young” ones of my age, here, who ask themselves that question, so completely has our miserable heart lost the habit of being content.
An industrialist from Paris says that the Germans are going to empty the country like an eggshell; no doubt of it; but our soil, to which the soles of our shoes are stuck (our wooden shoes), will be enough for us to make a new start with a fresh courage.
September 3. — I suspect my grocer to be a collaborationist. The rations become more and more meager (125 grams of oil, 200 of butter, 500 of sugar, 140 of something that contains 20 grams of coffee, and that is all for one month). No more noodles, cheese, rice, etc. When he hands me my share, instead of complaining I exclaim: “All that! I who thought there would be nothing this month! How kind he (Hitler) is to us!” The man does not know whether I am joking or not; and his wife adds: “At least you understand things; you know we can do nothing.” And I return the answer of the peasant: “Yes, Madame, let us get used to misery, because if that regime lasts, it will last also.” I feel that the logic irritates them.
September 15. — The eleventh was the anniversary of the death of Guynemer, the famous French aviator; the speaker of “our ” radio, usually so sleepy, awoke to tell us about the hero; indeed, that breath from France, for a few minutes, seemed so pure that we felt vivified. During the day we met with “Did you ‘see’ Guynemer?” and we laughed thinking of that flame hidden at the bottom of our heart, rising at the first occasion. To the occupying forces, it was all Greek; that has nothing to do with their mentality. There you have the only happiness we have left: to meet somebody who thinks like us. I went to the attorney’s the other day; it did not take me long to see that he had my ideas; then what an outburst of talk, always the same. He has MeinKampf in the complete edition and lends it willingly, to give those who read it a foretaste of the amenities in store for them. We left each other with a transformed face.
But a wind of hope is blowing these days, because of the halting of Rommel in Egypt. D. the chimneyman, who had analyzed the situation so well at the time of the declaration of war from Japan to the United States, is entirely confident about the final issue. It is among these people that you find the soundest views; probably because they judge with their common sense, in all simplicity. How I admire these people who work with their hands, and whose clarity of vision no propaganda can ever obscure. They simply answer to the deceitful insinuations: Go ahead, keep on talking. But D. is not cautious enough; at the hour of the foreign broadcast, his radio set, very selective and powerful, can be heard in full blast through the open window, on the National Road, without the least tuning down; his modest position protects him against suspicion, but he should think of his son and his son-in-law ready to fire for our liberation.
September 20. — I return from the nine o’clock Mass; soon we shall hardly see enough to go to church at that time since nine will be seven the whole winter long. The Germans, who wish us to keep the most execrable memory of their passage, do not neglect a thing to that result. Of course this is nothing beside the executions, the number of which is increasing. You heard about that bomb which exploded at the Rex, that famous motion-picture house on the Champs Élysées where I never went. Its colossal appearance was to please those gentlemen as a temple fit for their reunions. In short, the bomb made one dead and several wounded, for whom we shall have to pay.
They expect a hard winter here. But what else can we do but suffer, when we cannot defend ourselves. If countries, as individuals, grow through trial, ours will be immense, after the war. But we must learn how to suffer with profit.