before the war madame was very close to the queen. she lived in our quarter of brussels; we became friends. and how generous the friendship between a belgian and an american can be, only the members of the commission for relief truly know! it is swift and complete.
i had been in brussels five months when she said to me one day:
[106]
“my dear, i understand only too well the difficulties of your position—the guaranty you gave on entering. as you know, i have never once suggested that you carry a note for me, or bring a message—tho i have seen you starting in your car behind your blessed little white flag for the city of my daughter and my grandchildren! nor have i,” she laughed, with the swift play so typical of the belgian mind, “once hinted at a pound of butter or a potato! but lately i have been suffering so many, many fears, that i am tempted just to ask if you think this would be wrong for you—if it would, forget that i asked it: i have a relation who has always been closer to me than a brother—we were brought up together. he is eighty-two now, and, at the beginning of the war, was living near x in occupied france. he was important in his district, his name is known. now, if i should merely give you that name, and, when you next see your american delegate from that district, you should speak it, might it not be possible that he would recognize it, and could tell you if my dear, dear m. is suffering, or if he is yet able to care for himself? would that be breaking your agreement?”
[107]
as she stood there—intelligence, distinction speaking from all her person—fearfully putting this pitiful question, i experienced another of those maddening moments we live through in belgium. one swiftly doubts one’s reason—the situation—everything! the world simply can not be so completely lost as it seems!
mercifully this would not be breaking any promise; and i begged for the name.
but even then i was rather hopeless that our american would know. in the north of france he must live with his german officer; he is not free to mingle with the french people.
thursday, conference day, came, when all the little white flags rush in from their provinces, bringing our splendid american men—their faces stern, strained, but with that beautiful light in them that testifies they are giving without measure the best they have to others.
[108]
never will any one, who has experienced it, forget the thrill he felt when he saw those fifteen cars with their forty-two men rushing up, one after the other to 66, rue des colonies, nor the line of them all day on the curb with their fluttering white flags carrying the red c. r. b.! there were no other cars to be seen. each person, as he passed, knew that these fifteen white flags meant wheat and life to 10,000,000 people.
as i stood there i heard a band. i looked up the street and saw the german soldiers goose-stepping before their guard mount. this happens every morning, just a square above our offices. the white flags and the goose-step—they pretty much sum up the situation!
i hurried inside, hoping fervently to hear the longed-for answer, as i put the name and my question.
but the name was strange to s., he [109]could tell me nothing, tho he felt sure that by keeping his ears open that week, he might learn something.
how often through those days i thought of these two, caught in this war-night of separation. for two and a half years neither had been able to call across it even the name of the other. and then of the word thrown into the night with hope and prayer!
on the next meeting day, as he hurried toward me, i could see from s.’s face that he had news. “yes,” he said eagerly, “he is still there, he draws his ration—he is not suffering from want, he has enough left to pay for his food. but when he heard that somebody would possibly carry this news to his dearest living relation, he cried: [110]‘oh! would it not be possible to do just one thing more! i am eighty-two; i may die before this terrible war is ended. in pity will not somebody tell me before i die if any of my nieces has had a little baby, or if any one of them is going to have a little baby?’”
“and now,” s. said, “you and i know that if the relief stops, we’ve got to find out for that poor old man that there is a baby!”
and i went about it. on thursday, when he rushed over to me i could call: “yes, there is one! it’s gabrielle’s! a little girl, five months old and doing beautifully!”
“hurrah!” he shouted, and hurried back to his tons and calories.
it is four months since then, and i do not know if there are any more babies, or if that old gentleman of a distinguished house has had any other than this single connection with the loved ones of this family in over two and a half years.
