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Jeudi

May 13, 1915

To J. M. Murry

I CANNOT tell you how beautiful this place is by daylight. The trees on the island are in full leaf … I had quite forgotten the life that goes on within a tree—how it flutters and almost plumes itself, and how the topmost branches tremble and the lowest branches of all swing lazy.

It is very warm to-day. All the windows are wide open. From early morning people have passed along the Quai carrying lilac … little stout men, the bunch upside down, looped to a finger by a knotted string—young girls carrying it along the arm—little children with their faces quite buried—and old fat women clasping the branches, just a frill of flower showing above their bosoms.

I ran out at seven to buy some oranges. Already the shops were open. Already the sausages were looped round a lilac jar—the tailoress bent over the machine had a piece in her bodice. (I shan't tell you any more because you won't believe me. It's everywhere.) I'll tell you where I saw it first yesterday.

“Oh, Tig, don't harp so.”

Just this, and then I won't. But we drew up alongside a hospital train. From my window I could see into the saloon. There were pallet beds round the walls. The men, covered to the chin, never moved an inch. They were just white faces with a streak of hair on top. A doctor, stout and ruddy, with a fine blond beard, stood at the window drying his hands and whistling. All round the walls of the car kind female hands had placed big bunches of purple and white lilac. “What lovely lilac!” said the people in the train with me. “Look! how fine it is.” The wounded men did not matter a rap.

(Then came a cry from the étage above. “Fermez vos persiennes s'il vous plaît!” But I wasn't in time. Whether the lady sheared a sheep outside her window or merely shook her bedroom mat, I do not know. A little of both. Damn her!)

And now there comes a little handcart with three babies in it and a quantity of newspapers. It is dragged by two other infants—men of about eight or nine. They stopped outside here, let down a kind of false leg which steadied the cart and strolled over to the lavatory, talking, unbuttoning their breeches and shouting to the babies to keep tranquille. But alas! no sooner had they disappeared than the infants with screams of rage began throwing the papers into the wet gutter. Back rushed their lords, and now they are picking up the muddy papers and the culprits hang their heads over the side of the wagon like people about to be guillotined … terribly chastened.