OH, MY FRIENDS!
In whom should I confide the secret which made my heart leap?
Could I hesitate when Guillaumin was beside me!
Lively, hearty, and full of go, he was an incomparable companion. He
fought as if he had been born to it.... He was in for it, and would
stick to it. He had thought it would only be a short business. He
realised that it would be a long one. Couldn't be helped! Why grouse
about it? He preferred to save his breath. Not for an instant did he
dream that we could negotiate for peace as losers. One felt that he
would march on patiently counting always on revenge, sooner or later,
as long as he had the legs to march on; that he would fight as long as
he had the arms to fight with.
How fond I was of him! How worthy he was of my confidence!
I hesitated, all the same, for a long time. It was the effect of
my rooted suspicion of my fellow-beings--I swear that I lacked the
courage. One day, however, when we were marching--he was talking to me
about his sister who was a musician--I made some allusion to Jeannine,
also a musician. He looked at me, and I made up my mind to it, I so
much wanted him to know. But my tone played me false in the most
bizarre manner, cloaking itself in false irony. I seemed to be giving
an account of a casual flirtation. What would this unimportant intrigue
end in? I pretended to have no idea of it. And the word, the delicious
word, which was ready to blossom on my lips, was never pronounced.
Hypocritical trifling! How I cursed it, on looking back at it. How
thankful I was to Claude for not adopting the same frivolous tone in
his turn. If he had done so, that would have been the end of it. I
should have retired within myself, embittered by the idea that I had
been misunderstood or, worse still, we should have continued to make
meaningless remarks on the subject, which would have done violence to
my love. Instead of which Guillaumin guessed that I was, in spite of
myself, the victim of an absurd timidity; it was he who, by insensible
degrees directed our conversation into a more cordial and sincere
channel. He made his interest clear to me. My confidence touched him,
he refused to treat it as an insignificant sentiment. Then I took the
final step, and knew the sweetness of self-abandonment.
Without a blush, since I was sure that no chaffing threatened me, I was
able to describe to him in detail the progress of the sweet seduction
right up to the glorious ecstasy. He listened to me unwearyingly,
encouraging me by a strange word or nod. The next day he gave me an
opening, which I had vaguely desired, to return to my subject. He
smiled at me, when my next letters came, and his eyes shone. His
friendship performed the miracle of making him happy because I was.
* * * * *
De Valpic had stayed with us. I had pressed him in vain to report
sick. Guillaumin, and the captain too had urged him to. Circumstances
robbed our exhortation of all efficacy. He said repeatedly that it was
a time when the country claimed the determined effort of all her sons.
If I insisted, he cut me short with:
"Dreher, you wouldn't desert us!..."
So he went on, and refused to give in. He valiantly accomplished the
terrible marches, and bore the sleepless nights, and the days without
rest. We sometimes found him sitting down panting, during the halts,
without even the strength to wipe his forehead. His appearance then
would terrify us, his hollow eyes, and flaming cheek-bones. In a few
days his features had become peaked, his face emaciated; his poor
shoulders were bowed. One would never have expected him to go down hill
so rapidly. His cough was growing more rasping. He expectorated freely,
but always--with touching consideration--into a little spittoon,
concealed until then in his pack. We hardly dared to ask him how he
was. He had asked me lightly not to refer to the subject again.
"I am better, I assure you, since I've given up thinking about it!"
"But what about your temperature?"
"I'm not feverish now. I've thrown away my thermometer. I ought to have
begun by doing that!"
He did not let a day go by without writing, any more than I did. He
was always on the lookout for ways of despatching his letters, and was
usually obliging enough to allow me to profit by them.
I was totally ignorant of anything concerning the object of his love,
her name and age and everything. The one question he had pronounced
had been enough to make me understand his devotion for her. She too, I
guessed, must love him, if she was willing to wait till he recovered.
I used to wonder about this girl--a stranger to me. I imagined her as
the bearer of a great name, endowed with beauty and every fascination.
What a couple they would make! Alas, and that would never be! Would
she recognise her fiancé, when the war gave him back to her, battered,
and at the end of his strength, destined to fade away? I pictured him
on a long chair shivering and pulling his rug over his knees. The idea
obsessed me. Like imaginations must harry him ceaselessly. With a vague
eye, and a far-away look he must often be thinking of her, whom he
would see again--if things were looked at in their best light--only for
a moment.
The closest intimacy had sprung up between him and Guillaumin and me.
De Valpic was in the first platoon with Humel, Descroix and Playoust,
and suffered more than we did from contact with that "lot." They
disliked him, and reproached him with being stuck up, and sly,--he
who was so simple, and straightforward! They did him bad turns, and
arranged once or twice--we messed in platoons now--to defraud him of
his share, on the pretext that he was late. Playoust who had wormed his
way into the sergeant-major's good graces got the "viscount" warned for
several tiring fatigues. At Béthaincourt, for instance, the unfortunate
creature was left behind to wait for the certificate of good conduct.
The Mayor, having finally refused, after long disputes, he caught us up
in the middle of the night, after a forced march. We did not get wind
of this bullying at once. We did not see much of the Humel-Playoust
set, and De Valpic hated making complaints; he would have preferred to
see peace established, even if it were to his own detriment.
Everyday, however, we monopolised him more and more. He joined our mess
which Gaufrèteau had agreed to manage, ever since Spincourt, and which
aroused everyone's envy, so savory were the fumes which rose from it,
even in the most tragic hours, and amid the dearth of all resources.
We three lost no time in finding each other during long halts, and at
the end of the day's marching. When we were not too much worn out we
had long confabs. The strange thing was that at those times De Valpic
was the one of us who was always the most animated. He no longer
slipped away! We wanted him to spare himself, but he, apologising
for his fits of coughing, led us on in spite of ourselves, lavishly
displaying the riches of his unusual mind. Was it with a view to
diverting his thoughts, or did he realise that his enthusiasm was a
source of inspiration to us? What a marvellous conversationalist he
was! I was dumbfounded by the extent of his knowledge, the region of
his curiosity. Our discussions often turned upon the issue of the
present campaign. How great was his optimism based on facts, not on
illusions! There was no pretension about it, by the way; it was all
said in a playful friendly tone, which did not recoil on occasion
before a crude or, shall we say, military expression emphasised by his
rare smile.
We expressed our opinions, flattering, or the reverse, on everyone
about us: _poilus_, N.C.O.'s, and our leaders. What intuition and
penetration De Valpic showed. How shrewdly he judged poor Henriot, for
instance, who was completely demoralised, and, because he was ashamed
of it, retired into his shell, and shunned all society.
"A Lorrain, and an elementary school-master!"
He developed his idea, showing us that these frontier people were more
chauvinistic than us, apparently, more warlike, and more nervous. It
was they who had suffered most from the invasion in 1870, so that there
was nothing more natural than that they should flag quickly at the
arrival of a second disaster. They were always the first to suffer.
And how easy it was to get into the habit of thinking of the enemy as
insatiable and invincible, everlastingly stretching out its claws over
their territory. And again he made game of our classic education which
assuredly must temper the character by the obscure recollection it
propagates of so many traits of heroism, of so many noble passions! But
he interrupted himself, fearing to be too sweeping:
"For that matter, there are heaps of first-rate fellows among these
schoolmasters!"
We knew some, but not as many as he did! He quoted various names.
Hermeline in the 18th had died heroically the other day, defending the
bridge at Cléry.
One evening our intercourse assumed a philosophic complexion. I amused
myself by inveigling Guillaumin into insidious discussions. He fought
hard, and appealed several times to De Valpic whose courteous decisions
struck me by their perspicuity; and also to the highmindedness they
seemed to bear witness to. And yet they must necessarily be inspired
by some moral philosophy--Which? It will be remembered that the very
sound of the word used to importunate me. Once started, I sketched
the outline of my late doctrines. I was curious to see with what
dialectics my companions would oppose those I had so often proved
irrefutable. I pressed them. I showed the logic of integral egoism, the
impossibility for man to create any duty other than his happiness.
"What do you think about it, De Valpic?"
He quietly remarked that moral philosophy in his eyes was one with
religion.
"Which religion?"
"I only know of one!"
This steadfastness did not displease me. I was not ignorant of his
principles. I had seen him, the very day before, during our stay at
Hazaumont, leave us to go and see a priest and communicate. Was his
belief irrational--foolish? But at these fateful junctures, were not
certain sublime follies our only stays?