In the fading light of the June evening, he had seen a petrol depot from the window; it was close to the hotel and, a little further away, what looked like tanks and armoured cars were parked in the town square.
“We’ll be bombed!” he thought, and he started trembling all over, so suddenly, so profoundly that he felt ill. Was it fear? Gabriel Corte? No, he couldn’t be afraid! Don’t be ridiculous! He smiled with pity and scorn, as if replying to some invisible person. Of course he wasn’t afraid, but as he leaned out of the window once more, he looked up at the dark sky: at any moment it could rain fire and death upon him, and that horrible feeling shot through him again, first the trembling right down to his bones, then the kind of weakness, nausea and tensing in the stomach you feel before you faint. He didn’t care whether he was afraid or not! He rushed outside, Florence and the maid following behind.
“We’ll sleep in the car,” he said, “it’s just one night.”
Later on, it occurred to him that he could have tried another hotel, but by the time he’d made up his mind, it was too late. An endless, slow-moving river flowed from Paris: cars, trucks, carts, bicycles, along with the horse-drawn traps of farmers who had abandoned their land to flee south, their children and cattle trailing behind. By midnight there wasn’t a single free room in all of Orléans, not a single bed. People were sleeping on the floor in cafés, in the streets, in the railway stations, their heads resting on suitcases. There was so much traffic that it was impossible to get out of the city. People were saying that a roadblock had been set up to keep the road free for the troops.
Silently, with no lights on, cars kept coming, one after the other, full to bursting with baggage and furniture, prams and birdcages, packing cases and baskets of clothes, each with a mattress tied firmly to the roof. They looked like mountains of fragile scaffolding and they seemed to move without the aid of a motor, propelled by their own weight down the sloping streets to the town square. Cars filled all the roads into the square. People were jammed together like fish caught in a net, and one good tug on that net would have picked them all up and thrown them down on to some terrifying river bank. There was no crying or shouting; even the children were quiet. Everything seemed calm. From time to time a face would appear over a lowered window and stare up at the sky for a while, wondering. A low, muffled murmur rose up from the crowd, the sound of painful breathing, sighs and conversations held in hushed voices, as if people were afraid of being overheard by an enemy lying in wait. Some tried to sleep, heads leaning on the corner of a suitcase, legs aching on a narrow bench or a warm cheek pressed against a window. Young men and women called to one another from the cars and sometimes laughed. Then a dark shape would glide across the star-covered sky, everyone would look up and the laughter would stop. It wasn’t exactly what you’d call fear, rather a strange sadness—a sadness that had nothing human about it any more, for it lacked both courage and hope. This was how animals waited to die. It was the way fish caught in a net watch the shadow of the fisherman moving back and forth above them.
The plane above their heads had appeared suddenly; they could hear its thin, piercing sound fading away, disappearing, then surging up again to drown out the thousand sounds of the city. Everyone held their breath. The river, the metal bridge, the railway tracks, the train station, the factory’s chimneys all glimmered; they were nothing more than “strategic positions,” targets for the enemy to hit. Everything seemed dangerous to this silent crowd. “I think it’s a French plane!” said the optimists. French or enemy, no one really knew. But it was disappearing now. Sometimes they could hear a distant explosion. “It didn’t hit us,” they would
“We’ll be bombed!” he thought, and he started trembling all over, so suddenly, so profoundly that he felt ill. Was it fear? Gabriel Corte? No, he couldn’t be afraid! Don’t be ridiculous! He smiled with pity and scorn, as if replying to some invisible person. Of course he wasn’t afraid, but as he leaned out of the window once more, he looked up at the dark sky: at any moment it could rain fire and death upon him, and that horrible feeling shot through him again, first the trembling right down to his bones, then the kind of weakness, nausea and tensing in the stomach you feel before you faint. He didn’t care whether he was afraid or not! He rushed outside, Florence and the maid following behind.
“We’ll sleep in the car,” he said, “it’s just one night.”
Later on, it occurred to him that he could have tried another hotel, but by the time he’d made up his mind, it was too late. An endless, slow-moving river flowed from Paris: cars, trucks, carts, bicycles, along with the horse-drawn traps of farmers who had abandoned their land to flee south, their children and cattle trailing behind. By midnight there wasn’t a single free room in all of Orléans, not a single bed. People were sleeping on the floor in cafés, in the streets, in the railway stations, their heads resting on suitcases. There was so much traffic that it was impossible to get out of the city. People were saying that a roadblock had been set up to keep the road free for the troops.
Silently, with no lights on, cars kept coming, one after the other, full to bursting with baggage and furniture, prams and birdcages, packing cases and baskets of clothes, each with a mattress tied firmly to the roof. They looked like mountains of fragile scaffolding and they seemed to move without the aid of a motor, propelled by their own weight down the sloping streets to the town square. Cars filled all the roads into the square. People were jammed together like fish caught in a net, and one good tug on that net would have picked them all up and thrown them down on to some terrifying river bank. There was no crying or shouting; even the children were quiet. Everything seemed calm. From time to time a face would appear over a lowered window and stare up at the sky for a while, wondering. A low, muffled murmur rose up from the crowd, the sound of painful breathing, sighs and conversations held in hushed voices, as if people were afraid of being overheard by an enemy lying in wait. Some tried to sleep, heads leaning on the corner of a suitcase, legs aching on a narrow bench or a warm cheek pressed against a window. Young men and women called to one another from the cars and sometimes laughed. Then a dark shape would glide across the star-covered sky, everyone would look up and the laughter would stop. It wasn’t exactly what you’d call fear, rather a strange sadness—a sadness that had nothing human about it any more, for it lacked both courage and hope. This was how animals waited to die. It was the way fish caught in a net watch the shadow of the fisherman moving back and forth above them.
The plane above their heads had appeared suddenly; they could hear its thin, piercing sound fading away, disappearing, then surging up again to drown out the thousand sounds of the city. Everyone held their breath. The river, the metal bridge, the railway tracks, the train station, the factory’s chimneys all glimmered; they were nothing more than “strategic positions,” targets for the enemy to hit. Everything seemed dangerous to this silent crowd. “I think it’s a French plane!” said the optimists. French or enemy, no one really knew. But it was disappearing now. Sometimes they could hear a distant explosion. “It didn’t hit us,” they would
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