Like those of most French villages, they were
drab, plaster-covered buildings without gardens; but some of them were
covered with vines, hiding their ugliness; and the village as a whole,
with its groups, here and there, of fine sycamore trees and its great
stone fountain in the centre, was picturesque enough. It had twice
changed hands, and a part of it was in ruins. From one or two of the
more solidly built houses merely the front had fallen, leaving the rooms
just as they had always been: the furniture in its accustomed place, the
pictures on the walls. They suggested doll's houses standing open. One
wondered when the giant child would come along and close them up. The
iron spire of the little church had been hit twice. It stood above the
village, twisted into the form of a note of interrogation. In the
churchyard many of the graves had been ripped open. Bones and skulls lay
scattered about among the shattered tombstones. But, save for a couple
of holes in the roof, the body was still intact, and every afternoon a
faint, timid-sounding bell called a few villagers and a sprinkling of
soldiers to Mass.
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