She could see herself no taller than
the nursery fireguard, with round eyes to which every bright thing was a
desire. She could feel herself very small amid the bustle and clatter of
Christmas, blowing dark breath marks against the bright silver on the
table, pulling the fringe round the iced cake, wetting her finger and
picking up "hundreds and thousands" with it from a bag.
These postcards now in front of her were made by some one with the mind
of a child. It struck and shook her violently with memory to see them.
"That's why the Germans write good fairy stories!" she thought, and her
eyes passed to the framed photographs that hung near the postcards,
pictures of soldiers in uniform, sitting at a table with the two
daughters of the house. But these wooden faces, these bodies pressing
through unwieldy clothes seemed unrelated to the childish postcards.
She went contentedly to her bed, the room, bare of all her belongings,
except the one bag that stood, filled and open, upon the table; sleeping
for the last time in the strange bed in the strange town which she might
never see again. It was time indeed to go.
For days past civilians had crept through the gates of Metz, leading old
horses, drawing ramshackle carts filled with mattresses, faded silk
chairs, gilt ormolu stands, clocks and cloaks and parrot cages; all the
strange things that men and women use for their lives.
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