Insensibly life changed, quite apart from the rude shocks of war; lines were confused, old ideals were analyzed in many instances as hoary conventions, which had decayed inside until a succession of sharp quick contacts caused the shell to cave in upon emptiness.

V

A year passed.  During that time husbands did not return from the front unless ill or maimed (and thousands of husbands are even to-day quite intact).  Then came Chapter Two of the domestic side of the War, which should be called “Les Permissionnaires.”  Officers and soldiers were allowed a six days’ leave of absence from the front at stated intervals.

The wives were all excitement and hope.  They snatched time to replenish their wardrobes, and once more the thousand corridors of the Galeries Lafayette swarmed, the dressmakers breathed again.  Shop windows blossomed with all the delicate fripperies with which a Frenchwoman can make old garments look new.  Hotel keepers emerged from their long night like hibernates that had overslept, and rubbing their hands.  The men were coming back.  Paris would live again.  And Paris, the coquette of all the ages, forgot her new role of lady of sorrows and smiled once more.

The equally eager husband (to pass over “les autres”) generally sneaked into his house or apartment by the back stairs and into the bathtub before he showed himself to his adoring family; but after those first strenuous hours of scrubbing and disinfecting and shaving, and getting into a brand new uniform of becoming horizon blue, there followed hours of rejoicing unparalleled by anything but a victory over “Les Boches.”

For two days husband and wife talked as incessantly as only Gauls can; but by degrees a puzzled look contracted the officer’s brow, gradually deepening into a frown.  His fluent wife, whose animation over trifles had always been a source of infinite refreshment, was talking of things which he, after a solid year of monotonous warfare far from home, knew nothing.  He cared to know less.  He wanted the old exchange of personalities, the dear domestic gabble.

The wife meanwhile was heroically endeavoring to throw off a feeling of intolerable ennui.  How was it that never before had she found the hearthstone dull?  The conversation of her life partner (now doubly honored) induced a shameful longing for the seventh day.

So it was.  During that year these two good people had grown apart.  The wife’s new friends bored the husband, and the gallant soldier’s stories of life at the Front soon became homogeneous.  Whether he will accept his wife’s enlarged circle and new interests after the war is over is one of the problems, but nothing is less likely than that she will rebuild the dam, recall the adventurous waters of her personality, empty her new brain cells, no matter how much she may continue to love her husband and children.

VI