"A list of the inhabitants of Morsbronn will be made to-day. You will
have the goodness to declare yourself--and you also, madame. There
being other buildings better fitted, no soldiers will be quartered in
this house."
The officer evidently mistook me for the owner of the house and not a
prisoner. A blanket hid my hussar trousers and boots; he could only
see my ragged shirt.
"And now, madame," he continued, "as monsieur appears to need the
services of a physician, I shall send him a French doctor, brought in
this morning from the Château de la Trappe. I wish him to get well; I
wish the inhabitants of my district to return to their homes and
resume the interrupted régimes which have made this province of Alsace
so valuable to France. I wish Morsbronn to prosper; I wish it well.
This is the German policy.
"But, monsieur, let me speak plainly. I tolerate no treachery. The
law is iron and will be applied with rigor. An inhabitant of my
district who deceives me, or who commits an offence against the troops
under my command, or who in any manner holds, or attempts to hold,
communication with the enemy, will be shot without court-martial."
He turned his grim, inflexible face to the Countess and bowed, then he
bowed to me, swung squarely on his heel, and walked to the door.
"Admit the French doctor," he said to the soldier on guard, and
marched out, his curved sabre banging behind his spurred heels.
"It must be Dr. Delmont!" I said, looking at the Countess as there
came a low knock at the door.
"I am very thankful!" she said, her voice almost breaking. She rose
unsteadily from her chair; somebody entered the room behind me and I
turned, calling out, "Welcome, doctor!"
"Thank you," replied the calm voice of John Buckhurst at my elbow.
The Countess shrank aside as Buckhurst coolly passed before her,
turned his slim back to the embers of the fire, and fixed his eyes on
me--those pale, slow eyes, passionless as death.
Here was a type of criminal I had never until recently known. Small of
hand and foot--too small even for such a slender man--clean shaven,
colorless in hair, skin, lips, he challenged instant attention by the
very monotony of his bloodless symmetry. There was nothing of positive
evil in his face, nothing of impulse, good or bad, nothing even
superficially human. His spotless linen, his neat sack-coat and
trousers of gray seemed part of him--like a loose outer skin. There
was in his ensemble nothing to disturb the negative harmony, save
perhaps an abnormal flatness of the instep and hands.
"My friend," he observed, in English, "do you think you will know me
again when you have finished your scrutiny?"
The Countess, face averted, passed behind my chair.
"Wait," said Buckhurst; and turning directly to me, he added: "You
were mistaken for a hussar at La Trappe; you were mistaken here for a
hussar as long as the squad holding this house remained in Morsbronn.
A few moments ago the provost mistook you for a civilian." He looked
across at the Countess, who already stood with her hand on the
door-knob.
"If you disturb me," he said, "I have only to tell the provost the
truth. Members of the Imperial Police caught without proper uniform
inside German lines are shot, séance tenante."
The Countess stood perfectly still a moment, then came straight to
me.
"Is that true?" she asked.
"Yes," I said.
She still leaned forward, looking down into my face. Then she turned
to Buckhurst.
"Do you want money?" she asked.
"I want a chair--and your attention for the present," he replied, and
seated himself.
The printed copy of the rules handed me by the provost marshal lay on
the floor. Buckhurst picked up the sheet, glanced at the Prussian
eagle, and thoughtfully began rolling the paper into a grotesque
shape.
"Sit down, madame," he said, without raising his eyes from the bit of
paper which he had now fashioned into a cocked hat.
After a moment's silent hesitation the Countess drew a small gilt
chair beside my sofa-chair and sat down, and again that brave,
unconscious gesture of protection left her steady hand lying lightly
on my arm.
Buckhurst noted the gesture. And all at once I divined that whatever
plan he had come to execute had been suddenly changed. He looked down
at the paper in his hands, gave it a thoughtful twist, and, drawing
the ends out, produced a miniature paper boat.
"We are all in one like that," he observed, holding it up without
apparent interest. He glanced at the young Countess; her face was
expressionless.
"Madame," said Buckhurst, in his peculiarly soft and persuasive
voice, "I am not here to betray this gentleman; I am not here even to
justify myself. I came here to make reparation, to ask your
forgiveness, madame, for the wrong I have done you, and to deliver
myself, if necessary, into the hands of the proper French authorities
in expiation of my misguided zeal."
The Countess was looking at him now; he fumbled with the paper boat,
gave it an unconscious twist, and produced a tiny paper box.
"The cause," he said, gently, "to which I have devoted my life must
not suffer through the mistake of a fanatic; for in the cause of
universal brotherhood I am, perhaps, a fanatic, and to aid that cause
I have gravely compromised myself. I came here to expiate that folly
and to throw myself upon your mercy, madame."
"I do not exactly understand," said I, "how you can expiate a crime
here."
"I can at least make restitution," he said, turning the paper box
over and over between his flat fingers.
"Have you brought me the diamonds which belong to the state?" I
inquired, amused.
"Yes," he said, and to my astonishment he drew a small leather pouch
from his pocket and laid it on my blanket-covered knees. "How many
diamonds were there?" he asked.
"One hundred and three," I replied, incredulously, and opened the
leather pouch. Inside was a bag of chamois-skin. This I stretched wide
and emptied.
Scores of little balls of tissue-paper rolled out on the blanket over
my knees; I opened one; it contained a diamond; I opened another,
another, and another; diamonds lay blazing on my blanket, a whole
handful, glittering in undimmed splendor.
"Count them," murmured Buckhurst, fashioning the paper box into a
fly-trap with a lid.
With a quick movement I swept them into my hands, then one by one
dropped the stones while I counted aloud one hundred and two diamonds.
The one hundred and third jewel was, of course, safely in Paris.
When I had a second time finished the enumeration I leaned back in my
chair, utterly at a loss to account for this man or for what he had
done. As far as I could see there was no logic in it, nothing
demonstrated, nothing proven. To me--and I am not either suspicious or
obstinate by nature--Buckhurst was still an unrepentant thief and a
dangerous one.
I could see in him absolutely nothing of the fanatic, of the generous,
feather-headed devotee, nothing of the hasty disciple or the impulsive
martyr. In my eyes he continued to be the passionless master-criminal,
the cold, slow-eyed source of hidden evil, the designer of an
intricate and viewless intrigue against the state.
His head remained bent over the paper toy in his hands. Was his hair
gray with age or excesses, or was it only colorless like the rest of
his exterior?
"Restitution is not expiation," he said, sadly, without looking up.
"I loved the cause; I love it still; I practised deception, and I am
here to ask this gentle lady to forgive me for an unworthy yet
unselfish use of her money and her hospitality. If she can pardon me I
welcome whatever punishment may be meted out."
The Countess dropped her elbow on the arm of my chair and rested her
face in her hand.
"Swept away by my passion for the cause of universal brotherhood,"
said Buckhurst, in his low, caressing voice, "I ventured to spend
this generous lady's money to carry the propaganda into the more
violent centres of socialism--into the clubs in Montmartre and
Belleville. There I urged non-resistance; I pleaded moderation and
patience. What I said helped a little, I think--"
He hesitated, twisting his fly-box into a paper creature with four
legs.
"I was eager; people listened. I thought that if I had a little more
money I might carry on this work.... I could not come to you,
madame--"
"Why not?" said the Countess, looking at him quickly. "I have never
refused you money!"
"No," he said, "you never refused me. But I knew that La Trappe was
mortgaged, that even this house in Morsbronn was loaded with debt. I
knew, madame, that in all the world you had left but one small roof to
cover you--the house in Morbihan, on Point Paradise. I knew that if I
asked for money you would sell Paradise,... and I could not ask so
much,... I could not bring myself to ask that sacrifice."
"And so you stole the crucifix of Louis XI.," I suggested,
pleasantly.
He did not look at me, but the Countess did.
"Bon," I thought, watching Buckhurst's deft fingers; "he means to be
taken back into grace. I wonder exactly why? And ... is it worth this
fortune in diamonds to him to be pardoned by a penniless girl whom he
and his gang have already stripped?"
"Could you forgive me, madame?" murmured Buckhurst.
"Would you explain that stick of dynamite first?" I interposed.
The Countess turned and looked directly at Buckhurst. He sat with
humble head bowed, nimbly constructing a paper bird.
"That was not dynamite; it was concentrated phosphorus," he said,
without resentment. "Naturally it burned when you lighted it, but if
you had not burned it I could easily have shown Madame la Comtesse
what it really was."
"I also," said I, "if I had thrown it at your feet, Mr. Buckhurst."
"Do you not believe me?" he asked, meekly, looking up at the
Countess.
"Mr. Buckhurst," said the young Countess, turning to me, "has aided
me for a long time in experiments. We hoped to find some cheap method
of restoring nitrogen and phosphorus to the worn-out soil which our
poor peasants till. Why should you doubt that he speaks the truth? At
least he is guiltless of any connection with the party which advocated
violence."
I looked at Buckhurst. He was engaged in constructing a multi-pointed
paper star. What else was he busy with? Perhaps I might learn if I
ceased to manifest distrust.
"Does concentrated phosphorus burn like dynamite?" I asked, as if
with newly aroused interest.
"Did you not know it?" he said, warily.
But was he deceived by my manner? Was that the way for me to learn
anything?
There was perhaps another way. Clearly this extraordinary man depended
upon his persuasive eloquence for his living, for the very shoes on
his little, flat feet, as do all such chevaliers of industry. If he
would only begin to argue, if I could only induce him to try his
eloquence on me, and if I could convince him that I myself was but an
ignorant, self-centred, bullet-headed gendarme, doing my duty only
because of perspective advancement, ready perhaps to take
bribes--perhaps even weakly, covetously, credulous--well, perhaps I
might possibly learn why he desired to cling to this poor young lady,
whose life had evidently gone dreadfully to smash, to land her among
such a coterie of thieves and lunatics.
"Mr. Buckhurst," I said, pompously, "in bringing these diamonds to
me you have certainly done all in your power to repair an injury which
concerned all France.
"As I am situated, of course I cannot now ask you to accompany me to
Paris, where doubtless the proper authorities would gladly admit
extenuating circumstances, and credit you with a sincere repentance.
But I put you on your honor to surrender at the first opportunity."
It was as stupidly trite a speech as I could think of.
Buckhurst glanced up at me. Was he taking my measure anew, judging me
from my bray?
"I could easily aid you to leave Morsbronn," he said, stealthily.
"O-ho," thought I, "so you're a German agent, too, as I suspected."
But I said, aloud, simulating astonishment: "Do you mean to say, Mr.
Buckhurst, that you would deliberately risk death to aid a police
officer to bring you before a military tribunal in Paris?"
"I do not desire to pose as a hero or a martyr," he said, quietly,
"but I regret what I have done, and I will do what an honest man can
do to make the fullest reparation--even if it means my death."
I gazed at him in admiration--real admiration--because the gross
bathos he had just uttered betrayed a weakness--vanity. Now I began to
understand him; vanity must also lead him to undervalue men. True,
with the faintest approach to eloquence he could no doubt hold the
"Clubs" of Belleville spellbound; with self-effacing adroitness to
cover stealthy persuasion, he had probably found little difficulty in
dominating this inexperienced girl, who, touched to the soul with
pity for human woe, had flung herself and her fortune to the howling
proletariat.
But that he should so serenely undervalue me at my first bray was more
than I hoped for. So I brayed again, the good, old, sentimental bray,
for which all Gallic lungs are so marvellously fashioned:
"Monsieur, such sentiments honor you. I am only a rough soldier of
the Imperial Police, but I am profoundly moved to find among the
leaders of the proletariat such delicate and chivalrous emotions--" I
hesitated. Was I buttering the sop too thickly?
Buckhurst, eyes bent on the floor, began picking to pieces his paper
toy. Presently he looked up, not at me, but at the Countess, who sat
with hands clasped earnestly watching him.
"If--if the state pardons me, can ... you?" he murmured.
She looked at him with intense earnestness. I saw he was sailing on
the wrong tack.
"I have nothing to pardon," she said, gravely. "But I must tell
you the truth, Mr. Buckhurst, I cannot forget what you have done. It
was something--the one thing that I cannot understand--that I can
never understand--something so absolutely alien to me that
it--somehow--leaves me stunned. Don't ask me to forget it.... I
cannot. I do not mean to be harsh and cruel, or to condemn you.
Even if you had taken the jewels from me, and had asked my
forgiveness, I would have given it freely. But I could not be as I
was, a comrade to you."
There was a silence. The Countess, looking perfectly miserable, still
gazed at Buckhurst. He dropped his gray, symmetrical head, yet I felt
that he was listening to every minute sound in the room.
"You must not care what I say," she said. "I am only an unhappy
woman, unused to the liberty I have given myself, not yet habituated
to the charity of those blameless hearts which forgive everything! I
am a novice, groping my way into a new and vast world, a limitless,
generous, forgiving commune, where love alone dominates.... And if I
had lived among my brothers long enough to be purged of those
traditions which I have drawn from generations, I might now be noble
enough and wise enough to say I do forgive and forget that you--"
"That you were once a thief," I ended, with the genial officiousness
of the hopelessly fat-minded.
In the stillness I heard Buckhurst draw in his breath--once. Some day
he would try to kill me for that; in the mean time my crass stupidity
was no longer a question in his mind. I had hurt the Countess, too,
with what she must have believed a fool's needless brutality. But it
had to be so if I played at Jaques Bonhomme.
So I put the finishing whine to it--"Our Lord died between two
thieves"--and relapsed into virtuous contemplation of my finger-tips.
"Madame," said Buckhurst, in a low voice, "your contempt of me is
part of my penalty. I must endure it. I shall not complain. But I
shall try to live a life that will at least show you my deep
sincerity."
"I do not doubt it," said the Countess, earnestly. "Don't think that
I mean to turn away from you or to push you away. There is nothing of
the Pharisee in me. I would gladly trust you with what I have. I will
consult you and advise with you, Mr. Buckhurst--"
"And ... despise me."
The unhappy Countess looked at me. It goes hard with a woman when her
guide and mentor falls.
"If you return to Paradise, in Morbihan,... as we had planned, may I
go," he asked, humbly, "only as an obscure worker in the cause? I
beg, madame, that you will not cast me off."
So he wanted to go to Morbihan--to the village of Paradise? Why?
The Countess said: "I welcome all who care for the cause. You will
never hear an unkind word from me if you desire to resume the work in
Paradise. Dr. Delmont will be there; Monsieur Tavernier also, I hope;
and they are older and wiser than I, and they have reached that lofty
serenity which is far above my troubled mind. Ask them what you have
asked of me; they are equipped to answer you."
It was time for another discord from me, so I said: "Madame, you have
seen a thousand men lay down their lives for France. Has it not shaken
your allegiance to that ghost of patriotism which you call the
'Internationale'?"
Here was food for thought, or rather fodder for asses--the Police
Oracle turned missionary under the nose of the most cunning criminal
in France and the vainest. Of course Buckhurst's contempt for me at
once passed all bounds, and, secure in that contempt, he felt it
scarcely worth while to use his favorite weapon--persuasion. Still, if
the occasion should require it, he was quite ready, I knew, to loose
his eloquence on the Countess, and on me too.
The Countess turned her troubled eyes to me.
"What I have seen, what I have thought since yesterday has distressed
me dreadfully," she said. "I have tried to include all the world in a
broader pity, a broader, higher, and less selfish love than the
jealous, single-minded love for one country--"
"The mother-land," I said, and Buckhurst looked up, adding, "The
world is the true mother-land."
Whereupon I appeared profoundly impressed at such a novel and
epigrammatic view.
"There is much to be argued on both sides," said the young Countess,
"but I am utterly unfitted to struggle with this new code of ethics.
If it had been different--if I had been born among the poor, in
misery!--But you see I come a pilgrim among the proletariat, clothed
in conservatism, cloaked with tradition, and if at heart I burn with
sorrow for the miserable, and if I gladly give what I have to help, I
cannot with a single gesture throw off those inherited garments,
though they tortured my body like the garment of Nessus."
I did not smile or respect her less for the stilted phrases, the
pathetic poverty of metaphor. Profoundly troubled, struggling with a
reserve the borders of which she strove so bravely to cross, her
distress touched me the more because I knew it aroused the uneasy
contempt of Buckhurst. Yet I could not spare her.
"You saw the cuirassiers die in the street below," I repeated, with
the obstinacy of a limited intellect.
"Yes--and my heart went out to them," she replied, with an emphasis
that pleased me and startled Buckhurst.
Buckhurst began to speak, but I cut him short.
"Then, madame, if your heart went out to the soldiers of France, it
went out to France, too!"
"Yes--to France," she repeated, and I saw her lip begin to quiver.
"Wherein does love for France conflict with our creed, madame?" asked
Buckhurst, gently. "It is only hate that we abjure."
She turned her gray eyes on him. "I will tell you: in that dreadful
moment when the cavalry of France cheered Death in his own awful
presence, I loved them and their country--_my_ country!--as I had
never loved in all my life.... And I hated, too! I hated the men who
butchered them--more!--I hated the country where the men came from; I
hated race and country and the blows they dealt, and the evil they
wrought on France--_my France_! That is the truth; and I realize it!"
There was a silence; Buckhurst slowly unrolled the wrinkled paper he
had been fingering.
"And now?" he asked, simply.
"Now?" she repeated. "I don't know--truly, I do not know." She
turned to me sorrowfully. "I had long since thought that my heart was
clean of hate, and now I don't know." And, to Buckhurst, again: "Our
creed teaches us that war is vile--a savage betrayal of humanity by a
few dominant minds; a dishonorable ingratitude to God and country. But
from that window I saw men die for honor of France with God's name on
their lips. I saw one superb cuirassier, trapped down there in the
street, sit still on his horse, while they shot at him from every
window, and I heard him call up to a Prussian officer who had just
fired at him: 'My friend, you waste powder; the heart of France is
cuirassed by a million more like me!'" A rich flush touched her face;
her gray eyes grew brighter.
"Is there a Frenchwoman alive whose blood would not stir at such a
scene?" she said. "They shot him through his armor, his breastplate
was riddled, he clung to his horse, always looking up at the riflemen,
and I heard the bullets drumming on his helmet and his cuirass like
hailstones on a tin roof, and I could not look away. And all the while
he was saying, quietly: 'It is quite useless, friends; France lives!
You waste your powder!' and I could not look away or close my eyes--"
She bent her head, shivering, and her interlocked fingers whitened.
"I only know this," she said: "I will give all I have--I will give
my poor self to help the advent of that world-wide brotherhood which
must efface national frontiers and end all war in this sad world. But
if you ask me, in the presence of war, to look on with impartiality,
to watch my own country battling for breath, to stop my ears when a
wounded mother-land is calling, to answer the supreme cry of France
with a passionless cry, 'Repent!' I cannot do it--I will not! I was
not born to!"
Deeply moved, she had risen, confronting Buckhurst, whose stone-cold
eyes were fixed on her.
"You say I hold you unworthy," she said. "Others may hold me, too,
unworthy because I have not reached that impartial equipoise whence,
impassive, I can balance my native land against its sins and watch
blind justice deal with it all unconcerned.
"In theory I have done it--oh, it is simple to teach one's soul in
theory! But when my eyes saw my own land blacken and shrivel like a
green leaf in the fire, and when with my own eyes I saw the best, the
noblest, the crown of my country's chivalry fall rolling in the mud of
Morsbronn under the feet of Prussia, every drop of blood in my body
was French--hot and red and French! And it is now; and it will always
be--as it has always been, though I did not understand."
After a silence Buckhurst said: "All that may be, madame, yet not
impair your creed."
"What!" she said, "does not hatred of the stranger impair my
creed?"
"It will die out and give place to reason."
"When? When I attain the lofty, dispassionate level I have never
attained? That will not be while this war endures."
"Who knows?" said Buckhurst, gently.
"I know!" replied the Countess, the pale flames in her cheeks
deepening again.
"And yet," observed Buckhurst, patiently, "you are going to Paradise
to work for the Internationale."
"I shall try to do my work and love France," she said, steadily. "I
cannot believe that one renders the other impossible."
"Yet," said I, "if you teach the nation non-resistance, what would
become of the armies of France?"
"I shall not teach non-resistance until we are at peace," she
said--"until there is not a German soldier left in France. After that
I shall teach acquiescence and personal liberty."
I looked at her very seriously; logic had no dwelling-place within her
tender and unhappy heart.
And what a hunting-ground was that heart for men like Buckhurst! I
could begin to read that mouse-colored gentleman now, to follow, after
a fashion, the intricate policy which his insolent mind was
shaping--shaping in stealthy contempt for me and for this young girl.
Thus far I could divine the thoughts of Mr. Buckhurst, but there were
other matters to account for. Why did he choose to spare my life when
a word would have sent me before the peloton of execution? Why had he
brought to me the fortune in diamonds which he had stolen? Why did he
eat humble-pie before a young girl from whom he and his companions had
wrung the last penny? Why did he desire to go to Morbihan and be
received among the elect in the Breton village of Paradise?
I said, abruptly: "So you are not going to denounce me to the
Prussian provost?"
He lifted his well-shaped head and gazed at the Countess with an
admirable pathos which seemed a mute appeal for protection from
brutality.
"That question is a needless one," said the Countess, quietly. "It
was a cruel one, also, Monsieur Scarlett."
"I did not mean it as an offensive question," said I. "I was merely
reciting a fact, most creditable to Mr. Buckhurst. Mon Dieu, madame, I
am an officer of Imperial Police, and I have lived to hear blunt
questions and blunter answers. And if it be true that Monsieur
Buckhurst desires to atone for--for what has happened, then it is
perfectly proper for me, even as a prisoner myself, to speak
plainly."
I meant this time to thoroughly convince Buckhurst of my ability to
gabble platitude. My desire that he should view me as a typical
gendarme was intense.
So I coughed solemnly behind my hand, knit my eyebrows, and laid one
finger alongside of my nose.
"Is it not my duty, as a guardian of national interests, to point out
to Mr. Buckhurst his honest errors? Certainly it is, madame, and this
is the proper time."
Turning pompously to Buckhurst, I fancied I could almost detect a
sneer on that inexpressive mask he wore--at least I hoped I could, and
I said, heavily:
"Monsieur, for a number of years there has passed under our eyes here
in France certain strange phenomena. Thousands of Frenchmen have, so
to speak, separated themselves from the rest of the nation.
"All the sentiments that the nation honors itself by professing these
other Frenchmen rebuke--the love of country, public spirit, accord
between citizens, social repose, and respect for communal law and
order--these other Frenchmen regard as the hallucinations of a nation
of dupes.
"Separated by such unfortunate ideas from the nation within whose
boundaries they live, they continue to abuse, even to threaten, the
society and the country which gives them shelter.
"France is only a name to them; they were born there, they live
there, they derive their nourishment from her without gratitude.
But France is nothing to them; _their mother-land is the
Internationale_!"
I was certain now that the shadow of a sneer had settled in the
corners of Buckhurst's thin lips.
"I do not speak of anarchists or of terrorists," I continued, nodding
as though profoundly impressed by my own sagacity. "I speak of
socialists--that dangerous society to which the cry of Karl Marx was
addressed with the warning, 'Socialists! Unite!'
"The government has reason to fear socialism, not anarchy, for it
will never happen in France, where the passion for individual property
is so general, that a doctrine of brutal destruction could have the
slightest chance of success.
"But wait, here is the point, Monsieur Buckhurst. Formerly the name
of 'terrorist' was a shock to the entire civilized world; it evoked
the spectres of a year that the world can never forget. And so our
modern reformers, modestly desiring to evade the inconveniences of
such memories among the people, call themselves the 'Internationale.'
Listen to them; they are adroit, they blame and rebuke violence, they
condemn anarchy, they would not lay their hands on public or
individual property--no, indeed!
"Ah, madame, but you should hear them in their own clubs, where the
ladies and gentlemen of the gutters, the barriers, and the abattoirs
discuss 'individual property,' 'the tyranny of capital,' and similar
subjects which no doubt they are peculiarly fitted to discuss.
"Believe me, madame, the little coterie which you represent is
already the dupe and victim of this terrible Internationale. Their
leaders work their will through you; a vast conspiracy against all
social peace is spread through your honest works of mercy. The time
is coming when the whole world will rise to combat this
Internationale; and when the mask is dragged from its benignant
visage, there, grinning behind, will appear the same old 'Spectre
Rouge,' torch in one hand, gun in the other, squatting behind a
barricade of paving-blocks."