These come here to fraternize, in heroic sprees, with sub-officers of the army and non-commissioned officers of the navy.
There have already been some bloody fights, and several times, apropos of nothing, the sub-officers have drawn their swords, threatening to kill imaginary traitors. The night that Dreyfus landed in France I thought that the little cafe would tumble down under the cries of
"Long Live the Army!" and
"Death to the Jews!"
That night Joseph, who is already popular in the town, had a mad success. He mounted a table, and shouted:
"If the traitor is guilty, let him be sent back.
If he is innocent, let him be shot."
On every hand they shouted:
"Yes, yes! Let him be shot!
Long live the army!"
This proposition had carried the enthusiasm to the height of paroxysm.
Above the shouting, in the cafe, could be heard only the clashing of swords and the pounding of fists on the marble tables.
Some one, having ventured to say nobody knows what, was hooted, and Joseph, rushing upon him, smashed his mouth with a blow of his fist, and broke five teeth for him. Struck repeatedly with the flat of a sword, torn, covered with blood, and half dead, the unfortunate man was cast, like so much filth, into the street, always to the cries of
"Long Live the Army!
Death to the Jews!"
There are moments when I am afraid in this atmosphere of debauchery, among all these bestial faces, heavy with alcohol and murder. But Joseph, reassures me.
"That's nothing," he says. "That is good for business."
Yesterday, coming back from the market, Joseph announced, gaily rubbing his hands:
"Bad news.
There is talk of a war with England."
"Oh! my God!" I cried.
"Suppose Cherbourg should be bombarded?"
"Pooh!
Pooh!" sneered Joseph. "Only I have thought of something; I have thought of a stroke, a rich stroke."
In spite of myself I shuddered.
He must be contemplating some immense rascality.
"The more I look at you," he said, "the more I say to myself that you have not the head of a Breton. Oh! no, you have not the head of a Breton. You have rather an Alsatian head. Hey?
That would make a fine show behind the bar."
I was disappointed.
I thought that Joseph was going to propose some terrible thing.
I was proud already at the thought of being admitted to partnership in a bold undertaking. Whenever I see him in reflective mood, my ideas are immediately inflamed.
I imagine tragedies, nocturnal wallscalings, robberies, drawn knives, people in the agony of death on the forest heath. And it was nothing but a petty and vulgar piece of advertising.
With his hands in his pockets, and his blue skull-cap on his head, he swayed to and fro, in a droll fashion.
"Do you understand?" he insisted.
"At the outbreak of a war a very pretty Alsatian, finely dressed, would inflame hearts and excite patriotism. And there is nothing like patriotism to get people drunk. What do you think of it?
I would put you in the newspapers, and perhaps even on posters."
"I prefer to remain in the costume of a lady," I answered, a little dryly.
Thereupon we began to quarrel.
And for the first time we came to violent words.
"You did not put on so many airs when you were intimate with everybody," cried Joseph.
"And you?... When you ... Oh! you had better let me alone, because I could say too much."
"Strumpet!"
"Thief!"
A customer came in. The discussion ceased. And at night there was a reconciliation, with kisses.
I am going to have a pretty Alsatian costume made for me, of silk and velvet. Really I am powerless against Joseph's will.
In spite of this little fit of revolt, Joseph holds me, possesses me, like a demon.
And I am happy in being his. I feel that I shall do whatever he wishes me to do, and that I shall go wherever he tells me to go ... even to crime!
March, 1900.