Читать книгу Journal of Small Things - Helen Mackay - Страница 12

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First day of the mobilization, the state of siege is declared throughout France.

Already the many gardens of this old quarter are deep in the colours and odours and melancholy of autumn, and give autumn's fatefulness and foreboding to all the streets and rooms. I thought when I waked to it, has this sense of autumn always meant the end of many more things than summer?

With one's coffee to read—

First day of the mobilization, the state of war is declared throughout France.

How silent this Paris is, this special part of Paris, of houses that close proud heavy doors upon all they feel, of streets withdrawn from thronging and demonstration.

In my room it is like waking to the silence that is beyond the end of the world.

So this is one way war begins, not with shouting and singing, but with a great silence.