V for Vengeance Read Online Free PDF Page A

so numbed by the horror and shock of having seen her lover butchered before her eyes, that she hardly took in the bulletins which came, hour by hour, over the now German-controlled Paris radio.
    The French Army was still falling back. The Government had retired, so it was said, first to Orléans, then to Tours. The Germans meanwhile proclaimed a fresh series of shattering blows, and their panzer columns were reported to be advancing almost without opposition through Châlons and Saint-Dizier towards Chaumont and the Plateau de Langres, thus cutting off the great garrisons in the Maginot Line from the Main French Armies of manœuvre.
    Georges’ funeral took place on the morning of the 15th, and on Madeleine’s return from it her mother endeavoured to rouse her, but her hysterical outburst of weeping during the previous night had given place to a hard, unnatural calm, in which she spoke only when addressed and then in no more than monosyllables.
    Had Georges’ death occurred during normal times she would have had numerous friends to comfort her, and some of them would certainly have insisted on taking her away, at least for a time, from the actual scene of the tragedy; but two-thirds of the population of the capital had fled before the advancing Germans. The remainder still kept to their houses, temporarily overwhelmed with the catastrophe which had fallen so swiftly upon them; unable to make plans for the future and as yet too absorbed with their own anxieties to rouse themselves inan effort to discover what had happened to their acquaintances.
    Madeleine too was at present quite incapable of making any plans for the future. Her blue eyes seeming abnormally large from the unnatural pallor of her face, and dressed in the deepest mourning of unrelieved black, she moved mechanically about the small household tasks of tending her mother and cooking meals. There was no shortage of food so far, and in her few expeditions to the local shops she saw no evidence that the Germans were behaving with the brutality with which they were credited. The few that she saw appeared to be in a high good humour, either driving about in cars or strolling in small groups and pausing to look in the well-filled windows or to photograph buildings of historic interest, as nearly all of them carried cameras. Most of them were young, pink-faced and rather stupid-looking. They had more the appearance of sightseeing country-bumpkins than that of the brutal and licentious soldiery of a conquering army.
    It was on the afternoon of the 16th that Madeleine was first roused into exchanging more than monosyllables with anybody. On coming upstairs with some things that she had bought for supper she ran into a young man on the landing who was just coming out of the apartment opposite her own. He was a tall, dark fellow, with brown spaniel-like eyes, a little hairline moustache and short side-whiskers, which gave him rather the appearance of a Spaniard.
    As she reached the landing he looked awkwardly away from her and flushed with embarrassment. She sensed that he must have heard of her tragedy and was momentarily at a loss as to how to greet her; so she said at once:
    â€˜Why, Pierre, what a nice surprise to see you! So many of ones’ friends seem to have disappeared in these last terrible days.’
    â€˜I know,’ he murmured; ‘and for you things have been far worse than for most of us. Poor Georges—I cannot say how terribly sorry I am.’
    â€˜Please—let’s not talk of it,’ she said quickly. ‘It’s too near—too painful. But tell me about yourself.’ As she spoke she unlocked her door, and he followed her inside.
    He gave a rueful smile. ‘About myself there is not muchto tell. I was lucky to get back with a whole skin, and now I shall try to paint again. God knows if anyone will have the money to buy pictures, but I suppose we’ll all manage to scrape along somehow.’
    Pierre