Oh, strange and tragic spring, of this year 1915! Was it possible that,
while Nature was preparing her beauty for the earth, and was busy in
the ways of life, men should be heaping her fields with death, and
drenching this fair earth with blood?
One could not forget. Even in Paris away from the sound of the guns
which had roared in my ears a week before, and away from the moan
of the wounded which had made my ears ache worse than the noise
of battle, I could not forget the tragedy of all this death which was
being piled up under the blue sky, and on fields all astir with the life of
the year.
In the Tuileries gardens the buds were green. But there were black
figures below them. The women who sat there all the afternoon,
sewing, and knitting, or with idle hands in their laps, were clothed in
widows' black. I glanced into the face of one of these figures as I
passed. She was quite a girl to whom the spring-song should have
called with a loud, clear note of joy. But her head drooped and her
eyes were steadfast as they stared at the pathway, and the sunshine
brought no colour into her white cheeks... She shivered a little, and
pulled her crepe veil closer about her face.
Down the broad pathway between the white statues came a
procession of cripples.
Pages:
409
410
411
412
413
414
415
416
417
418
419
420
421
422
423
424
425
426
427
428
429
430
431
432
433