"How is that! . . . No letters at all! You must be
mistaken, my boy. Look. . . look again. . . ."
He made the mailman search in his letter bag, untie the bundles and go through them again. . . .
"Nothing! . . . Why it's impossible!
And he would return to the kitchen, seat himself in the rocking chair heaving a sigh:
"Just think of it," he would say to Marie who gave him a bowl of milk, "just think of it, Marie, if his poor mother had been alive!"
During the day, when in town, he used to visit people who had sons in the army; the conversation was always the same.
"Well, have you heard from your boys."
"Why, no, M'sieur Mintié. How about you, have you heard anything from Jean?"
"I haven't either."
"That's very strange. How is it possible? . . . Can you explain it? . . ."
That they themselves did not get any letters only half surprised them, but that Mintié, the mayor, had not received any either, surprised them very much. Most unusual conjectures were made; they turned to the confusing statements of the papers, they questioned old soldiers who told them their war experiences with the most extravagant and lavish details; at the end of a couple of hours, they would part with lighter hearts.
"Don't worry M'sieur Mayor. You'll see him back a colonel, sure."
"Colonel, colonel!" my father would say, shaking his head . . . "I don't ask that much . . . Just so he comes back! . . . "
One day—nobody knew how that happened—Saint-Michel found itself full of Prussian soldiers. The Priory was occupied. Long sabres were found in our
