Page:Diary of a Prisoner in World War I by Josef Šrámek.pdf/108

 enfants" and their kind inquiries as to where we were from, what it was like in our homes, and how we lived. Communicating with them was hard; we spoke using our hands. Anyway, those good villagers were completely ignorant of where our homeland is. And when we made the mistake of telling them we were neither Bosch nor Autrichiens, but that we were de la Boheme , it was all over. La Boheme is a Gypsy—so they kept wondering why we were not black but blond. Sometime a Gypsy with a bear came to the village.

We had hard work explaining to the French who we were. When we learned French and explained that we were Czechs—le Tcheque—it was good. But then we had to move to a completely new environment. They asked us about our families; we showed them the photographs and explained what life was like at home. Our boys boasted that everything was better, smarter, and more perfect.

But then again we could boast justly. We were ahead of the French in everything: land cultivation, household matters, cuisine, education. There were very many people here who could not read, who had open fireplaces in their houses with kettles on chains, burning shrubs, and dried cow waste they collected, dried, and stacked in the summer.