Fear Read Free Page B

man orders him to stand up. He refuses. Other people come over, surrounding him. The aggressor continues: ‘You are insulting the nation, I will not put up with it!’ The little man, by now very pale but stubborn, replies: ‘And you, in my opinion, are insulting reason but I’ll say nothing. I am a free man and I won’t celebrate war.’ Someone shouts: ‘Give the coward a damn good hiding!’ People run up from behind him, walking sticks are raised, tables overturned, glasses broken. In no time at all, a mob has formed. Those at the back, who haven’t seen anything, tell newcomers what is happening. ‘He’s a spy. He shouted “Long live Germany!”’ Indignation grips the mob, drives them on. There is the sound of blows striking home, cries of hatred and of pain. Eventually the café manager scurries over, a napkin still draped over his arm, and pulls them off. The little man, knocked off his chair, lies on the floor among the spit and cigarette ends. His badly bruised face is unrecognisable, with one eye closed and blackened; blood trickles from his forehead and his open, swollen mouth; he is breathing with difficulty and cannot get up. The manager calls two waiters: ‘Get him out of here!’ They drag him on to the pavement and leave him there. But then one of the waiters goes back, leans over and shakes him threateningly: ‘And what about your bill?’ As the unfortunate man doesn’t answer, the waiter rifles through his pockets and pulls a fistful of coins from his waistcoat, taking what he considers the right amount with the mob as his witness. ‘The bastard would have gone off without paying!’ General approval – ‘These people are capable of anything! Lucky he was disarmed! He had a gun? He threatened people with a revolver. We’re always too nice in France! The socialists are playing Germany’s game, no mercy for those wretches. We’re not having a repeat of 1870 this time round.’
    To mark this great victory, people demand an encore of the Marseillaise . They stand and listen, looking down at the little man who is bleeding and whimpering quietly. Beside me I notice a beautiful, pale woman who murmurs to her companion: ‘What a dreadful sight. That poor man had the courage . . .’ ‘. . . of an idiot,’ he interrupts. ‘It is folly to go against public opinion.’
    ‘There we see the war’s first casualty,’ I say to Fontan.
    ‘Indeed,’ he says, absently, ‘there’s a great deal of enthusiasm.’
    I am the silent witness of this great frenzy.
    From one day to the next, civilians dwindle away, transforming themselves into hastily dressed soldiers who run around town to make the most of their last hours and get themselves admired, and no longer button up their army tunics because this is war. In the evenings, those who have drunk too much insult passers-by, whom they take for Germans. The passers-by see this as a good sign and applaud them.
    Wherever you go you hear martial music. Old gentlemen wish they were young, children bitterly wish they were not, and women bemoan the fact that they are only women.
    I lose myself in the crowds which fill the approaches to the barracks, these sordid barracks that have become the storage batteries of national energy. I watch the regiments leave for the front. The crowd surrounds them, hugs them, showers them with flowers, and gets them drunk. Every line of soldiers is accompanied by clusters of delirious, dishevelled women, who are crying and laughing, offering their waists and their breasts to these heroes as if to the nation; who kiss the sweating faces of the rough, honest warriors and scream their hatred for the enemy, which makes them look ugly.
    I watch the cavalry trot by, the army’s aristocracy. The heavy cuirassiers, their breastplates blinding in the sunshine, an unstoppable force in a headlong charge. The dragoons, like medieval jousters preparing for a tournament with their plumed helmets, lances and pennants. The mounted