One is of an old abbe, talking earnestly to a young Belgian noblewoman
who had recently escaped from Brussels with only the clothing she
wore.
The abbe was round of face and benevolent. I had met him before, at
Calais, where he had posed me in front of a statue and taken my
picture. His enthusiasm over photography was contagious. He had made a
dark room from a closet in an old convent, and he owned a little
American camera. With this carefully placed on a tripod and covered
with a black cloth, he posed me carefully, making numerous excursions
under the cloth. In that cold courtyard, under the marble figure of
Joan of Arc, he was a warm and human and most alive figure, in his
flat black shoes, his long black soutane with its woollen sash, his
woollen muffler and spectacles, with the eternal cigarette, that is
part and parcel of every Belgian, dangling loosely from his lower lip.
The surgeons and nurses who were watching the operation looked on with
affectionate smiles. They loved him, this old priest, with his
boyishness, his enthusiasms, his tiny camera, his cigarette, his
beautiful faith. He has promised me the photograph and what he
promises he fulfils. But perhaps it was a failure. I hope not. He
would be so disappointed--and so would I.
So I was glad to meet him again at La Panne--glad and surprised, for
he was fifty miles north of where we had met before.
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