The
mere souvenir is anguish."
She kissed her youngest boy, who had long hair.
"Come, come!" the soldier calmed her.
Lastly: an interior dans le monde; a home illustrious in Paris for the
richness of its collections--bric-a-brac, fans, porcelain, furniture,
modern pictures; the walls frescoed by Pierre Bonnard and his
compeers; a black marble balcony with an incomparable view in the
very middle of the city. Here several worlds encountered each other:
authors, painters, musicians, dilettanti, administrators. The hostess
had good-naturedly invited a high official of the Foreign Office,
whom I had not seen for many years; she did not say so, but her
aim therein was to expedite the arrangements for my pilgrimages in
the war-zone. Sundry of my old friends were present. It was
wonderful how many had escaped active service, either because
they were necessary to central administration, or because they were
neutrals, or because they were too old, or because they had been
declined on account of physical unfitness, reformes. One or two who
might have come failed to do so because they had perished.
Amid the abounding, dazzling confusion of objects which it was a
duty to admire, people talked cautiously of the war. With tranquillity
and exactness and finality the high official, clad in pale alpaca and
yellow boots, explained the secret significance of Yellow Books,
White Books, Orange Books, Blue Books.
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