He charged down Madison Avenue, barely escaping disaster at the
crossings in the frightful congestion of the hour: he was not only
intensely perturbed in mind, but he was in a hurry. His column was
unfinished and an article on the "authentic drama" for one of the
literary reviews must be delivered on the morrow. In the normal course
of events it would have been written a week since.
He was furious with himself. Passionate, impulsive, and often
unreasonable, his mind was singularly well-balanced and never before
had it succumbed to obsession. He had taken the war as a normal
episode in the history of a world dealing mainly in war; not as a
strictly personal experience designed by a malignant fate to deprive
youth of its illusions, embitter and deidealize it, fill it with a cold
and acrid contempt for militarism and governments, convert it to
pacificism, and launch it on a confused but strident groping after
Truth. It was incredible to him that any one who had read history
could be guilty of such jejunity, and he attributed it to their bruised
but itching egos. After all, it had been a middle-aged man's war. Not
a single military reputation had been made by any one of the millions
of young fighters, despite promotions, citations, and medals.
Statesmen and military men long past their youth would alone be
mentioned in history.
The youth of America was individualism rampant plus the national
self-esteem, and the mass of them today had no family traditions behind
them--sprung from God knew what. Their ego had been slapped in the
face and compressed into a mould; they were subconsciously trying to
rebuild it to its original proportions by feeling older than their
fathers and showering their awful contempt upon those ancient and
despicable loadstones: "loyalty" and "patriotism." Writers who had
remained safely at home had taken the cue and become mildly pacifist.
It sounded intellectual and it certainly was the fashion.
Clavering, whose ancestors had fought in every war in American history,
had enlisted in 1917 with neither sentimentalism, enthusiasm, nor
resentment. It was idle to vent one's wrath and contempt upon
statesmen who could not settle their quarrels with their brains, for
the centuries that stood between the present and utter barbarism were
too few to have accomplished more than the initial stages of a true
civilization. No doubt a thousand years hence these stages would
appear as rudimentary as the age of the Neanderthals had seemed to the
twentieth century. And as man made progress so did he rarely outstrip
it. So far he had done less for himself than for what passed for
progress and the higher civilization. Naturally enough, when the
Frankenstein monster heaved itself erect and began to run amok with
seven-leagued boots, all the pigmies could do was to revert
hysterically to Neanderthal methods and use the limited amount of
brains the intervening centuries had given them, to scheme for victory.
A thousand years hence the Frankenstein might be buried and man's brain
gigantic. Then and then only would civilization be perfected, and the
savagery and asininity of war a blot on the history of his race to
which no man cared to refer. But that was a long way off. When a
man's country was in danger there was nothing to do but fight.
Noblesse oblige. And fight without growling and whining. Clavering
had liked army discipline, sitting in filthy trenches, wounds,
hospitals, and killing his fellow men as little as any decent man; but
what had these surly grumblers expected? To fight when they felt like
it, sleep in feather beds, and shoot at targets? Disillusionment!
Patriotism murdered by Truth! One would think they were fighting the
first war in history.
It was not the war they took seriously but themselves.
Like other men of his class and traditions, Clavering had emerged from
the war hoping it would be the last of his time, but with his ego
unbruised, his point of view of life in general undistorted, and a
quick banishment of "hideous memories." (His chief surviving memory
was a hideous boredom.) One more war had gone into history. That he
had taken an infinitesimal part in it instead of reading an account of
it by some accomplished historian was merely the accident of his years.
As far as he could see he was precisely the man he was before he was
sent to France and he had only unmitigated contempt for these "war
reactions" in men sound in limb and with no derangement of the ductless
glands.
As for the women, when they began to talk their intellectual
pacificism, he told them that their new doctrine of non-resistance
became them ill, but as even the most advanced were still women,
consistency was not to be expected--nor desired. Their pacificism,
however, when not mere affectation--servility to the fashion of the
moment--was due to an obscure fear of seeing the world depopulated of
men, or of repressed religious instinct, or apology for being females
and unable to fight. He was extremely rude.
And now this infernal woman had completely thrown him off his balance.
He could think of nothing else. His work had been deplorable--the last
week at all events--and although a month since nothing would have given
him more exquisite satisfaction than to write a paper on the authentic
drama, he would now be quite indifferent if censorship had closed every
theatre on Broadway. Such an ass, such a cursed ass had he become in
one short month. He had tramped half the nights and a good part of
every day trying to interest himself by the wayside and clear his
brain. He might as well have sat by his fire and read a piffling novel.
Nevertheless, until Gora Dwight had brought her detached analytical
faculty to bear on his case, he had not admitted to himself that he was
in love with the woman. He had chosen to believe that, being unique
and compact of mystery, she had hypnotized his interest and awakened
all the latent chivalry of his nature--something the modern woman
called upon precious seldom. He had felt the romantic knight ready to
break a lance--a dozen if necessary--in case the world rose against
her, denounced her as an impostor. True, she seemed more than able to
take care of herself, but she was very beautiful, very blonde, very
unprotected, and in that wistful second youth he most admired. He had
thought himself the chivalrous son of chivalrous Southerners, excited
and not too happy, but convinced, at the height of his restlessness and
absorption, that she was but a romantic and passing episode in his life.
When Gora Dwight had ruthlessly led him into those unconsciously
guarded secret chambers of his soul and bidden him behold and ponder,
he had turned as cold as if ice-water were running in his veins,
although he had continued to smile indulgently and had answered with
some approach to jocularity. He was floored at last. He'd got the
infernal disease in its most virulent form. Not a doubt of it. No
wonder he had deluded himself. His ideal woman--whom, preferably, he
would have wooed and won in some sequestered spot beautified by nature,
not made hideous by man--was not a woman at all, but a girl; twenty-six
was an ideal age; who had read and studied and thought, and seen all of
the world that a girl decently may. He had dreamed of no man's
leavings, certainly not of a woman who had probably had more than one
lover, and, no doubt, would not take the trouble to deny it. He hated
as much as he loved her and he felt that he would rather kill than
possess her.
It was half an hour after he reached his rooms before he finished
striding up and down; then, with a final anathema, he flung himself
into a chair before his table. At least his brain felt clearer, now
that he had faced the truth. Time enough to wrestle with his problem
when he had won his leisure. If he couldn't switch her off for one
night at least and give his brain its due, he'd despise himself, and
that, he vowed, he'd never do. He wrote steadily until two in the
morning.