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Updated: May 2, 2025
I am not at all poor!" and leaving a twopence-halfpenny piece on the seat, she hurried away. Colonel Dellahousse came to the side of the car and thanked Fanny ceremoniously. "And if I do not see you again, mademoiselle," he said, "remember what I say and go back to your home before the pleasure of life is spoilt for you." "Good-bye, good-bye," said the French lieutenant.
"What is man's mystery to a woman if she lives surrounded by him?" "Oh, but that's not necessary ... mystery!" "It is necessary to love." "Colonel Dellahousse," explained the lieutenant, smiling very much, "does not believe that you can love what you know." The Russian nodded. "Love is based on a fabulous belief. An illusory image which fills the eyes of people who are unused to each other.
He had blue eyes and a long, sad moustache that swept down the lower half of his face and even below his chin, making him look older than he should. "I am for a Russian colonel," she said, liking his mild face. "That's right. Yes, a Russian colonel. Colonel Dellahousse. But can you manage by yourself? Can you really? I will tell him...."
"Colonel Dellahousse told me 'a driver'; he did not add that the driver was a lady. Where have they put you? Not in the cubicles of the officiers de passage? No, no, that must be changed, that won't do. Come, you shall sleep in the room next to the bishop's room, as he is absent. It is in my corridor." Fanny followed him, and noticed that the corridor was now clear of soldiers.
"Monsieur Dellahousse would like to know if you know the way?" he inquired. "He doesn't want to take me? Isn't that it?" asked Fanny, smiling but anxious. "He is a little doubtful," admitted the lieutenant. "You must excuse...." "Perhaps I appear flippant to him. But I am grave, too, grave as he, and I long to go, and the car and I, we are trustworthy. I do, indeed, know the way to Verdun."
"And I return alone?" "No, you stay too. You are lent to us for five days. They should have told you!" "Oh, I stay too. In this tunnel, here! How odd, how amusing!" "Monsieur Dellahousse has gone to ask the Commandant of the citadelle to house us all. Here he comes." The Russian returned under the chain of lights. "Follow me," he said, and led them further into his cavern.
He went in again, and for answer the porter brought out the bags, and Colonel Dellahousse followed, carrying a sealed black bag with care under his arm. She was sure he had said to the Frenchman: "But what sort of a woman is she? One does not want to have difficulties." And as sure, too, that the other had answered: "I know the English. They let their women do this sort of thing.
"Wait!" ordered the deep voice of the Russian, and he strode from them into the depths of the tunnel with the Eastern swing of Ali Baba entering his cave. Fanny stood by the mild lieutenant, and they waited obediently. "I must tell you a secret," he said to her. "Monsieur Dellahousse is very glad to be here. He said this morning: 'The Governor has sent me a woman to break my neck!"
At the next section sat the officers of the citadelle, a passing general, and at the left hand of the commandant, Monsieur Dellahousse and the mild lieutenant. Overhead the stone roof of the tunnel was arched with flags, and orderlies hurried up and down serving the diners. Fanny, halfway up the long table, wavered in doubt. Where, after all, was she supposed to sit?
Here in this womanless region, in this fortress, in this room, night after night, month after month, the commandant and his officers had sat at table; in this room, which, unlike the tomb, had held only the living, while the dead and the threatened-with-death inhabited the earth above. They had finished dinner and Monsieur Dellahousse signalled to Fanny that she might rise.
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