Wars I Have Seen

by Gertrude Stein

  Anything can happen in such a time and to-day it was very funny, there are now everywhere and particularly here where there are mountains and wood is very easy to get, the automobiles go with wood, the engines are the same as they were, but anyway it works very well, there are lots of trucks and lots of autobuses and every fair sized town has several taxis. French people naturally like luxuries and although they are not supposed to take you except in case of great need, actually everybody takes them to go anywhere which is too far to walk, and if you have no bicycle. So we wanted to go to Belley on Friday and I telephoned to our taxi man and he said he had stalled just in front of his house and would his car go again, well of course it would sometime but would it go again by Friday and besides just now they had telephoned to him that he must go immediately and get some German officers who had to get somewhere immediately, and he said he could not his car had stopped going, and the authorities said they had telephoned to five different taxis and all of them had broken down and was his really not working and he said no it was not and it was not, not just then. It is an extraordinary thing so extraordinary that only we here notice anything but an extraordinary thing none of them not any one of the German officers have a car that goes, if they cannot take a train, they have to get the wood heated French cars to take them anywhere. It is the most extraordinary thing, I cannot say it too often it is the most extraordinary thing, the most extraordinary thing, really the most extraordinary thing of all the extraordinary things that happen, the most extraordinary thing, the motorised German army being carried around by French taxis.

  Now that the end is more or less in sight anybody can be just foolish, not very happy, but quite foolish. They are foolish everywhere, everybody is just foolish anywhere, not funny but just foolish.

  Really and truly this time nobody in their hearts really believe that everybody that anybody will be peaceful and happy, not anybody, not the immense majority believe any such thing and that proves that the nineteenth century is dead completely and entirely dead. Even the propagandists on the radio find it very difficult to really say let alone believe that the world will be a happy place, of love and peace and plenty, and that the lion will lie down with the lamb and everybody will believe anybody. They all know that none of them believe anybody that not any of them believe anybody. There is neither unanimity nor faith in peace and progress, the nineteenth century is dead but there is no particular peace for its ashes, although there is no resurrection none at all for the nineteenth century, none.

  Everybody knows it, nobody says it, because the twentieth century is too troublesome and too certain to be difficult and distracted, but everybody knows that the nineteenth century is dead dead as a door-nail.

  Now everybody knows that there is no use in being too successful, look at the Germans they began with the Ruhr, I will never forget that it was a Sunday evening and I was out walking and on the Boulevard Saint Germain and there were lots of people out and the eyes of the men had that troubled look that men’s eyes have when they may have to go to war, when the last one is near enough so that there is no illusion and no glamor, none at all, and the women with them were talking and talking not about war of course nobody mentioned that and the men for French men were silent and the women were very talkative and their eyes were not as troubled as the men’s eyes. And the Germans were successful and then there was Austria and they were successful and then there was Munich and all the Frenchmen were easier in their minds, no war, certainly no war, not for their generation, and then came Czecho-Slovakia’s annexation and the Germans were once more successful and the French paid no attention, and then every year there was mobilisation and everybody was irritated and resentful and then there was Poland and by this time the Frenchmen kind of relieved, to really have war, and they knew the Germans would be successful but all the same it was a relief that they really had to begin war, and once more the Germans were successful and there was not much fighting and then very soon it was all over and the Germans were still successful, and then the Germans began not to be successful and now they are not successful at all. Now the wisdom of the ages, that is everybody really knows that if one thing goes well nothing else must go wrong, you cannot have a house, wood to burn and food to eat and the servant to stay, not all at once and there must always be setbacks, and there must always be the need of superstition to stop anything from going too bad or too well just like that, and people like the Germans never understand that, they dream fairy tales where everything is as it was or was not, and they make music which makes them feel like that but the French know that you must not succeed you must rise from the ashes and how could you rise from the ashes if there were no ashes, but the Germans never think of ashes and so when there are ashes there is no rising, not at all and every day and in every way this is clearer and clearer. And now almost anybody can again remember Petain, not that they say it, no indeed, once the French have stopped saying it they do not begin again, and they had and they have stopped saying it. All the same they are relieved that he wants a republic, there may be royalists but really the French like a republic, I imagine all Europe will be republican pretty soon, it is like South America, the Brazilians had a very nice emperor indeed, they liked him and he liked them, but they said regretfully it is no use it is not the fashion to have an emperor on the American continent, and we are so sorry but you must go away. And I imagine that is going to be true in Europe. The fashion is the fashion, and republics simply republican republics are going to be the fashion. You can see that the nineteenth century is dead, quite dead.

  And now it is the first of December 1943 and everybody is cross just as cross as they can be and there is a reason why. Everybody well they did not think it but it was possible and they did hope it that the war would be over. Oh dear they say another winter, well but it is always winter in December yes but we did not think that this December would be another winter, we did not think there could be another winter and now it is December and there is another winter of war. And certainly there is another winter, everybody is so tired of having wood and not coal, of eating quite well but always worried of having it all be such a bother and not being able to go out and buy something if you have the money and worst of all well of course it is the worst of all, that it is is the worst of all, the worst of all.

  How lightly the troubadour plays his guitar. How easily the radio tells you what they all say. How often they say what they all say, and how much there is to tell when well when very well there is nothing to tell.

  The case of Petain is typical, he has so little to tell now November 1943 and he had it to tell and they would not let him. That made everything difficult, everybody remembered him because they would not let him tell what he had to tell over the radio, and everybody wanted him and he was just as peaceful about it is as if he had told what they would not let him tell.

  If they believe it but they do not, Petain does tell what he has to tell even when they do not let him tell what he has to tell, and this time again the end of November 1943 it happened again and everybody almost everybody remembered him again and he went on peacefully again as if everybody did remember. How long will it last. Well that is not the end, not the end, not that.

  It is funny they all act as if they believe what they say, and they do, they do believe what they say and it is so funny that they all act as if they believed what they say.

  There is no use, everybody might just as well be funny, and some of them are, they really are.

  We were talking and they said, that a good many people had for a year consciously tried to live on their rations, but now everybody finds that there is no use in doing it, no use at all and so nobody does, nobody does except funnily enough some timid grocery storekeepers, who are afraid. I know one family of them and they are the only ones around here who continue to be thin and to get thinner. Nobody else is, nobody else is thin and nobody else continues to get thinner, nobody not unless they are awfully poor and because of their situation in life unable to work
. Nobody.

  This is all another proof that the nineteenth century is over. England still believes in the nineteenth century yes she does, she almost wishes that she did not but yes she does. France never did very much belong to the nineteenth century not very much.

  Such pleasant stories.

  On the road I met a woman an oldish woman and we were going the same way and we talked as we walked. She said a little further along she had a house but she did not live there. She had had a sister paralysed for thirty-five years who had lived there and she died two years ago. She now lived with her brother-in-law somewhere else, he was all she had but of course some one stayed in the paternal house to take care of the chickens. Oh yes I forgot I had Basket on a leash because on the road as there is a cement works there are many trucks, of course there are quite a number of automobiles, no German ones, French ones the French always keep going somehow, well anyway I said I had Basket on a leash because he having worms was a little nervous he almost was run down by an automobile, so I told her and I said a dog is so easily killed, yes she said we had one at the paternal house and he went blind and so we had to have him killed, and I said we had a little dog we loved very much and he had to be killed because he had diabetes, and is he dead she said and I said yes, and she said it is different with chickens, she said just the other day a camion came along and he ran over one of our chickens and he did not notice it he just went on but a little later another one came along and he noticed it and he stopped and got down and gathered in the chicken and went on, just then my nephew came out and saw him and as he went away he noticed the number so a little later when the camion came back again my nephew stopped him and said you have to pay me for that chicken that is to say not money I do not want money I want the chicken, and the man said not at all I will pay you but I will not give you the chicken and my nephew said he did not want payment he wanted the chicken and the man said he did not have it which was probably a lie but still perhaps he had already eaten it, but anyway my nephew said well I will take the money, no said the other I am not paying you anything, why not said my nephew, because I am not said the driver and my nephew said well suppose you give it to the Red Cross to make a package for a prisoner not at all said the driver and he drove away and said I what did your nephew do, I have no nephew she said I only have a niece that is to say I only have a father-in-law, that is not my house where I live it belongs to my brother-in-law and just then our roads parted and we said good-bye.

  There are so many stories. To-day I met a man on the road he had a hunting dog a pretty one a little thin and she and Basket said how do you do the man was pushing a cart filled with cabbages and we stopped and said how do you do, is she very young I said not so young three years old but she is a good hunter, and how he said, but alas now nobody can hunt and I said look there are so many birds of passage and wild ducks, yes he said we used to think them rather tough eating but now it would be a pleasure, I used to be a custom house officer and now I am pensioned and I thought I would spend my last days hunting, but it is not to be, well you never can tell I said December ’43, perhaps it will be like ’18, perhaps it will come suddenly, perhaps he said, but I said surely you were not originally from this country I said, he did not look it, he looked like a man from Normandy, and he said no my father who was a custom’s officer like I am, had a large family, nine children and if you have a large family you want a job in a small town where living is easy, so he had a job here and I was raised here and when I was pensioned I came back here, but you have not a large family no I have only one son and he like I did enlisted in the army and was in it for two years and then the army was demobilised and they sent my son away at the point of a pistol and then they said he should go to Germany and he said he did not like them and he came home and the police took away all his papers, and then he went away that is he is here and he is not dead I said, no he said oh dear no. You see he said I was my father’s second son the older one was not strong so my father said I should join the army young, and the years that I spent in the army would count on my time when I went into the custom’s service as I had a right to being a custom’s officer’s son, and it was all right only the war broke out, not this war I am not a young man the other war, and I was a sergeant and I killed a lot of Germans a whole lot of them and then one day I was sent with a convoy of wood to make trenches, and I came along and somebody said, there is an armistice, and I said oh go along, and I went on, and then somebody else said sure the armistice has been signed to-day and I said I would not go on with the wood and I dumped it all on the side of the road and I went back, and they all said let us hit it up to-night, and I said no I was tired, really it was because being a member of such a large family and my father thinking I should help the little ones, I did not have any money and one of the comrades said let’s see your purse and he took it and opened it and it was empty, and he said it’s all right, and I said I know we are all comrades, but I have my pride but all the same we did whoop it up and then we shook hands and we parted.

  One of our neighbors a charming boy went to Germany with his class and although he had never driven a truck he volunteered for that work, and so they gave him a tryout in Paris and naturally he stayed as long as he could and then he went to Germany and they gave him a job with a man who had a business of moving furniture. And sometimes it was with a camion and sometimes with horses, and Christian de la Flechere wrote and said it was not too bad only he quarreled with the wife of his boss because she did not give him all of his bread, but just the same he had a room to himself and it was not too bad and would his family send him some make-up and perfumes, because he could trade these things off and be much more comfortable, and they did and he was. Then one day his boss got the bill for the days in Paris when Christian was learning to drive the camion, and it was sixty marks and he said he would not pay it Christian should pay it, and Christian said he would be damned if he would and the boss could go further and the boss said he was fired and Christian should get out and get a job and he did he got a job in a dairy where he would be better paid and fed and he came back and his old boss began to apologise and said he easily got mad, but he wanted him to stay, and Christian thought a bit and remembered even if he was better paid at the dairy he would have to get up earlier and it was winter and any way it was better to accept the troubles you knew than to try out new ones and so he stayed. We were all after all we heard and knew we were all surprised at this story, it was so not like war at all, except that of course Christian would never have been there if there had not been war not at that kind of work if there had been war and yet it is just like any boy who went out to earn a living at any work he could get.

  It is funny and his sister who told us the story, said and I have just met a friend and she was radiant and I said and what is it, and she said my son who was a prisoner in Germany has just escaped into Sweden and he was received with open arms and said at the embassy find me a job but you must find one for my buddy and they were both put to dish-washing at a big hotel and they liked it because there was lots to eat and they were not interned.

  Yes yes.

  Unconditional surrender very strange that.

  Everybody is getting somber, the winter weather and the war not over, everybody is getting somber and a little dreary, in the summer they think it will be over this year but now that the fifth winter has commenced nobody can believe that it will ever be over. Nobody. The only thing that cheered anybody was the speech of General Smuts, against France, it made everybody feel alive, he said France was dead and as France does naturally rise from the ashes it made everybody feel very much alive. Naturally nobody was grateful to General Smuts but I was because everybody cheered up and it is better to have everybody cheered up rather than not. Decidedly yes.

  Unconditional surrender.

  The Europeans are fascinated with the idea of unconditional surrender. Nobody in Europe had ever heard of that, there are always conditions there have to be conditions, life in Europe is condit
ional and the words unconditional surrender is like a new thing, jazz or automobiles when they were new or radio, it is something new, and the Europeans like something new, it is an old civilization and they like something new. I like to tell them about it, about General Grant having the initials from Ulysses Simpson Grant. U. S. Grant and being called United States Grant or Unconditional Surrender Grant. I like to tell them about this but they really do not listen to me, they are not interested not even in its being American, unconditional surrender, they are just fascinated and find it very original and the meaning of it does not really penetrate, it is a new form of jazz, unconditional surrender, and when the Germans say the Japs wont and they wont they say but they will but even then it does not mean anything to them, because it is not really war, war is something else it is defeat and armistice and conditions, unconditional surrender has nothing to do with war not for them.

  There are so many refugees, roughly speaking one might say everybody is a refugee, nearly everybody certainly every city, town village and hamlet has its refugees, and plenty of them, this Culoz, is a little town of two thousand inhabitants and there are lots of them, Alsatians and Lorrainers and Poles and Americans, several besides us, working people that somehow are Americans and any town is like that and French quite a few French and Belgians, and anything else and lots of Persians so the Swiss Consul told us and every refugee is certain that he likes neither the climate the landscape the earth in which they garden nor the mosquitoes and if he does not say so certainly his wife does she most certainly does. To some it is a mountainous climate very cold and very savage, to some it is a warm moist climate never cold and the mountain disgracefully covered with rocks instead of pine trees and so many mosquitoes, as a matter of fact last summer there were none, however it was our first summer here, perhaps there are more sometimes, with all the marshes of the Rhone, anyway everybody is a refugee and it is a puzzle a considerable puzzle how everybody goes on living and spending money and looking fairly well fed and well clothed it is a puzzle, and then of course there are lots of Jews French and every other kind refugeed anywhere in any small place and then young men who do not want to go to forced labor and they change their town oh dear everybody is a refugee and how do they go on spending money and being fairly well dressed and well fed how do they.