Edith Wharton

Fighting France Edith Wharton

WE had been shown, impressively, what it was to live through a mobilization; now we were tolearn that mobilization is only one of the concomitants of martial law, and that martial law is notcomfortable to live under-at least till one gets used to it. At first its main purpose, to the neutral civilian, seemed certainly to be the wayward pleasure ofcomplicating his life; and in that line it excelled in the last refinements of ingenuity. Instructionsbegan to shower on us after the lull of the first days: instructions as to what to do, and what not todo, in order to make our presence tolerable and our persons secure. In the first place, foreignerscould not remain in France without satisfying the authorities as to their nationality and antecedents;and to do this necessitated repeated ineffective visits to chanceries, consulates and police stations, each too densely thronged with flustered applicants to permit the entrance of one more. Betweenthese vain pilgrimages, the traveller impatient to leave had to toil on foot to distant railway stations, from which he returned baffled by vague answers and disheartened by the declaration that tickets, when achievable, must also be vises by the police. There was a moment when it seemed that onesinmost thoughts had to have that unobtainable visa-to obtain which, more fruitless hours must belived on grimy stairways between perspiring layers of fellow-aliens. Meanwhile one's money wasprobable running short, and one must cable or telegraph for more. Ah-but cables and telegramsmust be vises too-and even when they were, one got no guarantee that they would be sent! Thenone could not use code addresses, and the ridiculous number of words contained in a New Yorkaddress seemed to multiply as the francs in one's pockets diminished. And when the cable wasfinally dispatched it was either lost on the way, or reached its destination only to call forth, afteranxious days, the disheartening response: "Impossible at present. Making every effort." It is fair toadd that, tedious and even irritating as many of these transactions were, they were greatly eased bythe sudden uniform good-nature of the French functionary, who, for the first time, probably, in thelong tradition of his line, broke through its fundamental rule and was ki