The Fires of Autumn Read Online Free PDF Page B

‘Everyone thinks it’s natural for a girl of my age to get married, to lead the life of a wife … But if I were to say I want to get engaged, they’d cry their eyes out. But actually, he’s going to leave, her fiancé! Their marriage will be postponed indefinitely. Anyway, what do I care! Really … really … Women …!’
    Still running, he got to the Bruns’ house; the key was under the mat. He went inside. He saw his parents and Martial in thedining room. His mother looked at him and whispered: ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked, sounding frightened. ‘You’re covered in sweat.’
    ‘Nothing,’ he replied, but thought proudly:
    ‘There must be something remarkable in my eyes. I am a man, a warrior.’
    He said a quick, patronising hello to this group of women and old men (Martial’s thirty years seemed close to decrepitude to him).
    He looked at him curiously. Martial was seated at the table; the tablecloth had been pushed back and he was sorting out letters from a small old suitcase open in front of him. Ever since finishing the lycée, Martial no longer lived with the Bruns, but he left a trunk and some other things of his at their house because he didn’t have room for them in his small student lodgings. With extreme care, he separated the papers, tearing up some of them and putting the others in different coloured folders:
    ‘These are photographs of the family, Uncle Adolphe. And these are the ones I took of Thérèse at Tréport when she was four years old. My diplomas. The bill from the engraver of the brass plaque you know about …’
    He fell silent and sighed, deep in thought:
    ‘Doctor Brun. Ear, Nose and Throat.’
    ‘I’m putting the money in an envelope, Uncle Adolphe; please take it to him for me and apologise that I’m late in paying it: I really haven’t had a minute to myself. And this is something of my mother’s, a watch with her initials on it that I would like Thérèse to have.’
    ‘You can give it to me after our wedding, darling,’ Thérèse said softly.
    It was the first time she had mentioned their forthcoming marriage in public. She blushed and handed back the watch he held out to her; it was gold, old-fashioned with a long chain.
    ‘I suppose you’ll get married when the war is over,’ said Bernard,his voice as husky as a young cockerel, with a hint of unconscious cruelty.
    ‘We’re not waiting until then,’ said Martial. ‘I’m not leaving right away, at least not going over there immediately …’
    He gestured to indicate some unknown far-off place.
    ‘My teacher, Professor Faure, has arranged to keep me with him. They’re setting up new hospital trains in the provinces. As soon as they’re ready – it will take three or four weeks – they’ll leave for … over there …,’ he said again, ‘and me with them. But that will give us time to celebrate our wedding.’
    ‘Three or four weeks!’ cried Bernard. ‘But it will be over by then!’
    Martial shook his head:
    ‘No, it will be a long war, a very long war.’
    The elderly Madame Pain had said nothing up until then. She had just sat with her hands folded on her lap, lost in thought.
    ‘If I were you, my children,’ she said, ‘I’d wait … That’s no kind of marriage; the husband off in some hell, his wife in Paris! After the wedding, just a week together …’
    ‘A week? Even a day together would be wonderful, Madame Pain!’
    ‘Well, you see? One day and then you’ll be separated. Perhaps for six months, who knows? You’ve said yourself that it will be a long war! No, no, my dears, let things work themselves out: when everyone’s had enough of fighting, life will get back to normal. For now, it’s as if everyone’s gone mad, but that can’t last.’
    ‘I’ll do whatever Thérèse wants,’ Martial said quickly. ‘If she doesn’t want to be married to a soldier … The wife of a soldier … I know that I’m offering her a difficult future, one that is very