MARIE.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 145998, 3 December 1917, Page 8

MARIE.

(By Second-Lieutenant J. S. Morton.)

A FRENCH PEASANT.

Marie has a beauty that is peculiarly her own. It is not the beauty of the picture postcard, nor yet of itafael or .Reynolds or Dana Gibson. Her beauty is rather that of a Kembrantesque old woman grown young, the rude Beauty that attaches to hard and honest toil. Marie is a peasant woman of Northern France, who has been hostess and comrade to thousands of Uritish working men of her own class in the last two or three years.

At the first glance she might strike you as an uncouth and rather toilstained woman; tor she works, day in day out, as men work, with her hands and her shoulders. Bhe is of medium height, thick-sot, with brawny' hands and stout legs, visible nearly to the knees under uer stout workday skirt, and hefty shoulders. But there is vigour in every line of her and uncompromising, fixity of purpose in her every action. Her hair is something indeterminate between brown and black; her face, and hands are bronzed. With her strong features aud shrewd dark eyes, she is just such a daughter of the countryside as .you may' have read of in the pages of de Maupassant. She clatters about her work in noisy clogs or sabots, and her •thick stockings and dark stuff blouse, free at the neck, seem the natural garb of a woman who has no time in her busy lifo for the feminine fripperies. She is French of the French, but not' by any means in the sense in which that adjective was generally understood before the war in countries to which France was tiio land of fashion and flimsincss. Wi th the sleeves of her blouse tucked up above the elbows, she works by day in field or farm, untiringly, and with unflagging concentration. She walks rather heavily, as farm bunds walk the world over. Her voice surprises you. You expect a deep contralto to emerge from so stalwart a frame, but when she speaks it is in a tone that is almost shrill, and her laugh is a little loss than melodious however full of mirth.

THE CHANGE ON SUNDAY. She lives almost entirely in her work and tho care of her household and family, except on Sunday mornings when she goes to Mass, and on the rare, kindred occasions when she visits the nearest town. Then she seems to shed her weekday personality and blossoms out into a softer womanhood. Her clothes become more feminine. Her hair is remarkably tidy, well brushed, and neatly arranged. Her muscular arms are hidden in tbo sleeves of a soft black blouse, cut high in the neck. She wears a longer skirt — black also —black .shoes and stockings, and a black lint, quite plain, or adorned by simple (lowers. She carries in Jier hand a prayer-book, and oven her walk and her voice seem affected by the Sunday atmosphere. Sho is no longer a masculine personality. She is perhaps thoughtful, for .Sunday is her day of prayer for husband, father, brother, and there is a tenderness in her heart and a quiet humility in her bearing that reveal a quality of character generally unsuspected. KINDNESS TO OUR MEN. Marie seems to regard all British soldiers as her own special fancy. She has opened her mother-heart to them, and makes them welcome by a rapid flow of uncomprohonsible patois and quaint gestures. She has her favourite out of every succeeding unit that conies to her village—and she never forgets them. Sometimes they come back into rest-bil-lets after a year in a different sector, and Mario is just the same smiling hostess to them. “Le Corporal Billy” has become “M. lo Sergent,” and hasi one imposing stripe more than before. “M. ‘Banb’ ” or “M. ‘Bed’ ” still finds his glass of milk, for which payment is not accepted, except in kind, for Bob and Bill are helpful people to have about the house. And there are many faces she remembers that come no more. Odd little fragmentary stories, brimming with clumsy gesticulation, and repetition, tell her how some died and some were missing, and some, surely beloved of the Gods, have gone back to “Blighty” with wounds. Marie soon makes new favourites, but never lets the old out of mind. It is a point of the utmost pride with her to bo accepted on an equal footing with the men, as their “mate,” and when one of them falls sick she is a good fairy to him, with her inexhaustible .supply of warm milk and eggs Sometimes her husband comes home on a few days’ leave, and her cup of happiness is filled to overflowing. He likes to see his children playing round Tommy’s knees, and his wife bustling about, ministering to tho needs of tbo men. A friendship at once springs up between Tommy and the husband. “Fags” are exchanged, and they launch into astonishingly effectual attempts to converse about tbo sights they have seen, and to convey their secret opinions of the German nation.

THE ENTENTE CORDIALE. Here, in farms, and little wayside “estaminets,” in fields and muddy lanes, the true Entente Cordialc grows and grows. Unsuspected, unrecognised, it underlies the daily life of the two nations wherever they come in contact. It is being built on firm ground, the bedrock of community of purpose, and mutual fellow-feeling. The French people have realised the loneliness that comes to our fighting men in the long silent times at night—they know tho pain that tears his heart when he stands on sentry under tho_ watching stars, and in the sympathetic loyalty of their nature they try to give him at any rate a temporary homo. Tho Entente Cordiale is not an affair of King and President, not a matter of Government and Government—but just plain Tommy and Marie.