goodness perhaps his out-standing quality, believing no evil of others.
He had been slow, for instance, at first to credit the German
atrocities, until the evidence had compelled him to face the appalling
facts. With acceptance, then, he had experienced a revulsion which other
gentle minds have probably also experienced--a burning desire, namely,
that the perpetrators should be fitly punished.
This primitive instinct of revenge--he called it a lust--he sternly
repressed; it involved a descent to lower levels of conduct
irreconcilable with the progress of the race he so passionately believed
in. Revenge pertained to savage days. But, though he hid away the
instinct in his heart, afraid of its clamour and persistency, it revived
from time to time, as fresh horrors made it bleed anew. It remained
alive, unsatisfied; while, with its analysis, his mind strove
unconsciously. That an intellectual nation should deliberately include
frightfulness as a chief item in its creed perplexed him horribly; it
seemed to him conscious spiritual evil openly affirmed. Some genuine
worship of Odin, Wotan, Moloch lay still embedded in the German outlook,
and beneath the veneer of their pretentious culture. He often wondered,
too, what effect the recognition of these horrors must have upon gentle
minds in other men, and especially upon imaginative minds. How did they
deal with the fact that this appalling thing existed in human nature in
the twentieth century? Its survival, indeed, caused his belief in
civilization as a whole to waver. Was progress, his pet ideal and
cherished faith, after all a mockery? Had human nature not advanced...?
His work in the great hospitals and convalescent camps beyond the town
was tiring; he found little time for recreation, much less for rest; a
light dinner and bed by ten o'clock was the usual way of spending his
evenings. He had no social intercourse, for everyone else was as busy as
himself. The enforced solitude, not quite wholesome, was unavoidable.
He found no outlet for his thoughts. First-hand acquaintance with
suffering, physical and mental, was no new thing to him, but this close
familiarity, day by day, with maimed and broken humanity preyed
considerably on his mind, while the fortitude and cheerfulness shown by
the victims deepened the impression of respectful, yearning wonder made
upon him. They were so young, so fine and careless, these lads whom the
German lust for power had robbed of limbs, and eyes, of mind, of life
itself. The sense of horror grew in him with cumulative but unrelieved
effect.
With the lengthening of the days in February, and especially when March
saw the welcome change to summer time, the natural desire for open air
asserted itself. Instead of retiring early to his dingy bedroom, he
would stroll out after dinner through the ancient streets. When the air
was not too chilly, he would prolong these outings, starting at sunset
and coming home beneath the bright mysterious stars. He knew at length
every turn and winding of the old-world alleys, every gable, every
tower and spire, from the _Vieux Marche_, where Joan of Arc was burnt,
to the busy quays, thronged now with soldiers from half a dozen
countries. He wandered on past grey gateways of crumbling stone that
marked the former banks of the old tidal river. An English army, five
centuries ago, had camped here among reeds and swamps, besieging the
Norman capital, where now they brought in supplies of men and material
upon modern docks, a mighty invasion of a very different kind.
Imaginative reflection was his constant mood.
But it was the haunted streets that touched him most, stirring some
chord his ancestry had planted in him. The forest of spires thronged the
air with strange stone flowers, silvered by moonlight as though white
fire streamed from branch and petal; the old church towers soared; the
cathedral touched the stars. After dark the modern note, paramount in
the daylight, seemed hushed; with sunset it underwent a definite
night-change. Although the darkened streets kept alive in him the menace
of fire and death, the crowding soldiers, dipped to the face in shadow,
seemed somehow negligible; the leaning roofs and gables hid them in a
purple sea of mist that blurred their modern garb, steel weapons, and
the like. Shadows themselves, they entered the being of the town; their
feet moved silently; there was a hush and murmur; the brooding buildings
absorbed them easily.
Ancient and modern, that is, unable successfully to mingle, let fall
grotesque, incongruous shadows on his thoughts. The spirit of mediaeval
days stole over him, exercising its inevitable sway upon a temperament
already predisposed to welcome it. Witchcraft and wonder, pagan
superstition and speculation, combined with an ancestral tendency to
weave a spell, half of acceptance, half of shrinking, about his
imaginative soul in which poetry and logic seemed otherwise fairly
balanced. Too weary for critical judgment to discern clear outlines, his
mind, during these magical twilight walks, became the playground of
opposing forces, some power of dreaming, it seems, too easily in the
ascendant. The soul of ancient Rouen, stealing beside his footsteps in
the dusk, put forth a shadowy hand and touched him.
This shadowy spell he denied as far as in him lay, though the resistance
offered by reason to instinct lacked true driving power. The dice were
loaded otherwise in such a soul. His own blood harked back unconsciously
to the days when men were tortured, broken on the wheel, walled up
alive, and burnt for small offences. This shadowy hand stirred faint
ancestral memories in him, part instinct, part desire. The next step, by
which he saw a similar attitude flowering full blown in the German
frightfulness, was too easily made to be rejected. The German horrors
made him believe that this ignorant cruelty of olden days threatened the
world now in a modern, organized shape that proved its survival in the
human heart. Shuddering, he fought against the natural desire for
adequate punishment, but forgot that repressed emotions sooner or later
must assert themselves. Essentially irrepressible, they may force an
outlet in distorted fashion. He hardly recognized, perhaps, their actual
claim, yet it was audible occasionally. For, owing to his loneliness,
the natural outlet, in talk and intercourse, was denied.
Then, with the softer winds, he yearned for country air. The sweet
spring days had come; morning and evening were divine; above the town
the orchards were in bloom. Birds blew their tiny bugles on the hills.
The midday sun began to burn.
It was the time of the final violence, when the German hordes flung
like driven cattle against the Western line where free men fought for
liberty. Fate hovered dreadfully in the balance that spring of 1918;
Amiens was threatened, and if Amiens fell, Rouen must be evacuated. The
town, already full, became now over-full. On his way home one evening he
passed the station, crowded with homeless new arrivals. "Got the wind
up, it seems, in Amiens!" cried a cheery voice, as an officer he knew
went by him hurriedly. And as he heard it the mood of the spring became
of a sudden uppermost. He reached a decision. The German horror came
abruptly closer. This further overcrowding of the narrow streets was
more than he could face.
It was a small, personal decision merely, but he _must_ get out among
woods and fields, among flowers and wholesome, growing things, taste
simple, innocent life again. The following evening he would pack his
haversack with food and tramp the four miles to the great _Foret
Verte_--delicious name!--and spend the night with trees and stars,
breathing his full of sweetness, calm and peace. He was too accustomed
to the thunder of the guns to be disturbed by it. The song of a thrush,
the whistle of a blackbird, would easily drown that. He made his plan
accordingly.
The next two nights, however, a warm soft rain was falling; only on the
third evening could he put his little plan into execution. Anticipatory
enjoyment, meanwhile, lightened his heart; he did his daily work more
competently, the spell of the ancient city weakened somewhat. The
shadowy hand withdrew.
2
Meanwhile, a curious adventure intervened.
His good and simple heart, disciplined these many years in the way a man
should walk, received upon its imaginative side, a stimulus that, in his
case, amounted to a shock. That a strange and comely woman should make
eyes at him disturbed his equilibrium considerably; that he should enjoy
the attack, though without at first responding openly--even without full
comprehension of its meaning--disturbed it even more. It was, moreover,
no ordinary attack.
He saw her first the night after his decision when, in a mood of
disappointment due to the rain, he came down to his lonely dinner. The
room, he saw, was crowded with new arrivals, from Amiens, doubtless,
where they had "the wind up." The wealthier civilians had fled for
safety to Rouen. These interested and, in a measure, stimulated him. He
looked at them sympathetically, wondering what dear home-life they had
so hurriedly relinquished at the near thunder of the enemy guns, and, in
so doing, he noticed, sitting alone at a small table just in front of
his own--yet with her back to him--a woman.
She drew his attention instantly. The first glance told him that she was
young and well-to-do; the second, that she was unusual. What precisely
made her unusual he could not say, although he at once began to study
her intently. Dignity, atmosphere, personality, he perceived beyond all
question. She sat there with an air. The becoming little hat with its
challenging feather slightly tilted, the set of the shoulders, the neat
waist and slender outline; possibly, too, the hair about the neck, and
the faint perfume that was wafted towards him as the serving girl swept
past, combined in the persuasion. Yet he felt it as more than a
persuasion. She attracted him with a subtle vehemence he had never felt
before. The instant he set eyes upon her his blood ran faster. The
thought rose passionately in him, almost the words that phrased it: "I
wish I knew her."
This sudden flash of response his whole being certainly gave--to the
back of an unknown woman. It was both vehement and instinctive. He lay
stress upon its instinctive character; he was aware of it before reason
told him why. That it was "in response" he also noted, for although he
had not seen her face and she assuredly had made no sign, he felt that
attraction which involves also invitation. So vehement, moreover, was
this response in him that he felt shy and ashamed the same instant, for
it almost seemed he had expressed his thought in audible words. He
flushed, and the flush ran through his body; he was conscious of heated
blood as in a youth of twenty-five, and when a man past forty knows
this touch of fever he may also know, though he may not recognize it,
that the danger signal which means possible abandon has been lit.
Moreover, as though to prove his instinct justified, it was at this very
instant that the woman turned and stared at him deliberately. She looked
into his eyes, and he looked into hers. He knew a moment's keen
distress, a sharpest possible discomfort, that after all he _had_
expressed his desire audibly. Yet, though he blushed, he did not lower
his eyes. The embarrassment passed instantly, replaced by a thrill of
strangest pleasure and satisfaction. He knew a tinge of inexplicable
dismay as well. He felt for a second helpless before what seemed a
challenge in her eyes. The eyes were too compelling. They mastered him.
In order to meet his gaze she had to make a full turn in her chair, for
her table was placed directly in front of his own. She did so without
concealment. It was no mere attempt to see what lay behind by making a
half-turn and pretending to look elsewhere; no corner of the eye
business; but a full, straight, direct, significant stare. She looked
into his soul as though she called him, he looked into hers as though
he answered. Sitting there like a statue, motionless, without a bow,
without a smile, he returned her intense regard unflinchingly and yet
unwillingly. He made no sign. He shivered again.... It was perhaps ten
seconds before she turned away with an air as if she had delivered her
message and received his answer, but in those ten seconds a series of
singular ideas crowded his mind, leaving an impression that ten years
could never efface. The face and eyes produced a kind of intoxication in
him. There was almost recognition, as though she said: "Ah, there you
are! I was waiting; you'll have to come, of course. You must!" And just
before she turned away she smiled.
He felt confused and helpless.
The face he described as unusual; familiar, too, as with the atmosphere
of some long forgotten dream, and if beauty perhaps was absent,
character and individuality were supreme. Implacable resolution was
stamped upon the features, which yet were sweet and womanly, stirring an
emotion in him that he could not name and certainly did not recognize.
The eyes, slanting a little upwards, were full of fire, the mouth
voluptuous but very firm, the chin and jaw most delicately modelled,
yet with a masculine strength that told of inflexible resolve. The
resolution, as a whole, was the most relentless he had ever seen upon a
human countenance. It dominated him. "How vain to resist the will," he
thought, "that lies behind!" He was conscious of enslavement; she
conveyed a message that he must obey, admitting compliance with her
unknown purpose.
That some extraordinary wordless exchange was registered thus between
them seemed very clear; and it was just at this moment, as if to signify
her satisfaction, that she smiled. At his feeling of willing compliance
with some purpose in her mind, the smile appeared. It was faint, so
faint indeed that the eyes betrayed it rather than the mouth and lips;
but it was there; he saw it and he thrilled again to this added touch of
wonder and enchantment. Yet, strangest of all, he maintains that with
the smile there fluttered over the resolute face a sudden arresting
tenderness, as though some wild flower lit a granite surface with its
melting loveliness. He was aware in the clear strong eyes of unshed
tears, of sympathy, of self-sacrifice he called maternal, of clinging
love. It was this tenderness, as of a soft and gracious mother, and this
implacable resolution, as of a stern, relentless man, that left upon his
receptive soul the strange impression of sweetness yet of domination.
The brief ten seconds were over. She turned away as deliberately as she
had turned to look. He found himself trembling with confused emotions
he could not disentangle, could not even name; for, with the subtle
intoxication of compliance in his soul lay also a vigorous protest
that included refusal, even a violent refusal given with horror. This
unknown woman, without actual speech or definite gesture, had lit a
flame in him that linked on far away and out of sight with the magic of
the ancient city's mediaeval spell. Both, he decided, were undesirable,
both to be resisted.
He was quite decided about this. She pertained to forgotten yet unburied
things, her modern aspect a mere disguise, a disguise that some deep
unsatisfied instinct in him pierced with ease.
He found himself equally decided, too, upon another thing which, in
spite of his momentary confusion, stood out clearly: the magic of the
city, the enchantment of the woman, both attacked a constitutional
weakness in his blood, a line of least resistance. It wore no physical
aspect, breathed no hint of ordinary romance; the mere male and female,
moral or immoral touch was wholly absent; yet passion lurked there,
tumultuous if hidden, and a tract of consciousness, long untravelled,
was lit by sudden ominous flares. His character, his temperament, his
calling in life as a former clergyman and now a Red Cross worker, being
what they were, he stood on the brink of an adventure not dangerous
alone but containing a challenge of fundamental kind that involved his
very soul.
No further thrill, however, awaited him immediately. He left his table
before she did, having intercepted no slightest hint of desired
acquaintanceship or intercourse. He, naturally, made no advances; she,
equally, made no smallest sign. Her face remained hidden, he caught no
flash of eyes, no gesture, no hint of possible invitation. He went
upstairs to his dingy room, and in due course fell asleep. The next day
he saw her not, her place in the dining-room was empty; but in the late
evening of the following day, as the soft spring sunshine found him
prepared for his postponed expedition, he met her suddenly on the
stairs. He was going down with haversack and in walking kit to an early
dinner, when he saw her coming up; she was perhaps a dozen steps below
him; they must meet. A wave of confused, embarrassed pleasure swept
him. He realized that this was no chance meeting. She meant to speak to
him.
Violent attraction and an equally violent repulsion seized him. There
was no escape, nor, had escape been possible, would he have attempted
it. He went down four steps, she mounted four towards him; then he took
one and she took one. They met. For a moment they stood level, while he
shrank against the wall to let her pass. He had the feeling that but for
the support of that wall he must have lost his balance and fallen into
her, for the sunlight from the landing window caught her face and lit
it, and she was younger, he saw, than he had thought, and far more
comely. Her atmosphere enveloped him, the sense of attraction and
repulsion became intense. She moved past him with the slightest possible
bow of recognition; then, having passed, she turned.
She stood a little higher than himself, a step at most, and she thus
looked down at him. Her eyes blazed into his. She smiled, and he was
aware again of the domination and the sweetness. The perfume of her near
presence drowned him; his head swam. "We count upon you," she said in a
low firm voice, as though giving a command; "I know ... we may. We do."
And, before he knew what he was saying, trembling a little between deep
pleasure and a contrary impulse that sought to choke the utterance, he
heard his own voice answering. "You can count upon me...." And she was
already half-way up the next flight of stairs ere he could move a
muscle, or attempt to thread a meaning into the singular exchange.
Yet meaning, he well knew, there was.
She was gone; her footsteps overhead had died away. He stood there
trembling like a boy of twenty, yet also like a man of forty in whom
fires, long dreaded, now blazed sullenly. She had opened the furnace
door, the draught rushed through. He felt again the old unwelcome spell;
he saw the twisted streets 'mid leaning gables and shadowy towers of a
day forgotten; he heard the ominous murmurs of a crowd that thirsted
for wheel and scaffold and fire; and, aware of vengeance, sweet and
terrible, aware, too, that he welcomed it, his heart was troubled and
afraid.
In a brief second the impression came and went; following it swiftly,
the sweetness of the woman swept him: he forgot his shrinking in a rush
of wild delicious pleasure. The intoxication in him deepened. She had
recognized him! She had bowed and even smiled; she had spoken, assuming
familiarity, intimacy, including him in her secret purposes! It was
this sweet intimacy cleverly injected, that overcame the repulsion he
acknowledged, winning complete obedience to the unknown meaning of her
words. This meaning, for the moment, lay in darkness; yet it was a
portion of his own self, he felt, that concealed it of set purpose. He
kept it hid, he looked deliberately another way; for, if he faced it
with full recognition, he knew that he must resist it to the death. He
allowed himself to ask vague questions--then let her dominating spell
confuse the answers so that he did not hear them. The challenge to his
soul, that is, he evaded.
What is commonly called sex lay only slightly in his troubled
emotions; her purpose had nothing that kept step with chance
acquaintanceship. There lay meaning, indeed, in her smile and voice,
but these were no hand-maids to a vulgar intrigue in a foreign hotel.
Her will breathed cleaner air; her purpose aimed at some graver,
mightier climax than the mere subjection of an elderly victim like
himself. That will, that purpose, he felt certain, were implacable as
death, the resolve in those bold eyes was not a common one. For, in
some strange way, he divined the strong maternity in her; the maternal
instinct was deeply, even predominantly, involved; he felt positive
that a divine tenderness, deeply outraged, was a chief ingredient too.
In some way, then, she needed him, yet not she alone, for the pronoun
"we" was used, and there were others with her; in some way, equally, a
part of him was already her and their accomplice, an unresisting
slave, a willing co-conspirator.
He knew one other thing, and it was this that he kept concealed so
carefully from himself. His recognition of it was sub-conscious
possibly, but for that very reason true: her purpose was consistent with
the satisfaction at last of a deep instinct in him that clamoured to
know gratification. It was for these odd, mingled reasons that he stood
trembling when she left him on the stairs, and finally went down to his
hurried meal with a heart that knew wonder, anticipation, and delight,
but also dread.
3
The table in front of him remained unoccupied; his dinner finished, he
went out hastily.
As he passed through the crowded streets, his chief desire was to be
quickly free of the old muffled buildings and airless alleys with their
clinging atmosphere of other days. He longed for the sweet taste of the
heights, the smells of the forest whither he was bound. This _Foret
Verte_, he knew, rolled for leagues towards the north, empty of houses
as of human beings; it was the home of deer and birds and rabbits, of
wild boar too. There would be spring flowers among the brushwood,
anemones, celandine, oxslip, daffodils. The vapours of the town
oppressed him, the warm and heavy moisture stifled; he wanted space and
the sight of clean simple things that would stimulate his mind with
lighter thoughts.
He soon passed the Rampe, skirted the ugly villas of modern Bihorel and,
rising now with every step, entered the _Route Neuve_. He went unduly
fast; he was already above the Cathedral spire; below him the Seine
meandered round the chalky hills, laden with war-barges, and across a
dip, still pink in the afterglow, rose the blunt Down of Bonsecours with
its anti-aircraft batteries. Poetry and violent fact crashed everywhere;
he longed to top the hill and leave these unhappy reminders of death
behind him. In front the sweet woods already beckoned through the
twilight. He hastened. Yet while he deliberately fixed his imagination
on promised peace and beauty, an undercurrent ran sullenly in his mind,
busy with quite other thoughts. The unknown woman and her singular
words, the following mystery of the ancient city, the soft beating
wonder of the two together, these worked their incalculable magic
persistently about him. Repression merely added to their power. His mind
was a prey to some shadowy, remote anxiety that, intangible, invisible,
yet knocked with ghostly fingers upon some door of ancient memory.... He
watched the moon rise above the eastern ridge, in the west the afterglow
of sunset still hung red. But these did not hold his attention as they
normally must have done. Attention seemed elsewhere. The undercurrent
bore him down a siding, into a backwater, as it were, that clamoured for
discharge.