I
_Paris_
Some mysterious influence seems to be watching over me; perhaps Mr.
Brinsmade, for his hand is powerful here, and a request from him would
undoubtedly be honored. At any rate, on my return I found orders for me
to report temporarily at the Bureau de la Presse as an interpreter. At
any other time I should resent this, but now--frankly--I am glad, as
I want to be able to transfer into the American service as soon as we
declare war, and to be in Paris is to be where friends and influence
can expedite matters. Ben goes into the Morgan-Harjes ambulance for six
months, and leaves at the end of the week. He is more taciturn than
ever, but the feeling of being in a great current, a man among men, is,
I know, a great release to him. We have never discussed Letty since the
day of our departure, when he gave me to understand that the separation
was definite. I am still in the dark as to his real thoughts.
Sometimes, I catch his glance on mine (quickly averted) and I wonder.
* * * * *
The coming back to it all, much to my surprise, was the most natural
thing in the world. I felt no special thrill, no strangeness and (this
surprised me) not the slightest revolt. In some ways it was a relief
from my thoughts, from my own little existence battling against the
currents of destiny.
Yet I except one moment,--the day of our landing at Bordeaux, when
the shifting turns of my destiny were brought before me in a dramatic
revelation. We were at the rail, looking down on the tedious process
of the tying up to the dock. A number of blue-gray recruits were
straggling out of wine shops, lounging on the piers, watching our
arrival. Suddenly, at the call of a bugle, the gray, loosely flung
shadows contracted, took shape and alignment, became an entity. Another
command and a hundred feet swung forward, a hundred arms rippled over
one body, and an idea set to purpose passed up the street. A moment
before they were identities, free as I still was; free to turn, to sit,
to rise, to jump and to run; the next, all human semblance had sunk
into the anonymity of a machine. It was glorious. It stirred me as
nothing else has the power to stir the blood,--this groping become an
idea, this confusion crystallizing into purpose, this visualization of
man moving as history moves. Yet for that moment it terrified me with
its actuality. For I felt the obliteration of all that had been for
these last incredible weeks--David Littledale. Anonymity? Yes, as death
may be anonymous, and number me into the ranks of the forgotten.
* * * * *
At Bordeaux, I bade Ben good-by and became once more Brigadier
Littledale, Légion Etrangère, soldier of France. It is the dirt and the
filth that are hard to accept,--the feeling of being of the cattle of
war.
* * * * *
From there to Paris, in a steaming mass of human flesh, crowded into
box cars. No longer the swinging enthusiasm of the mobilization;
instead a comradeship become the ox-like acceptance of a fate which has
fatigued the imagination into indifference. But the return is always
hideous. At Paris, to the medical inspection, and the surprise of being
detached and transferred. Perhaps the imminence of our entry into the
war, which can be but a matter of days, is much in my good fortune.
My new detail gives me quite a little liberty, as some of my superiors
are old friends of social days, and I am permitted to sleep at the
hotel with Ben, who was astonished when I walked in. To-morrow we are
going over to see Alan. I am a little apprehensive of how he will
receive Ben. No letter yet from Bernoline. I write her each night and
mail the letter at the end of the week.
* * * * *
Dined to-night with Ben at an out-of-the-way restaurant of older days,
across the Seine, where boys of thirteen and fourteen masqueraded as
waiters and gave us of the toll of death. My old _sommelier_, who
always kept a special bottle for me (or made me think he did), is
gone, dead in the fight around the Labyrinth. New faces everywhere.
Afterwards we walked back, silently, across the blackened city,
stumbling down old Paris towards the dim blur of a hooded light.
Occasionally a star detached itself from the Milky Way and went
wandering like a great firefly, where above us, a sentinel aeroplane
patrolled the night.
We came back shoulder to shoulder, unseen to each other, in long
stretches of silence. It is strange how little we can say to each
other. I have not the slightest inkling to the ways of his mind.
Sometimes I think him totally devoid of imagination. Perhaps I am wrong
and in his inner shell his thoughts are active and relentless. His code
is a strange one--very Anglo-Saxon--and I think he is still ashamed
that once or twice I saw him in the raw. I of course never refer to
Letty, though her presence is always between us. The nearest approach
to intimacy is a dialogue like this:
“How are you to-day, Ben?”
“First rate.”
“Nothing worrying you?”
“Nothing.”
“You look more like your old self.”
“Feel so.”
“All right then, old fellow?”
“Quite.”
And we are two human beings, brothers even, living from day to day and
indifferent to the fates!
Whether the passion in him that Letty had fired has died out or is only
smoldering, I have no way of knowing. I am inclined to think it is his
pride that suffers most. I do not think there is any black resolve back
of his mind. His imagination is not apt to run away with him. But,
having written this, I wonder. He is a nature utterly incomprehensible
to me, and daily contact seems to send him further away. I am living
with a stranger.
II
This afternoon we saw Alan. I had sent him word of our arrival at
Bordeaux, before I knew I should have the opportunity to see him. As a
matter of fact, I was apprehensive of what might happen, for both Alan
and Ben are strong-willed and direct to the point. But to my surprise
the meeting passed off without incident. We sat down as though twenty
years had not passed and the leader was not Alan nor myself, but Ben.
We both felt it. From the moment he walked into the room, he was the
older brother and tradition held.
It was a curious phenomenon, yet one that I have noticed before on
meeting again some hero of school days; an idolatry does abide that
nothing in the passage of human life can destroy. It is probably
this reason--the need of revolting against a mastership once
acknowledged--that drives certain strong growing natures away from the
dwarfing influences of the family.
Alan was alone when we entered, though Toinon came in shortly afterward.
“Well, Skipper, pretty banged up, aren’t you?”
Ben had come in with outstretched hand, as though there had never been
a cloud between them, and Alan, who had hung back at my first approach,
found himself shaking hands, yielding, allowing himself to be ordered
around by the man against whom he had steeled his heart.
“Well, how are you? You look pretty much slapped around but a damned
sight better than I expected.”
“Yes. Much better.”
“Amazingly so, old fellow. You’ll be out having a fling at the Boche
before you know it.”
And he did look better, though how much may have been the excitement of
seeing us is a thing I do not know.
“Here. Stretch out in this chair. If there’s any hustling to do, we’ll
do it. Coddle yourself there. Davy and I can find the tobacco. Nice
diggings you have here.”
At this moment Toinon came in, her market basket on her arm, and
stopped short at sight of us.
“What shall I call her? Davy has told me about her,” said Ben, rising.
“Toinon--Mademoiselle Toinon, if you like. _Toinon, ma mie, c’est mon
frère Ben. Tu connais David. Viens ici._”
She shook hands gaily, and passing to Alan, leaned over and kissed him,
while Alan looked at us with a certain defiance.
“Don’t carry a chip on your shoulder, Skipper,” said Ben, knocking out
the ashes from his pipe, while Toinon disappeared with her marketing.
“And if I married her?” said Alan stubbornly.
“Why? If you’re happy,” said Ben, shrugging his shoulders, “I’m sure
that’s your affair. And I say, Skipper--we’re grown up, so let’s quit
scrapping.” He sat down and stretched himself before the little wood
fire and began to laugh.
“What’s so funny?” said Alan suspiciously.
“Guess Davy can figure it out.”
He grew suddenly solemn and laid his hand on my arm.
“Sometime, when I’m not around, you can tell him--you would, anyhow.
Fact, Alan, I wasn’t laughing at you. If you’re good at guessing, that
ought to shut you up. Let’s talk of other things.”
Toinon came and stood warming her ankles at the fire, looking down on
the three of us. From her height she began to smile, in an amused way.
“You are alike as three ogres,” she said, drawing her finger over her
eyebrows, to indicate the characteristic Littledale line. “You will
lunch with us?”
“_Y-a de quoi manger, ma petite?_”
“_Mais, oui, et du bon vin._”
Alan’s voice was of a gentleness we had never heard. We offered to run
out to a _charcutier_, but he would not hear of it and realizing that
it might be a question of pride, we did not insist. There was no reason
for our anxiety, for the lunch was delicious and under the mellowing
influence of the extra bottle of wine the stiffness wore away. Yet the
conversation was not exactly expansive.
“What made you get into it, Skipper?”
“More amusing than staying out. How about you?”
“Same with me.”
“Davy said you were going in the ambulance.”
“Just for a couple of months. I’ve been at Plattsburg. I’ll strike for
a commission as soon as we get in it.”
Ben glanced at his watch and jumped up.
“Hello! Must be off.” He shook hands punctiliously with Toinon.
“_Déjeuner tres bon._ Good-by, Skipper. Any time I get a chance at
Paris I’ll look you up. Are you fixed all right for money?”
“Plenty.”
“No offense. See you later, Davy.”
He had been over an hour in the apartment, asked twenty questions,
studied everything, and said nothing at all.
“Well, that’s over,” I said, with a laugh.
“Yes, damn his cool cheek; but you’re as bad as I am; we sat there
listening to him as though we were both twelve years old,” he said, in
his growling way.
“Habit, Alan. You see, Ben never has two ideas in his mind. Make a good
officer.”
“Probably. What was he hinting at? Domestic difficulties?”
Then I told him, omitting, of course, whatever concerned me personally.
“Yes, I see why he laughed,” he said, when I had finished. “That was
almost human. Is it possible, I wonder, that Ben has got a new point of
view?”
“He is a clam, you know.”
We had gone back to our chairs before the fireplace. I saw that Alan
was quite puzzled over Ben’s history.
“Thinking of Ben?”
“Yes. Never figured him out that way,” he said meditatively. “You
know, with all the antagonism he roused in me, I used to envy him his
disposition.”
“Envy!”
“Yes; I figured out a fellow like that would go on ambling through
life, getting just about what he wanted from it, not worried by ideas
or having much to struggle with. Guess I don’t know so much about human
nature, after all.”
“There’s a law of averages comes in, even with Ben.”
“Suppose so. Did he take it hard?”
I nodded.
“Curious. I always thought of Ben as some robber baron of the Middle
Ages. I’d sort of expect him to rig up a gallows and see justice done
in good old mousquetaire fashion.”
“Really?”
“Yes; I say, David, why the devil do we feel his leadership the way we
do? We can think all around him. We’ve gone fifty years ahead of him.”
“Funny. I’ve been puzzling over that, myself.”
“Suppose men of action aren’t necessarily thinkers. We turn around an
idea, see the complexities; a decision with us is a mental process of
elimination. With him, it is instantaneous--an instinct; the primitive.
That’s why I’d have thought he’d strangle her.”
“Family feeling counts.”
“Yes, you’re right; felt that as we three were sitting here; felt it
strong. And a year ago I would have laughed at it. It’s so. I may champ
at the bit, but I’m one of you Littledales, for all that.”
Toinon brought in the coffee, slipped a pillow under his shoulders,
and went back into the kitchen. He looked very like the _condottieri_
of the Middle Ages he described, as he sat sunk in his chair, the
dressing-gown loose on his thin frame, white bony hands locked under
his chin, deep eyes and stubbled hair, gaunt and relentless.
“Davy, it would be queer if I pulled through, after all.”
I looked up in surprise.
“Course you’re going to! What an idea! Why, you took my breath away
when I came in--”
“Honest?”
“Quite honest.”
“You know a man like myself shouldn’t fool himself,” he said, staring
into the fire. “To-day’s a good day. But I do seem to be picking
up. You know, I would like to live. I don’t mind going, not at all.
But--it’s such an interesting world, I’d like to see what’s going to
happen, and--after.”
He moved his hand in a feeble gesture, and the shadow it made crept
across the sunlight that flooded the room.
“It’s interesting when you’ve got to an impersonal point of view and
you can stand and just look on. Youth is a sort of disease. I’ve lived
through that fever, groped beyond my limitations, struggled with
nightmares. It left some marks on me--not many. Funny, I feel just
ready to begin life, now.”
“I wish to God I could look at it that way,” I said impulsively.
“What way, Davy?” he said, a little puzzled, and by that I knew that he
had been talking, not to me, but to some shadowy self.
“Looking at things from the impersonal way.”
I was making a pretense of emptying my pipe, and turning, I faced his
sharp eyes.
“Want to talk it out, Davy?”
“Some day, perhaps. Not now.”
“You’re too young yet,” he said, nodding. “You think in terms of
yourself. Most of us do, and philosophy isn’t going to help that.”
“Right, there.”
“Know what strikes me? We human beings have so damned little charity
towards ourselves. All the institutions we’ve ever created--the Church,
the State, Society; for we _have_ created them--make us despise
ourselves,--look down upon ourselves. For two thousand years we’ve got
the conception that we are weak, crawling worms, originally sinful,
predestined to evil. We’ve been thundered at, frightened, cursed, and
every agency has united to belittle us in our own eyes. And yet, Davy,
look at the wonder of it; it’s only a few thousand years since we were
among the beasts of the field, groping in the darkness. And now, we
have illuminated the night, ridden the air, sowed the earth, bridged
the sea, abolished every impossibility, except the one thing--time.
And it’s not simply brain force, science, but the instinct towards a
beautiful ideal, that’s amazing in us; we’ve evolved a Parthenon out of
placing one stone on top of another; we’ve blown into a seashell and
imagined a modern orchestra; created literature, painting, the forms
of government, and all in a few thousand years, despite this strange
conception of our impotence and frailty. By Jove, sometimes I almost
want to go and just lift my hat in reverence to my race!”
“What’s going to happen after this war is over?” I said, interested in
this revelation of Alan.
“Here?”
“Well, I was thinking of America. Been thinking a lot about it lately.
You’ve had the chance to knock about as I haven’t. What do you think is
coming?”
“I’ll answer you like this,” he said, reaching for a pipe which he held
a moment nervously in his teeth, champing on it as a horse does on its
bit. “It’s all complex till you look at it in just one way. Look at it
as you would the forces of nature. Forces of human nature act just the
same way. That is, if you can see them in the proper perspective.
“There’s only one genuine aristocracy in the world to-day: that’s
Germany. It is a genuine force, because it does lead, is educated
to lead. England is an aristocracy that is more or less artificial,
struggling to hold the leadership it has inherited. And, Davy, I’m not
so sure that Germany is going to be beaten.”
“Well, I’ll be damned--”
“Germany and the German idea are two separate things. You’ve got to
beat her thoroughly if you want to get rid of the German conception of
the State. Just a stand-off won’t do that. Quite frankly, to me the
tragedy to-day is that the German idea of government, the finest modern
conception, has got to be stamped out because it is harnessed to this
inhuman, bestial, conscienceless Prussianism. It is economically sound
and morally wrong.”
“Well, Alan, I don’t think I can follow you there,” I said, warmly.
“Perhaps I hate them too much to see any good in them, but--”
“Good? Why, Davy, what are you going to put up against them? Your other
civilizations, based on individualism, without responsibility, order,
discipline, efficiency? Whatever you may think about it, Germany has a
logical conception, worked out to the minutest detail. What have we?
A government based on the theory of the consent of the governed. And
who governs? Not the people--not the leaders we see--but something
which remains in the shadows. We’re plundered, we’re wasteful, we’re
inefficient; we don’t even know there is a science of government.
Government annoys us. We conceive of the State as a big telephone
central, a convenient policeman. It isn’t an ideal; it isn’t even a
central idea to express all the future of a great democracy. Why talk
of the State when we can’t govern even a single city! No other nation
in the world could go on like that without being gobbled up. But we go
on because we see no visible danger. David, I sometimes wonder if it
wouldn’t be better for us if Germany did win,--just as it would bring
us up short if we had the threat of a great civilization on our Mexican
frontier.”
“I grant that; but what if Germany doesn’t win?”
“Then it won’t be a question of what we’ve got to do but one of natural
evolution. Let’s go back to forces. Wherever you find the greatest
force concentrating, there you’ll find the ultimate power. What is a
revolution but the shifting of the balance of power from an artificial
force to a natural force? When the old order falters, weakens, sickens,
it becomes an artificial control; the leadership is imposed and not
genuine, and, you can put it down as an axiom that an artificial force
is a force whose days are numbered. Society is like an iceberg. Eight
ninths of it are under the surface, but when that upper minority
dwindles below the line of safety, the submerged mass rises to the sky.
We have a new peak but the balance remains the same. That’s all.”
“I see what you’re driving at,” I admitted reluctantly, for his method
recalled to me the haunting prophecies of Peter Magnus.
“We’ve had the king idea and the aristocratic idea, and both
theoretically were good ideas so long as you had the intelligent
despot and the class that had the right to lead; and those ideas were
practical ideas, so long as they were concentrated, unified, and
efficient. Decay, before revolution, destroyed them. Then you’ve had
the rise of the middle class, and remember this in all fairness, Davy,
each class has always ruled in its own interest. Now, in America what
class or force is there that is unified, concentrated and efficient to
carry out its decisions?”
“Labor, and labor alone,” I said, following in his thought.
“Something greater than agitation has done it. It’s the course of
modern civilization,--machinery. It began with the first invention.
To-day it is an accelerating force. Ten thousand cobblers scattered
through a State are not a political force, but ten thousand workers
in a shoe factory are. They live together, they think together, they
become politically conscious. Davy, answer this to yourself: can you
honestly believe there is anything going to prevent a class that has
the power, that knows it has the power, from finally exercising that
power, in the same way and for the same ends that every other social
movement has acted?”
“No, not as you put it; not as I see it now.”
“Why deceive ourselves? What is the meaning of a strike? More wages,
better conditions? Not fundamentally. Every strike is one step onward
in the solidification of a new political force,--a skirmish before the
final battle.”
“Then you, too, think that the old order is passing?”
“Passing! It started the day universal suffrage was proclaimed. I
suppose now you’ll ask me if I believe in democracy?”
“I confess I am wondering.”
“Ask me if I believe in machinery! Why debate on what is an
accomplished fact? Why ask if a river should move in its course?
If machinery was inevitable, so democracy was inevitable. We have
proclaimed universal suffrage; now we must watch it work out to its
logical conclusion. We’ve been proclaiming one thing and doing another
for generations. Now, we’re going to find out.”
“Socialism, then?”
“Not necessarily. The rise of a new force; a perfectly natural appetite
for power, that’s all. Ideas are always translated into appetites. The
Girondins were a body of idealists, and the Revolution they produced
immediately devoured them. As a matter of fact, men in the mass do not
want anything different from men as privileged individuals; only they
want the luxury for themselves, and when they are strong enough they
seize it,--to live first and then to enjoy life in a big and bigger
way,--the pursuit of happiness, if you wish. Just as strong in the
mass as with us.”
“I’ll agree this much, Alan,” I said, “though I know much of what
you’ve said is true: our American failure has been the failure to
produce a continuing class of leadership. If those who are born to
lead, who ought to be educated to lead, won’t lead, they must take the
consequences. And I’m hitting my own kind!”
“Particularly as others are preparing to take that leadership.”
When I left, I put out a hand with a genuine admiration and affection.
“Well, Alan, it’s pretty late to be finding it out, isn’t it, but I’m
glad I’ve really got to know you.”
“Oh, that’s all right,” he said gruffly, but pleased nevertheless.
“Drop around. Lots more to be settled in the old world. I say, Davy, I
wonder what Ben would have thought of my heresies?”
We broke into a hearty laugh at this, and I went out.
When I reached the hotel, I sat down and wrote out a little of the
conversation to Bernoline. For I am anxious to know what she, with
every instinct opposed, will say to it.
“Queer duck, Alan,” said Ben that night at table. “How long did you
stay?”
“About an hour or two.”
“Could you get him to talk?”
“Yes, he opened up quite a bit.”
“Don’t like his dying there, like a dog. We ought to get him home.”
“I’m afraid you’ll find him rather obstinate.”
“Don’t like it.”
“I think we’d better accept him on his own terms.”
“Don’t like it. Don’t like his dying in a hole. Don’t like the woman.”
“Are we our brother’s keeper?”
“Well, at least, we ought to have a good doctor in.”
“I’ve thought of that.”
I arranged for Doctor Murchison, a man I knew at Neuilly, to go over
and make a thorough examination, cautioning him about dispelling
illusions. His report, as I feared, leaves little hope; the lungs are
badly affected. It can be only a question of time.
* * * * *
Ben went off to-night.
III
At last her letter! It was waiting for me on the little table in the
hall, among the mail from home. I went up the stairs breathlessly,
without waiting for the elevator, and shutting myself in, read it again
and again.
_Mon ami_:
I have waited a whole week since receiving your letter, for I
wanted time to think, to think calmly and deliberately. It was
wrong for me to leave the decision to you, as I did. I alone must
bear the responsibility, for I alone know all the facts, don’t you
see? I shall write you, as I promised, and as my heart would have
it,--until God brings you safely through this war.
David, I do this with many misgivings, and my doubts will always be
with me. If, some later day, in your spirit, you may reproach me
and wonder at my lack of courage (some day, _mon ami_, you will do
so, and that will be my punishment) remember this, that I should
never have weakened as I have done, if it were not that you are
going again into this hideous war. All that I have told myself this
long week, all my arguments, are as nothing when I say to myself
that death will be your companion by day and by night. Even if
some day you should blame me in the bitterness of your heart, I can
do no otherwise,--no woman could. I do not matter,--you ask for my
strength. It is yours.
And now, _mon ami_, only one thing can justify the decision I
have made, freely and not impulsively; the feeling that if God in
some mysterious way has willed that I should come into your life,
that it is not to weaken you, not to sadden you, but to give you
strength and courage and that for knowing all the faith I have in
you, you will rise to the big things.
I have such a high ideal for you, _mon ami_. I know your
strength and I know what you need. I feel about you a certain
weakness--perhaps weakness is too strong a word--a certain longing
for what a woman, a real woman, can give to you. You do not speak
what is in your heart easily,--never to friends. It is through
another that you will discover yourself. Some men are sufficient
to themselves and, if they do not know the greatest happiness--for
women seldom love them--they are saved from much sorrow. You are
not like that, David. You are sensitive to every impression and you
need happiness really to find all the qualities of the heart that
are waiting to be called forth. I could not bear the thought of
your marrying the wrong woman.
For you are not meant to go through this world alone. It may seem
strange, incomprehensible to you, that I can hold you so dear and
yet look forward with such hope to your marrying some lovely young
girl, like Anne Brinsmade, to complete your life. Yet it is so. It
is the maternal in me, _mon ami_, that you always appeal to, David,
since I have no right to the other. Let me then be in your life
all that means hope and faith and ambition, during this period of
trial, and if you wish to make me feel some little happiness in
what I do, let me know that nothing I have done will ever weaken
your courage or prevent your seeking the happiness to which every
man has a right. Let us keep then a nobility of spirit, _mon ami_,
and without rebellion or sadness, face life as God in his fuller
knowledge has willed to prove us.
B.
When I had read this through the first time--tumultuously--seeking to
absorb it in one breath, I read it through again, slowly, stopping at
every sentence, sometimes with every sense thrilling, sometimes with
a black revolt against the obstinate struggle for a repression that I
knew was not in her heart. I searched every phrase for a significance
that might be concealed beneath the words, alternately high with hope
and again given over to despair. When I had read her letter for the
fifth time, I laid it on my lap and abandoned myself to my thoughts.
It had become so dark in my little bedroom that I could no longer
distinguish her handwriting. Outside, over the young green of the
trees, past the fading foliage of the Champs Elysées, the golden
dome of the Invalides was paling in the sifting in of the dust. It
is the hour of all the day to which I am most sensitive, the hour,
when shared, which brings a tenderness to the heart that raises us
triumphant above the riot of the city, but an hour, when faced alone,
that oppresses the imagination and weighs it down with the futility of
hoping against the inevitable, when memories of vanished happiness are
too acute and separation intolerable.
I rose hurriedly, lit my candle and drew the curtains. How many
emotions thronged into my heart as I sat down at my table and turned
her letter in my hands; the soft blue paper, with the thin and rounded
handwriting, that was all Bernoline,--order, discipline and delicacy.
My first impulse was to take up the chronicle of my days and write to
her while the mood was strong. I remained an hour staring at an empty
page, unable to phrase a thought. And, even now, what is in my mind?
There are moments when I face the truth without wavering, and tell
myself that her instinct is right, that there is no outcome possible
for me, that I am wilfully, blindly plunging ahead into an entanglement
which will wreck my whole life; that I am wrong in overcoming
her determination and forcing a situation which is against her
intuitions,--and where, of course, she must suffer as much as I shall.
For in her tradition there is no escape even from the most hideous of
marriages.
* * * * *
The idea of her being married is unbearable to me, and I revolt against
the inhumanity and immorality of such enforced slavery. At the thought
of her sensitive, fragile spirit at the brutal whim of a husband she
loathed--No, I cannot bear to dwell on what may have happened: thank
God, her body, at least, is now free. Perhaps that is the explanation
of her anonymity and her terror of retaining even a trace of her past
identity.
* * * * *
As I write, an extraordinary thought flashes into my
mind,--extraordinary because, strangely enough, it has never occurred
to me before; are there children in her life, too? I remember, now, how
she shrank from the touch of Master Jack that morning on the boat when
we told fairy tales. Can it be possible? And why has such a supposition
never occurred to me before? And yet--no--I do not think this possible.
It is possible that there may have been a child, but not that there is
a child that is living to-day; no, that is quite unthinkable! For with
her faith, her clear sense of duty, her acceptance of sacrifice,--no,
that is impossible, quite impossible!
* * * * *
At least there is this consolation to me, sitting here alone and
separated by time and distance; I know how profoundly her heart has
gone out to me; that despite all her traditions, she has been unable
to close the door and put me out of her life. Whatever the waiting,
to know that is to have something to cling to. Who knows? This war in
which my own life must be risked, may free us both!
Now that I can think more sanely, and that every word of hers is
written in my memory, thank God that there is only one feeling in my
heart, and that for her. What am I to pit my sorrows against hers? I
shall do as she asks of me. No written word of mine shall ever cause
her a regret or a pain, if I can help it. And that will not be easy,
for it means a constant struggle, a constant check on every impulse.
* * * * *
After all, are not my little reasonings quite futile? What must be,
will be. We have ventured unwittingly from the safe shallows into the
great tumult of life and destiny, and it will bear us where it wills.
So, why debate and wonder?
* * * * *
In the same mail came a letter from Anne. Only a few pitiful
words,--but reading them has broken me all up:
This is not a letter, David: just a message. I am so sorry. If I
could only make it easier to bear. Bless you.
ANNE.
_April_
At last! Yesterday America declared war. It is my fight now. I shall be
transferred, at once.
* * * * *
I went over to Alan’s in the afternoon and found him in a high pitch
of excitement, insisting on going out to see the city. I argued with
him, fruitlessly, for he would have his way. So we bundled him up, and
Toinon and I helped him down the stairs, and, with him between us in
the back seat of a lazy fiacre, we went forth into the delirious city.
Flags everywhere, and everywhere, thank God, the Stars and Stripes!
Where they came from, heaven knows: they blossomed out like dandelions
after a rain, in the most unexpected places,--orthodox and home-made;
flags constructed of hastily-ripped-up skirts and comforters, the
stripes and stars confused: but what did it matter! I think all the
crowded panoply of the boulevards did not give us half the thrill that
we received at the sight of one clumsy, grotesque banner swinging above
a butcher shop on the Rue des Quatre-vents, with its green-blue stripes
and its wabbly white stars hastily sewn on. Alan was in uniform and I
in my blue-gray, and everywhere it was:
“_Bravo, les Americains_!”
“_Vive l’Amerique_!”
We stayed out until dark: nothing could induce him to return sooner.
“Why, good Lord, Davy, this is doing me more good than all the doctors
in Paris,” he exclaimed fretfully. “This is something to live for. I’ll
be cured and back in a couple of months. You’ll see. You must apply for
a commission for me. I know more about artillery than half their dinky
West Pointers. I can start in a little light work; there’ll be a lot
of instructing necessary. What do they say? Will the army be sent over
here to train?”
I humored him, hoping against hope that the mental incentive might
produce the miracle. But, once before the test of the long stairs to be
climbed, the inexorable force of reality dispelled our hasty illusions.
We helped him as best we could up four flights, and up the last,
without resistance from him, I carried my brother in my arms. He had a
dreadful spell of coughing that left him shaken and limp, and for the
first time, I believe, he guessed the truth.
For when we had him at last in bed, and it was time for me to go, he
caught my hand, and cried rebelliously:
“Good God; I haven’t got to die now, have I?”
IV
_June, At the Front_
I am back in active service at last. Lieutenant Littledale, attached
as _officier de liaison_ with the ----th Division de Fer, French Army,
thanks to De Saint Omer, now Commandant on the staff of General La
Pierre. We are constantly together. My record was against me--the leg
still has a limp and I am under weight--and the best I could have
hoped for was to be used in a training school. So, when De Saint Omer
suggested being attached to the French, I jumped at the chance.
Hope is running high: a new offensive is in the air. Several American
officers have come to us on a visit, and the stories they bring of
preparations at home are very heartening. The presence of the American
uniform works miracles among the troops.
* * * * *
Letters are fearfully delayed. I have a helpless feeling that half of
them never reach me. It has been a month since I have had word from
Bernoline. The last news was that she had gone as companion in the
family of the Barristers. It gave me a strange feeling. I know them;
they are cousins of Anne’s, and I am happy that she at least is with
friends. Anne has written me every week. Ben is in the aviation.
_A week later_
To-day Maurice de Saint Omer told me of the death of his brother in the
early days of the war. He was a young lieutenant, just twenty-two, and
was in command of a section that was to go over the top at dawn.
It was in the early days of the stabilized war of the trenches,
when men went to certain slaughter on account of the lack of proper
artillery protection, and when to win a few strategic yards, hundreds
of men had to be sacrificed as a screen.
The section of trench which the young lieutenant held was absolutely at
the mercy of the Boche machine guns. To obey the order meant the death
of every man who went over the top. He debated his duty all through the
night and in the morning, half an hour before the appointed time, he
called his men together and said:
“The attack is to be general, all up and down the line. Therefore, no
account can be taken of local conditions. You can understand that.
There can be no army without obedience and discipline. But I cannot
find it in my heart to sacrifice every life here. Therefore, at the
hour, I go over the top alone.”
They pleaded with him, but he remained firm as he saw his duty; wrote
his farewell to his brother, embraced his men, and, when the time came,
went over the top, and--was killed instantly.
“It is a story to be told after the war,” said De Saint Omer, in
conclusion. “Technically, of course, he was wrong--but it was like the
boy to pay the price!”
* * * * *
He told it without emotion that I could see. In fact, all personal
feeling has left him completely. The old feeling of family and race
gives him an impassivity and a detachment of sacrifice which is beyond
my understanding. No one would recognize now the dandy of Paris. His
hair is gray, his face gaunt and wrinkled, but he never loses either
his faith in the outcome or the Gallic quality of gaiety to the end.
Yet, when he makes a decision, nothing can swerve him. He hates the
Boches with a burning, unholy hatred (there is some tragic story about
his family and particularly his mother which some day I think he will
tell me), and yet, when it is a question of some captured officer, he
is punctilious to the extreme in his courtesy. _Noblesse oblige!_
_July_
Back from the Chemin des Dames affair to hear of my father’s death in
the month of May. I have, of course, expected it from day to day. Yet
now that it has come, it brings home to me what will some day come to
me, as nothing else has done. Then, too, I have the feeling of suddenly
stepping into the front rank and looking into vacancy--a feeling of
others crowding at my back--and I ask myself, incredulously, if thirty
years is now my allotted span. Strangely enough, I don’t think of what
may happen here.
_July, In Rest Camp_
Letters from home; from Anne, Molly and two from Bernoline. I had
almost forgotten the existence of that other world: not its existence,
but its power to reach out to me. The Champagne offensive has been
a ghastly failure, terrible blunders committed, useless sacrifices.
We all feel it and the _poilus_, too, are not deceived. At the close
of a brave, gossipy letter of Bernoline’s about the war frenzy at
home, a passage that I have read over three times,--one that I do not
comprehend.
When you write me, David, that you can never think of me but as
a woman to whom every good act is instinctive,--how sadly you
misjudge me. David, this very ideal you have of me makes me examine
my conscience so restlessly. Don’t idealize me. See me as I am,--a
very human and weak woman, who falls far short of the ideal you
raise of her. No, _mon ami_, the way is not clear before me, nor
do I know yet what I shall do. If you knew how I am tortured by
remorse at times, I who write to you of duty and sacrifice,--who
am I to preach to you! I try to say to myself that whatever God
has sent to me in this world, it is His will, as He sees the good
of my soul. If He tries me, it is for His purpose. And yet, with
all my struggling, I do not accept it. I cannot; God have pity on
me!
It is hard to know the right, when others are involved. I should
not write down this moment of weakness, when all I should mean to
you is courage and fortitude. David, if you ever pray, pray for me
in these coming months. Would that I could open my heart to you.
B.
What a terrible disaster it has been in Champagne. And you have
been in it! Your last letter spoke of your being attached to
General La Pierre’s staff. I have had you in my thoughts every
moment.
It is the first time she has written me so. I am quite puzzled. What
can such a clear, direct nature know of remorse?
* * * * *
Ben was killed at the front on the eighth of July. He brought down an
enemy plane and fell into a trap. His machine came down in flames, near
X----. We were not thirty miles away.
* * * * *
Did he do it deliberately, or not? I shall probably never know for,
if he did, he would never leave a hint of it. Yet I do not think he
deliberately threw his life away. It was not his way of playing the
game. Letty is in Paris. I shall have to see her.
I wonder if Ben left a letter behind him and if that letter will tell
me what I dread to know at the last.
It is hard to write. I can only jot down a few incoherent notes.
Actuality dominates and oppresses me. I have again the old feeling of
having surrendered my imagination and of moving like an automaton.
_August_
No letter from Bernoline in ages. Others come--from Anne and Molly, but
a blank door of silence is between us. I think I shall write no more in
this chronicle. I have a weariness and a distaste for life outside.
V
_Paris, September_
I am here for three days’ _permission_. At the hotel a packet of
letters, from every one except from--her!
Molly is married! I cannot believe it and yet the evidence is before me
in two letters.
_August, 1917._
Dear David:
Molly has, of course, written you of her marriage. I know that
she is tremendously upset over what you will think of it. And,
remembering some of the things you said, I am a little afraid,
too. But I know you too well, David, to fear that you will ever
write anything to hurt her. For she needs all your love and you
are the only one now that counts with her in the loneliness of
the situation she must face. Remember, whatever you may think,
Molly never did this impulsively, but from the highest sense of
her duty to share in the anguish that this war must bring. And,
David,--you men may have one way of looking at it (the chivalry of
the American, God bless him) but every real woman will understand
Molly. And, David, could I say more than this: despite all that
may come, and it is fearful to think what may come, if I write the
truth and you can understand,--I envy her.
There were some things about it that were so fine that, whether we
agree with her or not, I want you to know what a trump your little
sister is.
She came over to spend a week with me and begged me not to ask
questions, and to let her quite alone. Naturally, I suspected,
particularly when she went off every afternoon for long walks and
shut herself up in her room the rest of the time. So the third day
I went to her and, putting my arm around her, I asked if I couldn’t
help her.
“No,” she said very quietly, “this is something I must decide
absolutely by myself.”
“Of course, I know what it is, dear,” I began, hoping to get her to
talk. “Don’t you think some one who loves you might help you to see
clearer?”
She shook her head.
“No. No one should take the responsibility of deciding my life.
Even if Davy were here, and you know what he means to me, I should
do this alone. When I’ve made up my mind I’ll tell you.”
At the end of the week, she told me that she was engaged to Mr.
Seaver and had made up her mind to marry him before he left with
his Division for France. I admit that I hadn’t expected this and my
breath was rather taken away.
“But, Molly, have you thought over all this may mean to you?” I
said at once.
“Yes.”
“You may have to begin life all over, dear, alone, perhaps as a
mother,--and you are only nineteen.”
“I have thought that all out.”
“Are you sure that it isn’t a desire simply to do a hard thing that
is influencing you?”
She shook her head.
“No. I did want to be sure of that,--to be fair to him. Now I know.
If I love him I should marry him. It is his right and my right. If
anything is going to happen to him, I am going to share it as his
wife. Anything else is cowardice. That’s the way I feel about it.”
Of course, after that there was nothing more to do about it, except
to take her in my arms.
David, I have never seen any one quite like her. She made up her
mind and she quietly carried through her will, despite every one
and everything. And, David, I do believe it was her idea alone. For
when Mr. Seaver came, he looked all broken up. He is very young, of
course, and perhaps Molly does idealize him, but he is the sort of
man you could trust and it is easy to see that he adores the ground
she walks on.
How Molly carried it through I cannot imagine, but she did,
somehow or other. She made every one do as she wanted and that by
just quietly reiterating her decision. Your mother was terribly
opposed to it, for they _are_ young and Mr. Seaver has still his
way to make. His parents were terribly distressed, and the father
telegraphed Mrs. Littledale and came down with his son in tow.
There was a family conference, with all concerned present and every
one excited and expostulating,--every one except Molly.
And what do you think happened? In the midst of the uproar who
should walk in but your Aunt Janie, and straight up to Molly and
put her arm around her,--which was the only time your sister came
near breaking down.
“If this is a question of Molly’s marrying, why am I not
consulted?” she said indignantly.
Molly told me that only three or four times in her life has your
Aunt Janie asserted herself, and then she frightened the wits out
of every one.
“Who is this gentleman? Is this the father of Mr. Seaver?”
The presentations were hastily made.
“Do I understand, sir, that you are opposing the marriage of my
niece to your son?”
“I am,” said Mr. Seaver, wavering a little before her eyes (but I
think, also, Molly had won him over). “So I conceive my duty.”
“You ought to go down on your knees and thank God, sir, that your
son has the chance to marry any one as brave and true and loyal as
my niece.”
“But, good Lord, ma’am, I’ve no objection to their being engaged,”
he said hastily, “only I don’t want them to marry now.”
“Why?”
“My son’s too young.”
“He’s old enough for his country.”
“Frankly, I don’t think it is fair to your niece! Who knows what
may happen!”
“That’s her affair. Any other objections?” she continued, as though
she had dismissed all that had been offered before.
“Janie, what are they going to live on?” said your mother at this
point.
“Exactly. My son hasn’t a cent,” said Mr. Seaver, plucking up
courage.
“I beg your pardon?”
“My son hasn’t a cent,” repeated Mr. Seaver, but he must have
quailed under the awful look Molly tells me your aunt gave him at
this.
“Have you?”
The father’s jaw must have dropped at this, for he was so
astonished that he had nothing more to say.
“I am going to make my meaning so plain that no one can
misunderstand it,” she said, very thin, and tall, and aroused.
“If your son is willing to give his life for his country, and
my niece is ready to pledge her life to him, sir, and face the
consequences,--if these young people see their duty and do it, we
are going to stand back of them and see them through! That’s as
much our duty as going out to fight. And now, don’t let me hear
any more of this nonsense. Molly shall marry your son, and you and
I will take care of her until he gets back from the war. If you
won’t, I intend to do it myself!”
Molly broke down at this. Your mother threw up her hands and
capitulated and, in the confusion, Ted Seaver’s voice was heard,
saying:
“Governor, it’s up to you.”
Mr. Seaver went over to Molly and said solemnly:
“Young lady, every word your aunt has said is gospel. I’m
thoroughly lambasted and convinced and mighty glad of it. Go ahead.
We _will_ see you through. Molly dear,--will you have me for a
father-in-law?”
And married they were, with every one present and adoring Molly.
Mr. and Mrs. Seaver, who were quite won over, wanted her to come
to them, but she chose to stay at Littledale, mainly on account of
Aunt Janie, and maybe also from pride.
But now that she is alone, I think the full realization has come to
her of what is ahead and though her pride will never let her admit
it, at times her dear little face is awfully serious. You are her
ideal, David. Be generous.
Father is in Europe. Have you seen him? The war feeling is
wonderful. All the men are going and all the women are making ready
to help. I am not satisfied with what I am doing here in the local
Red Cross and have made up my mind to go to New York and train for
a nurse’s assistant. Mother is opposed but I, too, must decide
things. She has agreed on condition that I shall find a companion.
It seems rather unnecessary but if it will make her happy I shall
do it. I go to-morrow to stay with some cousins. Later on, I am
determined to go over but I’m not saying anything about that now. I
do appreciate your writing to me, David, as you do, and don’t ever
think you have to hide things from me.
Bless you,
ANNE.
P.S.--I know you’ll stand by Molly.
P.P.S.--It is a very great inspiration to know any one so fine
as Molly, who looks things so straight in the face and never
hesitates. It has done something for me that I shall never forget.
_Littledale, August_
My own big Brother:
I married Ted Seaver three days ago and to-morrow he leaves for his
camp. I do not know when I shall see him again. I have married him
knowing that he may never come back to me. I thought it all over
very hard, and when I knew I loved him I insisted that I should
have the right to share with him whatever sacrifice he may have to
face.
I am a little afraid of what you will think just at first, David,
dear, and oh, I don’t want you to misunderstand. I didn’t do it
impulsively or just out of a weak sentimentality. You do know and
trust me, don’t you, better than that. When I came to realize how
much I loved him, it was only the right and simple thing to do. At
first it was rather hard convincing others--all except Aunt Janie,
who was a tower of strength--but in the end every one saw my point
of view and respected it. I don’t think they all agreed with it,
but they did respect it,--and that is all I can ask, isn’t it? For,
Davy, with my three brothers gone, I couldn’t flinch, could I, and
take the easy way out? Davy, dear, there is of course one thing I
can’t explain to you and yet it’s all, and that is the way I love
my husband. It’s just one of those things you can’t speak about,
and that you’ll have to try to understand, for everything else is
so simple when you understand that.
I feel ten years older than the day, you remember, when we sat
and talked in the blue sitting room and I was so broken up about
Ted’s proposing. I know now that I did care,--only I didn’t know.
I didn’t realize what I wanted in life, nor all the finer quality
in him. We have seen each other a great deal, written to each
other a great deal, and the knowledge that I loved him came to
me gradually, not all at once. I knew what a serious thing I was
doing, and do believe that I thought it over from every side.
I shall be quite truthful with you, Davy. If it were not for the
war, I should have wanted to wait for a year, maybe two,--not
because I didn’t know that I could love him but because I wanted to
be more of a woman, to be of greater help to him as his wife.
Will you understand? Please do, dear, even if, just at first, you
are terribly upset, as I’m afraid you’re going to be. You will
trust your little sister this far, won’t you, to know that the man
she gives her life to is worthy to be your brother. Please do, even
if you can’t approve of me, all at once. Dear Davy, I wish you were
here to-night, to catch me up in that great bear hug of yours. I
need it. I have been two days writing this, and Ted went back this
afternoon.
Your old Peggoty, who loves you,
MOLLY.
When I read these two letters and thought of Aunt Janie (it was like
her, never to refer to the captain she didn’t marry) and dear old
Molly, a lump was in my throat. And, though it was a shock, there was
only one thing I thought of and that was what a little Spartan my
sister was. I rushed out and sent her the following cable:
God bless you. With you from start to finish. Bully for Aunt Janie!
VI
_November, Paris_
_New York_
Dear David:
I have been here a month, staying with my cousins, the Barristers.
You remember Nina, who was such a wild scatterbrain: well, she has
settled down into the most matter-of-fact, quietest little worker
in the world. You would never know her. She is up at six each
morning and off to her work in the Women’s Auxiliary Corps, has
given up all her society interests and looks with scorn upon her
old friends. I think she has shamed at least a dozen of her old
social set into service work with her point-blank way of saying:
“Well, what are _you_ doing in the war?”
At that, it isn’t quite fair, because the country is wonderful. No
matter what is asked of it, it gives immediately and impulsively.
I’m doing my part to prepare myself for service abroad when the
time comes. I know father will oppose, but I have made up my mind
and I shall go.
David, there is the loveliest little French woman here as companion
to Nina,--a Mademoiselle Duvernoy, and my heart has gone right out
to her. Every one adores her and I think it is her influence that
has made Nina over. There is some story back of her deep, sad eyes,
I know. You will never get me to believe she is not a gentlewoman
born and bred. I don’t know when I have gone so impulsively to any
one. Just to be with her makes life, the right way of living, the
things that do count, seem the simplest things in the world. I
loved her from the first day we sat and talked together over the
womanhood of France, and I think she was drawn at once to me, for
she put out her hand and laid it over mine and said:
“Mademoiselle, you have a very big and beautiful nature. It is the
suffering and the responsibilities that will bring it out in you
and make you worthy some day to be a great inspiration to a true
man. We women are not our best or happiest when we are denied the
hard things in life. And that is where life is so different for one
in your position, for those who love you can hurt you most.”
She said it so sweetly and her eyes had such understanding and such
gentleness in them that I said:
“Mademoiselle Duvernoy, I don’t think I ever wanted anything more
in the world; will you really be my friend?”
“I have wanted to from the first,” she said. “Perhaps we can be of
help to each other.”
Help her? How can I help her, except by loving her, and every one
does that,--but I know what she can mean to me.
_Later_
I spoke of you to-day, and, to my surprise, she told me that she
had crossed on the steamer with you and father. Do you remember
her? I am sure you do, for no one can forget her. I have asked her
to come with me as my friend and companion, for Nina really doesn’t
need her. To my surprise and delight, she answered:
“Mademoiselle Brinsmade, I shall do so with all my heart.”
I do know she is drawn to me, too, for there were tears in her eyes
as she said it. I know the Barristers won’t want to let her go, but
it is decided between us.
I laid the letter down, too moved to go on. Bernoline with Anne! Every
thought that must have been in her heart, I think, came instantly into
mine at that moment. Is there any depth of sacrifice and generosity
before which her loyal nature would recoil? Never have I felt more
deeply the sublimity of sacrifice in woman. How can I find it in my
heart to rebel against her evident purpose? For I know that what she
has done has been done for my sake in a spirit of self-effacing loyalty
to my happiness as she conceives it. Thank heaven that I know at least
that she is well and with those who love her. Yet why has she ceased to
write me?
* * * * *
Bernoline with Anne! No, I don’t resent it; though I still cannot
comprehend it. Why it should be so, I don’t know, yet a feeling of
great calm and certainty has come to me since I have known it, that and
a feeling of humble reverence before something that shames me in my own
tempestuous revolt against the loneliness that has been on me. Good
God, how I love her, yet almost without hope, as some dear vision that
I have only the right to worship from afar!
* * * * *
_Paris_
How could I have doubted her for a single moment! I have been to the
bank, and there were her letters awaiting me, and on each written
directions to hold until my arrival. I tore open the first hurriedly,
for the explanation of this mystery. It was there in the first.
My dear Friend:
I cannot send you my letters to the front and I have for a long
time debated whether I should even continue writing you. For,
David, among those with whom you are now in daily contact there
might be some who would recognize my handwriting, and I have not
the right to run that risk. You are too loyal ever to seek the
explanation in your imagination, as I am loyal to the promise I
gave you and which a hundred times has tortured my conscience. But
even in conversation never, never refer once to having met even the
Mademoiselle Duvernoy you knew on the steamer, for you might bring
a sorrow too awful to contemplate on those I must protect. Even
this I ask of you--destroy every letter I have written you. Do not
question, _mon ami_, do not seek to penetrate this mystery. And oh,
David, if by any unthinkable accident you might guess at the truth,
for my sake I ask it,--keep the knowledge to yourself. Yes, even
from me, dear friend. I must ask this of you blindly, and without
question, and I do so in perfect faith.
Blindly, and without question: yes, I shall obey her. But the
imagination,--that is another thing. A hundred suppositions have
rushed through my head, for I have written the names of a dozen of the
officers whose mess I share, and there is one, a young captain from
Brittany, François d’Hauteville, who, strangely, has reminded me many
times of her, in coloring and in the breeding that I know is hers,--in
the very quality of his voice. Is it possible that I have been living
day after day with her own flesh and blood and never divined it!
Control my imagination--how is it possible!
* * * * *
I rushed through the other letters and impatiently took up the last one.
Dear Friend:
You have probably heard from Miss Brinsmade of the way we met at
her cousin’s and of my decision to go to her. I think, David, you
will have guessed the reasons that have dictated my decision.
Believe me that it is a great happiness to be so close to some one
who is dear and necessary to you. Since I have known her a new
confidence in the future has come to me. How could I resist her?
There is something so instantly winning in her impulsive kindness,
her brave struggling determination to be of some service, and the
so evident need of a woman’s love and faith. With everything
against her, a false education, the incitement to pleasure, the
mistaken affections of those who love her best and who would make
life only a long self-indulgence; with all against her, David, it
is wonderful how the deeper things in her--the instincts of the
real woman--have made her seek her own salvation. The real impulse,
_mon ami_, make no mistake about it, is her love for you and the
longing to stand high in your estimation. Such an aspiration is a
precious thing, David,--a trust that you must never shatter.
I have talked many times with her and I love her. She does need
something that I can give her, thank God,--and to feel that, is
something that means everything to me in this period of great
indecision. It is a mission that I shall perform very reverently,
and for your sake.
B.
I have told her only that I crossed on the steamer with you. Send
your letters always to the Convent, and I shall get them there.
Dear David, don’t begrudge me this little opportunity for real
service. I am happier to-day than I have been in years, for I do
believe that in some mysterious way Providence has granted me the
opportunity to help others to a great happiness. This, _mon ami_,
compensates for everything.
When I had read this, a feeling of helplessness again came to me.
It is one thing to combat an enemy, but how resist the quiet,
self-sacrificing determination of the one you love and who loves you!
From the first I have known that in Bernoline’s presence my will would
always yield to her inflexible view of duty. Her moral supremacy over
me was immediate, and I have never questioned it. I accepted it as I
accept it now,--as a faith. Yet not for a moment have I relinquished
hope, even though that hope is indefinable and confused and lost in
future speculation. There must be some future happiness in this world
that can be shared together: otherwise--
VII
_Paris, December_
Down on the sad duty of burying my brother, Alan. How strangely life
and death are mingled in this swift impulse of war; Ted Seaver--Captain
Seaver, now--who informed me of Alan’s last moments, told me too of
Molly’s coming motherhood. One generation gone, and another arriving!
* * * * *
We walked back together from the cemetery across Paris, and he opened
his heart to me. At first, it was difficult. There is a certain
restrictive bar that interposes when there is this intimacy of family
connections. It is easier, often, to unburden one’s self to a stranger.
Alan’s death had upset him more than it had me, in my acquired
fatalism. It was his first contact with the closed mystery and as
always, I think, his thoughts had leaped ahead to his own appointed
hour. Yet in this supposition I had not entirely done him justice.
“God, how terrible death is!” he broke out nervously, at last.
“It’s not death; it’s life you’re experiencing,” I said solemnly.
“What do you mean?”
“Life, Ted, is just this: readiness to face the end at any moment,
our own and those who are dear to us. We aren’t taught these things
at home: nothing prepares us. We can’t believe it till it comes, as a
shock.”
“Yes, that’s so,” said the boy, pulling at his cuff, for he is only a
boy. “I can’t get it out of my mind; I feel jumpy all over.”
“It’s tough, damned tough.”
“Mr. Littledale,” he said abruptly, “do you blame me for marrying Molly
as I did?”
“No-o,” I said slowly.
“For, you see, that’s what breaks me up. The thought of her, of what’s
coming, of what will be ahead of her,--if anything happens to me.”
“Naturally, you can’t help thinking of such things,” I admitted. “You
see, Ted, there is some logic in the military point of view that wants
an officer single, isn’t there?”
“Good heavens, yes. I keep thinking of it all the time, and--wondering.”
“Wondering what?”
“What I’ll do when I get out there,--out at the front,” he said,
drawing a long breath.
We were walking through the crowded section, near the Place de la
Bastille. I touched his arm and drew his attention to the crowds.
“See there; do you know what war has meant to them? Do you realize,
Ted, that your lot is the general lot, and that the real sacrifice is
there,--in those who remain. Are we privileged to choose our way of
service to our country? No. _Noblesse oblige._ Remember that, Ted; it
answers everything.”
“You’re right,” he said, straightening up at once. “But it wasn’t
myself I was caring about, it--it’s Molly.”
“Molly is no longer my sister or your wife. Molly has gone beyond us;
she represents now something bigger and finer, the spiritual heritage
of American womanhood.”
“Then you don’t blame us?” he said.
“No, of course not. I shouldn’t have had the courage, perhaps, but you
of the younger generation are right. Meet life as it offers itself:
it’s a bigger thing than avoiding it.”
“Thank you; that does a lot of good,” he said, drawing a long breath.
* * * * *
He is of another generation, as is Molly, too,--God bless her. And what
I said to him I believe. May it be a generation more significant and
responsive than my own! I think it will, for it has been blessed with
two things, opportunity and the test of suffering.