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gardener wanted to know whether there were still many to
come, and he was thirsty besides, with the sun beating down
upon his head. So then, suddenly, his daughter would leap
out, as though from a beleaguered city, would make a sortie,
turn the street corner, and, having risked her life a hundred
times over, reappear and bring us, with a jug of liquorice-
water, the news that there were still at least a thousand of
them, pouring along without a break from the direction of
Thiberzy and Méséglise. Françoise and the gardener, having
‘made up’ their difference, would discuss the line to be fol-
lowed in case of war.
‘Don’t you see, Françoise,’ he would say. ‘Revolution
would be better, because then no one would need to join in
unless he liked.’
‘Oh, yes, I can see that, certainly; it’s more straightfor-
ward.’
The gardener believed that, as soon as war was declared,
they would stop all the railways.
‘Yes, to be sure; so that we sha’n’t get away,’ said Fran-
çoise.
And the gardener would assent, with ‘Ay, they’re the cun-
ning ones,’ for he would not allow that war was anything
but a kind of trick which the state attempted to play on the
people, or that there was a man in the world who would not
run away from it if he had the chance to do so.
But Françoise would hasten back to my aunt, and I
would return to my book, and the servants would take their
places again outside the gate to watch the dust settle on the
pavement, and the excitement caused by the passage of the

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