Soldiers -- Fiction; War stories; World War, 1914-1918 -- Fiction
“In that case it's not worth living,” said Andrews in a savage voice,
holding himself in.
They went on eating silently. The sky became overcast. A few drops
splashed on the table-cloth.
“We'll have to take coffee inside,” said Andrews.
“And you think it is funny that people shoot at a man on a motorcycle
going through a wood. All that seems to me terrible, terrible,” said
Jeanne.
“Look out. Here comes the rain!”
They ran into the restaurant through the first hissing sheet of the
shower and sat at a table near a window watching the rain drops dance
and flicker on the green iron tables. A scent of wet earth and the
mushroom-like odor of sodden leaves came in borne on damp gusts through
the open door. A waiter closed the glass doors and bolted them.
“He wants to keep out the spring. He can't,” said Andrews.
They smiled at each other over their coffee cups. They were in sympathy
again.
When the rain stopped they walked across wet fields by a foot path full
of little clear puddles that reflected the blue sky and the white-and
amber-tinged clouds where the shadows were light purplish-grey. They
walked slowly arm in arm, pressing their bodies together. They were very
tired, they did not know why and stopped often to rest leaning against
the damp boles of trees. Beside a pond pale blue and amber and silver
from the reflected sky, they found under a big beech tree a patch of
wild violets, which Jeanne picked greedily, mixing them with the little
crimson-tipped daisies in the tight bouquet. At the suburban railway
station, they sat silent, side by side on a bench, sniffing the flowers
now and then, so sunk in languid weariness that they could hardly summon
strength to climb into a seat on top of a third class coach, which was
crowded with people coming home from a day in the country. Everybody
had violets and crocuses and twigs with buds on them. In people's stiff,
citified clothes lingered a smell of wet fields and sprouting woods.
All the girls shrieked and threw their arms round the men when the train
went through a tunnel or under a bridge. Whatever happened, everybody
laughed. When the train arrived in the station, it was almost with
reluctance that they left it, as if they felt that from that moment
their work-a-day lives began again. Andrews and Jeanne walked down the
platform without touching each other. Their fingers were stained and
sticky from touching buds and crushing young sappy leaves and grass
stalks. The air of the city seemed dense and unbreathable after the
scented moisture of the fields.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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