The pathetic hunger of these people for one another after they have
been so long divided, was illustrated for me on my return journey to
Paris. A man of the tradesman class had been to Evian to meet his wife
and his boy of about eleven. They were among the lucky ones, for they
had a home to go to. He was not prepossessing in appearance. He had a
weak face, lined with anxiety, broken teeth and limp hair. His wife,
as so often happens in French marriages, had evidently been the
manageress. She was unbeautiful in rusty black; her clothes were the
ill-assorted make-shifts of the civilian who escapes from Germany. Her
eyes were shifty with the habit of fear and sunken with the weariness
of crying. The boy was a bright little fellow, full of defiance and
anecdotes of his recent captors.

When I entered the carriage, they were sitting huddled together--the
man in the middle, with an arm about either of them. He kept pressing
them to him, kissing them by turn in a spasmodic unrestrained fashion,
as if he still feared that he might lose them and could not convince
himself of the happy truth that they were once again together. The
woman did not respond to his embraces; she seemed indifferent to him,
indifferent to life, indifferent to any prospects. The boy seemed fond
of his father, but embarrassed by his starved demonstrativeness.

I listened to their conversation. The man's talk was all of the
future--what splendid things he would do for them. How, as long
as they lived, he would never waste a moment from their sides. It
appeared that he had been at Tours, on a business trip when the war
broke out, and could not get back to Lille before the Germans arrived
there. For three and a half years he had lived in suspense, while
everything he loved had lain behind the German lines. The woman