n who escapes from Germany. Her
eyes were shifty with the habit of fear and sunken with the weariness
of crying. The boy was a bright little fellow, full of defiance and
anecdotes of his recent captors.

When I entered the carriage, they were sitting huddled together--the
man in the middle, with an arm about either of them. He kept pressing
them to him, kissing them by turn in a spasmodic unrestrained fashion,
as if he still feared that he might lose them and could not convince
himself of the happy truth that they were once again together. The
woman did not respond to his embraces; she seemed indifferent to him,
indifferent to life, indifferent to any prospects. The boy seemed fond
of his father, but embarrassed by his starved demonstrativeness.

I listened to their conversation. The man's talk was all of the
future--what splendid things he would do for them. How, as long
as they lived, he would never waste a moment from their sides. It
appeared that he had been at Tours, on a business trip when the war
broke out, and could not get back to Lille before the Germans arrived
there. For three and a half years he had lived in suspense, while
everything he loved had lain behind the German lines. The woman
contributed no suggestions to his brilliant plans. She clung to him,
but she tried to divert his affection. When she spoke it was of small
domestic abuses: the exorbitant prices she had had to pay for food;
the way in which the soldiery had stolen her pots and pans; the
insolence she had experienced when she had lodged complaints against
the men before their officers. And the boy--he wanted to be a poilu.
He kept inventing revenges he would take in battle, if the war lasted
long enough for his class to be called out. As darkness fell they
ceased talking. I began to realise that in three and a half years they
had lost contact. They were saying over and over the things that
had been said already; they were trying to prevent themselves from
acknowledging that they had grown different and separate. The only
bond which held them as a family was their common loneliness and fear
that, if they did not hold together, their intolerable loneliness
would return. When the light was hooded, the boy sank his hand against
his father's shoulder; the woman nestled herself in the fold of his
arm, with her head turned away from him, that he might not kiss her so
often. The man sat upright, his eyes wide open, watching them sleeping
with a kin