There could be no romantic episode, save of a transient kind, between
them and these good-looking lads in whose eyes there were desire and
hunger, because to them the plainest girl was Womanhood, the sweet,
gentle, and feminine side of life, as opposed to the cruelty,
brutality, and ugliness of war and death. The shopgirls of Amiens had
no illusions. They had lived too long in war not to know the
realities. They knew the risks of transient love and they were not
taking them--unless conditions were very favorable. They attended
strictly to business and hoped to make a lot of money in the shop, and
were, I think, mostly good girls--as virtuous as life in war-time may
let girls be--wise beyond their years, and with pity behind their
laughter for these soldiers who tried to touch their hands over the
counters, knowing that many of them were doomed to die for France and
England. They had their own lovers--boys in blue somewhere between
Vaux-sur-Somme and Hartmanns--weilerkopf--and apart from occasional
intimacies with English officers quartered in Amiens for long spells,
left the traffic of passion to other women who walked the streets.
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