four leagues off, which was the trade-mart and the corn-exchange of the
district. He paused before the cottage of Reine Allix; he was dusty,
travel-stained, and sad. Margot ceased laughing among her flowers as she
saw her old master. None of them knew why, yet the sight of him made the
air seem cold and the night seem near.

"There is terrible news," he said, drawing a sheet of printed words from
his coat-pocket--"terrible news! We are to go to war."

"War!" The whole village clustered round him. They had heard of war,
far-off wars in Africa and Mexico, and some of their sons had been taken
off like young wheat mown before its time; but it still remained to them
a thing remote, impersonal, inconceivable, with which they had nothing
to do, nor ever would have anything.

"Read!" said the old man, stretching out his sheet. The only one there
who could do so, Picot, the tailor, took it and spelled the news out to
their wondering ears. It was the declaration of France against Prussia.

There arose a great wail from the mothers whose sons were conscripts.
The rest asked in trembling, "Will it touch us?"

"Us!" echoed Picot, the tailor, in contempt. "How should it touch us?
Our braves will be in Berlin with another fortnight. The paper says so."

The people were silent; they were not sure what he meant by Berlin, and
they were afraid to ask.

"My boy! my boy!" wailed one woman, smiting her breast. Her son was in
the army.