It must have occurred to Lily that the man was talking in an hysterical
fashion with all the frenzy of a neurasthenic. “Madame, you should see
one of our towns where there are great furnaces ... Essen, Madame, or
Saarbrucken.. black, incredibly vile, a wallow of roaring fire and white
hot steel ... I know them, Madame, I have lived in them.”
Then for the first time Lily stirred. She even laughed, faintly yet with
unmistakable bitterness. “Know them? I know them. We have them in
America.”
The stranger paid no heed to her interruption. “Look, Madame,” he
commanded, pointing to the north where the horizon was lighted by the
glow of a burning town. “Look, Madame. You see that fire in the sky. The
ladles have overflowed. The white hot steel has spread across Europe.
There is gold in it too ... red hot gold.... Melted Gods ... idols which
we worship to-day.”
His voice rose until he was shouting. When he finished, he leaned back
in his chair, the fine uniform suddenly crumpled and limp. And after a
time he began to speak again, softly as if the torrent of emotion had
exhausted him.
“And where have we to go? If we sought to escape where have we to go?
There is no place. Because the monkeys ... the fools have civilized all
the world, so that they might sell their cheap cotton and tin trays.
They have created a monster which is destroying them. There is no longer
any peace ... any solitude. They have even wrenched the peasant from his
plow ... the shepherd from his hillside.” Again he pointed toward the
burning horizon. “They have driven them out upon the plains where the
cauldrons have overflowed across all Europe. It is the monsters, Madame,
who are at the bottom of all this. Ah, commerce, industry, wealth,
power.” He tossed away his cigarette and lighted another. “When this is
over, who do you think will have gained? Not the peasant, Madame. Not
the shepherd, not the poet. Ah, no! They will be shoveled under the
earth ... whole bodies and pieces of bodies because they are no longer
of any use. Not the worker, Madame, whom the monster devours. Ah, no.”
His voice rose suddenly. “It is the monster who will have gained ... the
monster and the men whose pockets he fills with gold ... the monster of
material, of industry. He will destroy us. He will devour us. What can
we do? You see, I know. I have lived in France. I have lived in
England.... My grandmother, you understand, was English. I would prefer
to live in England. But No! I was in England three weeks ago. And
suddenly I must go home to join my regiment, to set out upon the
expedition that has brought me here into this trampled garden. What for?
Who can say? Why? Who knows? Not surely because it gives me pleasure.
Not surely because I care a fig whether the German empire lives or dies.
That is merely an excuse to drag us into battle.” His head dropped
wearily again. “You see, this is why I have not been able to sleep. I
have been thinking of these things. They are not the sort that lull a
man to sleep. There is blood on my hands. I killed to-day ... by
shooting and stabbing. I assure you it gave me no pleasure. I should
doubtless have loved the men I killed. I am helpless. I cannot fight
against it. No, there is only one thing to be done. I must kill as many
men as possible. I must destroy all that it is possible to destroy
because if we destroy enough the monster will have nothing to feed upon.
He, too, will die ... and with him this civilization ... banal, ugly,
materialistic, unchristian ... this greed-ridden world.”
The Uhlan fell forward upon the table, burying his face in his arms. At
the sight Lily raised herself gently and watched her strange companion
in a wondering silence. At last she said softly, “Why do you tell me
this? Is it because you are afraid?”
The man made a chuckling, confused, sound and sat up once more. “Ah, no!
Madame. You fancy I am hysterical. Well, so I am. I don’t deny it. You
see it is not easy for me to be a warrior. I am a little mad. No, I talk
like this because....” For a moment he hesitated as if groping for some
explanation of an emotional crisis which in a soldier was not logical at
all. His manner seemed to imply that he should have accepted the affair
without question. “Because.... Well, there is a time when fear does not
matter, when terror does not exist, when one is enveloped by a despair
so great that what happens to one’s body is of no concern. You
understand that. You have answered it yourself a little time before,
when you said there came a time when it was useless to be afraid.” He
leaned back and made a little gesture of negation. “It does not matter,”
he concluded. In the faint light from the lower windows of the château
it was plain that he was smiling in a bitter, despairing fashion. “No, I
shall go on killing until I am killed. It will not be a long affair. It
is absurd to hope that I shall live many more days.” He whistled softly.
“I might even be killed to-night ... after I have left you. I shall kill
as many men as possible. I can only submit. There is nothing I can do. I
am not a boy full of playing soldier.”
At this Lily winced suddenly as if he had struck her. Then she raised
herself slowly. The black cloak fell from her shoulders.
“I have in the war a son and a lover,” she said. “If you met them, you
would kill them. Is it not so?”
The Uhlan bowed his head in silent assent.
“And yet you do not believe in it?”
“No, Madame.”
“Then that is wrong. It is sinful.”
The stranger leaned toward her. “It is not I who would kill them. I am
only a chance, a little dagger in the hand of fate ... one of a billion
chances that have to do with their deaths. I myself would not be killing
them.... It would be a strange ... even an impossible accident, if I
killed one of them with my own hands. You understand, we are talking
facts now ... hard facts. There is no room for sentimentality at a time
like this....” He smiled ironically. “I can understand that it is
difficult for a woman to talk facts. It is simply a matter of chances
... like roulette shall we say?”
For a time Lily remained thoughtful and silent. At last she said, “They
are in the cavalry like yourself. You would kill them. You are one of
the chances.” The calmness of her manner stood in terrible contrast to
the hysterical outburst of the soldier.
“I can see you are a philosopher ... a _femme savant_,” mocked the
stranger.
“You might choose a better time to jeer.”
The man coughed. “Forgive me.... I am sorry.... I was wrong. If you were
a _femme savant_, I would not be talking to you like this.... You are a
woman ... a beautiful woman. One cannot help talking to you.”
“I am only a woman living by what she believes. That is simple enough.”
“It requires courage, Madame ... and indifference, far more of both than
I have.” He coughed again, nervously. “Perhaps I am too rational....
Perhaps I do not think resistance worth the trouble ... especially now,
at a time when the mob ... the politicians rule absolutely.”
“You are one of the chances,” Lily repeated stubbornly.