Energy books

I could not catch many
words of the conversation, owing to the general chatter, but when the
man went out the woman and I were left alone together, and she came
over to me and put a photograph down on the table before me, and, as
though carrying on her previous train of thought, said, in French, of
course:
"Yes, that is what the war has done to me."
I could not guess her meaning. Looking at the photograph, I saw it was
of a young girl in evening dress with her hair coiled in an artistic
way and a little curl on each cheek. Madame's daughter, I thought,
looking up at the woman standing in front of me in a grubby bodice and
tousled hair. She looked a woman of about forty, with a wan face and
beaten eyes.
"A charming young lady," I said, glancing again at the portrait.
The woman repeated her last sentence, word for word.
"Yes . . . that is what the war has done to me."
I looked up at her again and saw that she had the face of the young
girl in the photograph, but coarsened, aged, raddled, by the passing
years and perhaps by tragedy.


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