One Madder Woman by Dede Crane

Author:Dede Crane [Crane, Dede]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Freehand Books
Published: 2020-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

Dearest Edma, The Champ de Mars has become a field hospital after two chemical plants inexplicably caught fire and exploded. The air is acrid and the injured moans and screams carry across the river. I sleep with my pillow wrapped around my ears if I’m to sleep at all. Vagrant children wander Passy’s streets, thin as sticks and lacking proper clothes. The gardener shoos them away when they come to the gate. How awful to regard children as threats. In my guilt I rummaged up old but still decent woolens and fabric ends to send to the poorhouse.

Édouard and Degas visit when they can, Maman drilling them for news of Metz and Tibby. They have heard nothing but, at Papa’s behest, make up news of a positive nature. Degas is a terrible liar and Édouard an overly enthusiastic one. Maman is catching on to the deception. Their visits are my joy and solace. Degas arrives hungry and dust covered, having done an honest day’s work. M. Meisonnier weights their rifles with sandbags which they must press fifty times overhead morning and evening. After target practice they load burlaps with sand and build walls, or carry buckets of water from the Seine for washing, or transport gunpowder supplies where needed. I sometimes wonder if Édouard, whose uniform remains pristine, reports for duty at all. It looks as though his day’s work is no more than trimming his nails and beard. I tease him but am pleased he looks out for himself. If I lost him, Edma, I don’t know what I’d do.

Degas said he doesn’t think he’d have the courage to shoot another man no matter the circumstance. Édouard mocked him for it but could Édouard? What man has such tremendous arrogance that to silence another’s life he’d not suffer from it for the rest of his. Surely it tears the very fabric of one’s humanity.

I’m weary all the time and accomplish nothing. I mostly daydream of my lover, read, make flaccid sketches of this and that and, to please Papa, sometimes fiddle on the piano, my fingers stiff with cold. We must use our limited coal and wood for cooking only and walk about the half-empty house in our capes and gloves. It’s all so strange. My handwriting is ragged because I can’t get warm no matter how much tea I drink or how many warm bricks support my feet. I never thought I’d envy the cook and scullery maid who now sleep in the kitchen beside the stove.

Thin Louis went to the candlestick shop only to find its windows boarded. One stroke of luck still to be had, he ran into Leo and the dear man came by the next day with a gift often dozen candles and a gallon of cooking oil. I asked after Marcello. He told me she has escaped to Italy.

I wonder: do these so-called leaders of men not bleed like we do? Is their pride so all-consuming that they are indifferent to suffering? Are

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.