Venetian blind--the right rope so eager to rise, the left so
indifferent to its improvement--an instant's dread. I was afraid
"they" would be hopping about even this early in the morning,
hopping, hopping--the jerking gait of the mutilated--the little
broken waves of a sea of "horizon blue." But they must have been
just getting their faces washed at the Salon, where once we went
to see pictures and now find compositions more dire than the newest
schools of painting.
On the other side the stretch of chestnuts, the taxicabs, returned
to their original mission, were already weaving about in their
effort to exterminate each other. Battling at the Marne had been
but a slight deviation in their mode of procedure, yet when a cab
recently ran down and killed a bewildered soldier impeded by a
crutch strange to him, Paris raised its voice in a new cry of rage.
Beyond the Champs Élysées, far beyond, rose the Eiffel tower.
Capable, immune so far from the attacks of the enemy, its very
outlines seem to have taken on a great importance. Once the giant
toy of a people who frolicked, it now serves in its swift mission
as the emblem of a race more gigantic than we had conceived.
It is not a relieving thought to such of us as still can play, that
spirit, whether in the bosom of the boulevardier or his country
cousin playing bowls in the cool of the evening, is the same that
projects itself brilliantly across the battlefield; that the flash
of a woman's eye as she invites a conquest is the flame upon the
alter when sacrifice is needed; that the very gaiety which makes
one laugh is a force to endure the deepest pits that have been
dug for mankind. Even as I continually struggle with a lump in my
throat which I often think should remain with me forever, I dare
claim that of all the necessitous qualities in life the spirit
of play must be the last to leave a race. Its translation to the
gravities of living needs no bellows for the coaxing of the fire.
It is ever burning upon the hearth of the happy heart.
The gilded statuary of the bridge of Alexander III, like flaming
beacons in the sun's rays, waved us out and on to the Invalides to
see the weekly awarding of medals. It is presumably the gay event
of the week as the band plays, and there is some color in the throngs
who surge along the colonnades to look into the court of honor.
A portion of the great space is now accommodating huge shattered
cannon and air craft of the enemy, their massiveness suggesting, as
the little glittering medals are pinned upon the soldiers' breasts,
that it is not so easy to be a hero and go a-capturing.
By the judicious wavings of famous autographs we were permitted the
upper balcony to sketch the heroic ones within the hollow square
formed by soldiers and marines. Directly beneath us stood the
band with the brassard of the red cross on their arms, for they
are still the stretcher bearers at the front. In the center of
the square was a little group of men, seventy perhaps but the space
was vast. Some were standing, some seated with stiff stumps of
legs sticking out queerly. Here and there a nurse stood by a blind
man, and there were white oblong gaps in the line which designated
the beds of the paralyzed.
I had set my teeth and said that I must stand it when across the
courtyard like a liquid stream of some spilled black portion came the
mothers and the wives, who were to wear the ribbon their soldiers
had earned in exchange for their lives. Or should there be little
sons or daughters they received this wondrous emblem of their fathers'
sacrifice. We could see the concerted white lift of handkerchiefs
to the eyes of the black line of women as the general bestowed the
honors. But the little children were tranquil.
With the beginning of the distribution the band, for which I had
longed that it might give a glow to the war, swung into a blare of
triumph. It was the first note of music we had heard in France.
And as we all expressed our emotion with abandonment throughout
the enlivening strains of "The Washington Post," I appreciated the
infinite wisdom of marching drumless through the streets--of the
divine lack of the bugles' song. For music, no matter its theme,
makes happy only those who are already happy. To those who suffer
it urges an unloosening of their grief--and grief must not go abroad
in France.
There was an end to the drama. The guard of honor marched through
the porte, banners flying. It was a happy ending, I suppose,
though one might not think so by the triumphal chariots that entered
the court to bear away the heroes--chariots with that red emblem
emblazoned upon a white disc which would have mystified an early
Caesar. But my thoughts were not entirely with the chief actors
in the play, rather with the squad of soldiers who had surrounded
them, the supers who would have enjoyed medals, too, and upon whom
opportunity had not smiled; whose epic of brave deeds may never
be read, and who, by chance, may go legless yet ribbonless up the
Champs Élysées.
"They" were hopping up the Avenue when we crossed it again, yet we
all went on about our daily tasks as one passes the blind man on
the corner of Sixth Avenue and Thirty-third Street. He may receive
a penny, a twang of the heart strings, but he must be passed
to go into the shop. My list was in my purse bearing but a faint
resemblance to the demands of other years. I thought as I took it
out what confusion of mind would have been my portion had I found
it in my purse three summers ago, in what state of madness could
any one prepare for a day in Paris such a program as: "Gloves,
Hospital 232, furs, workshop for blind, shell combs, see my baby
at Orphelinat, hair nets, cigarettes to my soldier, try on gowns,
funeral of Am. airman," and on and on through each day's great
accomplishment to the long quiet night.
Yet to buy freely and even frivolously in France need harass nothing
more soulful than a letter of credit, and it was with less of guilt
than of fear that I entered the courtyard of my furrier. I turned
the button ever so gently with the same dread in my heart that I
had suffered in going back to all of my shop keepers of previous
summers. Would he still be there? Two years is a long time, and
he was a young man. But he was there, wounded in the chest but at
work in the expectation of being recalled. He did not want to go
back, but of course if he was needed--
And I must lay stress on the magnificence of this hope that he might
not have to return to the trenches. I have found many who do not
want to go back. Fierce partisans of French courage deny this,
reading in my contention a lack of bravery, but to me it is valor
of a glorious color. For they do return without resentment, and,
what is more difficult in this day of monumental deeds and minute
bickerings, without criticism.
Like most of the men who came out of the trenches he had very
little to say about them. It amused him to hear that my new fur
coat purchased in America is of so fleeting a dye that I must dart
into the subway whenever the sun shines. He was laughing quietly
as he wished me a cloudy winter upon my descending the broad stone
steps into the empty, echoing courtyard. The unexpected appreciation
of my doubtful humor set me musing over the possibility of a duty
new to Americans. It is the French who have stood for gaiety. We
have warmed ourselves in their quick wit. Perhaps it is time for
us to do our little clownish best to set them laughing.
Having made the resolve I failed meanly to put it into execution.
I knew I was going to fail as the motor stopped before the great
house in the rue Daru--the lordly house of exquisitely tinted walls
although the colors are not seen by those who dwell within. There
is a paved COUR beyond the high wall with great steps leading up
to the hotel. At the right are the stables, where delicate fabrics
are woven--the workmen with heads erect; where are special looms
for those who, by the sad demands of this war, are denied hands as
well as their two eyes. At the left is another building and here
the men play in a gymnasium, even fence with confidence. In an
anteroom is a curious lay figure that the most sensitive of the
students may learn massage--it is the blind in Japan who give their
understanding fingers to this work--and in the rooms above is a
printing press, silent for lack of funds, but ready to give a paper
of his own to the sightless. Only, at "The Light House" they will
not accept that a single one of their guests is without vision.
"Ah GUARDIENNE," cried one of the students to the American woman
who has established our Light House methods over there, "you do not
see the unevenness of this fabric for your eyes are in your way."
I was standing in the room where the plan of the house is set upon
a table. It is the soldier's first lesson that he may know the
turns and steps, and run about without the pitiful outstretching
of arms. There were other callers upon the GUARDIENNE. A blind
graduate who had learned to live (which means to work) had returned
with his little old father, and both were telling her that he had
enough orders for his sweaters from the "Trois Quartiers" to keep him
occupied for two years. The family felt that he was established--so
there was nothing more to fear. And then because we were all happy
over it the old man and the woman and myself began to cry noiselessly.
Only the blind boy remained smiling through the choking silence.
I went to the window and glared down into the gardens where other
soldiers were studying at little tables with a professor for each,
and I asked myself why, in this great exigency, I was not being
funny and paying my debt to France. But there was nothing to be
funny about. The thing that dried my tears was the recollection
of the blind asylum of my youth, where the "inmates" never learned
to walk without groping, where we were shown hideous bead furniture,
too small for dolls, which was the result of their eager but misspent
lives.
There was a gown to be ordered before noon and as I drove back
through the Faubourg St. Honoré I found myself looking fondly,
thirstily into the shop windows, lifting my free eyes to the charming
vagaries of old buildings, and again I made a vow although it had
nothing to do with humor. On my dressing table rests a cushion of
brocade and I shall carry it about as one who may yield to temptation
carries a pledge, for the card which is attached chants out to
me whenever my eyes rest upon it: "Soldat Pierre. Aveugle de la
guerre. Blessé à Verdun." And as long as Soldier Pierre. Blind
from the war. Wounded at Verdun can go on weaving his fabrics I pray
that I may carry whatever burden may be mine with the unrebellious
spirit.
Ah well! The robe took its place in the curriculum of my new
Parisian day. It was to be a replica in color of that worn by the
head of the house--her one of mourning was so bravely smart--for
the business must go on and only the black badge of glory in
fashionable form show itself in the gay salon. "Yes, we must go
on," she said, "though every wife may give her mate. It is of an
enormity to realize before one dies that he can be done without--that
there are enough little ones to keep France alive and we women in
the meantime can care for the country. Our men may die glad in
that thought, but I think there must be a little of grief, too.
It is sad not to be needed. Yes, Madame, blue for you where mine
is black, and in place of the crêpe something very brilliant. It
is only Americans that we can make gay now, and it keeps the women
in the sewing room of good cheer to work in colors. Too dear you
think? Ah, no, Madame, observe the model!"
Conscious that she had taken the basest advantage of my sympathy,
and glad that she had done so I went to déjeuner with a feeling
that I had deserved it which I might not otherwise have enjoyed.
We were lunching at the restaurant on the Seine which felt for
a short time the upheaval of war. Among the first called to the
front had been the proprietor, and the august deputies whose custom
it was to take their midday meal at this famous eating place had
suffered from an unevenness of the cuisine. He is back at his
establishment now, an ammunition maker on the night shift and the
excellent and watchful patron at noon.
Our guests came promptly, for France still eats, although, if I can
say anything so anomalous, does not stop to do so. The war talk
continues albeit one carries it more lightly through a meal. A
French officer arrived in the only automobile of his garage which
the government had not commandeered. We looked down upon it stealthily
that we might not give offense to his chauffeur, for the car is a
Panhard in the last of its teens--which holds no terrors to a woman
but is a gloomy age for a motor. An American architect from our
Clearing House bowed over my hand a little more Gallic in these
days than the Gaul himself. He has a right to the manners of the
country. He had come over at the beginning of the war for a month
and is determined to stick it out if he never builds another railway
station. "To see the troops march through the Arc de Triomphe!" is
the cry of the Americans, but the French do not express themselves
so dramatically.
There is drama enough, though, even in the filing of papers at
every American relief society. That and the new sensation of work
serves to hold the dilettante of our country to his long task.
"This is the president's office," you will be told in a hushed voice
outside some stately door. Then one discovers in Mr. President
a playmate of Mayfair or Monte Carlo or Taormina who may never
previously have used a desk except as a support for the signing of
checks.
Our friend had been engaged that morning upon the re-ticketing of
the Lafayette Kits which had come back from the front because there
was no longer a Gaspard to receive them. I put this down that
any young girl of our country who does not hear from "her soldier"
may understand the silence. And sometimes the poilu is a little
confused, writing a charming letter of thanks to "Monsieur Lafayette"
himself.
A man takes coffee at déjeuner but finishes his cigar en route
to work. We were at the edge of Paris before the Illustrator had
thrown his away. We were not in the car of ancient lineage but in
that relic of other days a real automobile without the great white
letters of the army upon its sides and bonnet. Yet we were going
into the heart of the Army. We would not be among the derelicts
of battle that afternoon but with men sound of mind and body, and
the thought was grateful that there would be nothing to anguish
over. We were to visit two cantonments, rough barracks, in one of
which the men gathered after their "permission" for a re-equipment;
while at the second one were those soldiers who had become
separated from their regiments, and who were sent there until the
companies--if they existed--could be found, and the "isolated"
again dispatched to the front.
I had anticipated a very relieving afternoon. The sun shone, the
long road led to open country, and many circling aeroplanes over
an aviation field nearby gave the air of a fête. Only the uniforms
of the English and American women who are attached to each of these
many cantonments suggested any necessitous combating of the grim
reaper.
Yet they are not nurses of the body but of the spirit. From modest
little vine covered sheds erected in each ugly open space they
disperse good cheer augmented by coffee and cigarettes (and such
small comforts as we Americans send them) after the regulation army
rations are served by the commissary. They hear the men's stores,
comfort the unhappy ones, chaff the gloomy ones, and when they have
a moment's breathing space write letters to such of those as have
asked for a correspondent.
One of these women--an American--was intent upon this occupation
at the first canteen we visited. She admitted that she was tired
but she must answer her letters. She was rather grave about it,
"I write to sixty-eight," she said, "and I'll tell you why. At
least I will tell you a little of it and you can read the rest. I
was on night duty. There is always one of us here. The men have
just come from visiting their homes and some of them are blue and
cannot sleep. Rude to us? Oh, never! I had written letters almost
all night and it was time to make the morning coffee, yet there was
still one to do. I was tempted to put it aside. I didn't remember
the man, but he had sent me a word of thanks. Well, somehow I did
answer it between the moment of filling the cauldron and getting
ready for the day. Here is his reply--it came this morning--"
Translating crudely from the letter I read aloud to our little
circle: "Dear Madame, you have saved my life. I have no friends
and no people left for I am from the invaded districts, so on one
writes me. To-day I was on duty as the officer came into our trench
with the mail. He called my name. He gave me permission to leave
the listening post to receive your valued letter. While at his
side a shell tore up entirely my post. I think you, Madame, that
I am spared to fight for France--"
I regarded her with longing. She had been the controller of a
destiny. I suppose we are all that when we bend our best efforts,
but seldom are we so definitely apprised of the reward of untiring
duty.
A petty officer passed by the shack with a paper in his hands.
There were no sounding trumpets, but the men recognized the paper
and rose from the ground where they had been lounging to hear him
read the list of those who were to return immediately to the front.
As the names were called each one summoned turned without comment
or exclamation or expletive, picked up his kit dumped in a corner,
slung on the heavy equipment, saw that the huge loaf of bread was
secure--the extra shoes--refilled his canteen and moved over to
the barred gate. Occasionally one shook hands with a comrade and
all saluted the women of the little flower-bedecked hut. An order
was given and the gate was opened. They filed out into the dusty
road on their march to the railway station. The gate was closed.
A little hill rose higher than the ground of the barracks and we could
see them once again--stout little men in patched uniforms--bending
unresistingly under their burdens, the heavy steel helmets gleaming
but faintly in the sun. Another detachment entered the barracks.
It was coffee time now. The soldiers were lingering politely about
with their tin cups in hand--not too expectantly, so as to assure
the ladies that if by any chance there was no coffee they would not
be disappointed. The gentlewoman in attendance had recently come
from a canteen near the front where soup is made and often eight
thousand bowls of it served in a day. The skin of her arms and
hands is, I fear, permanently unlovely from the steam of the great
kettles--or perhaps I should say permanently lovely now that one
knows the cause of the branding. I offered to pour in her place
and she assented.
The men came up to the little bar. I began to pour. I had thought
I was about to do them a service. I knew with the first cup that
it was they who were doing me one. All the unrest and misery of
my idle if observing days in France was leaving me. I was pushing
back the recollection with the sweetness of physical effort. I
was at work. There is no living in France--or anywhere now--unless
one is at work. I served and served and urged fresh cups upon them.
They thought I was generous--I could not tell them that I had not
known a happy instant till this coffee pouring time. I had not
recognized that it was toiling with the hands that would bring a
surcease to the beating of queries at my bewildered brain. There
are no answers to this war. One can only labor for it and so,
strangely, forget it.
Late that afternoon I had a cup of tea in a ground floor room of
a big Parisian hotel which has been freely assigned to an American
woman for the least known of all our relief work. I had come that
I might argue with her into giving up her long task for a brief
rest. My contention was to have been that she could stop at any
time as her work is never recognized. I found her doing up a parcel
of excellent garments for a man and three women. They were to be
assigned to the family of a respected painter of the Latin Quarter.
They will never know who is the middleman, and it has chanced that
she has dined in company with her day's donation.
As I observed her tired tranquility I felt my argument growing
pointless. Whether it was coffee or the unacknowledged dispenser
of clothing to the uncrying needy it was service, and though my arm
muscles ached I could understand that it is the idle boy in Paris
which does not rest at night.
And so I come tot he last sheet of the romance which is serving
so humbly my war-time needs. There is space for the dinner and
the closing in of the gentle night thanks to the repeated, fervid
declarations of the lovers on the other side of the paper. We
had been with the men that afternoon. We were among the officers
that evening. We dined at one of the great restaurants which has
timorously reopened its doors to find eager families ready to feast
honored sons. At one table sat three generations, the father of
the boy concealing his pride with a Gallic interest in the menu,
but the grandfather futilely stabbed the snails as his gleaming old
eyes kept at attention upon the be-medalled lad. Pretty women, too,
were there, subdued in costuming but with that amiable acceptance
of their position which is not to be found among the more eager
"lost ones" of other countries. And I enjoyed some relief in their
evidence once more, and some inward and scarcely to-be-expressed
solace in the thought that those soldiers who henceforth must go
disfigured through a fastidious world can every buy companionship.
There was a theater attached to the restaurant. Through the glass
doors we could see an iridescence of scant costumes, but the audience
was light, and we ourselves preferred, as a more satisfactory ending
to our day, to walk quietly toward the Arc de Triomphe which is
waiting, waiting for fresh glories. On the other side of this last
sheet of paper my lovers had so walked together. But upon looking
over their passionate adventures I have discovered, at last, why
the romance has never found a market. On one side and then on the
other I have read and reread the two experiences. Yes, I find the
LOVE-story curiously lacking in love.
[signed] Louise Closser Hale
Children of War
Not for a transient victory, or some
Stubborn belief that we alone are right;
Not for a code or conquest do we fight,
But for the crowded millions still to come.
This, unborn generations, is your war,
Although it is our blood that pays the price.
Be worthy, children, of our sacrifice,
And dare to make your lives worth fighting for.
We give up all we love that you may loathe
Intrigue and darkness, that you may disperse
The ranks of ugly tyrannies and, worse,
The sodden languor and complacent sloth.
Do not betray us, then, but come to be
Creation's crowning splendor, not its slave;
Knowing our lives were spent to keep you brave,
And that our deaths were meant to make you free.
[signed] Louis Untermeyer
Courtesy "Collier's Weekly."
Khaki-Boy
Where the torrent of Broadway leaps highest in folly and the nights
are riddled with incandescent tire and chewing gum signs; jazz
bands and musical comedies to the ticket speculators' tune of five
dollars a seat, My Khaki-Boy, covered with the golden hoar of three
hundred Metropolitan nights rose to the slightly off key grand
finale of its eighty-first matinée, curtain slithering down to
the rub-a-dud-dub of a score of pink satin drummer boys with slim
ankles and curls; a Military Sextette of the most blooded of Broadway
ponies; a back ground of purple eye-lidded privates enlisted from
the ranks of Forty-Second Street; a three hundred and fifty dollar
a week sartorial sergeant in khaki and spotlight, embracing a ninety
pound ingénue in rhinestone shoulder-straps. The tired business
man and his lady friend, the Bronx and his wife, Adelia Ohio, Dead
heads, Bald heads, Sore heads, Suburbanites, Sybarites; the poor
dear public making exit sadder than wiser.
On the unpainted side of the down slithering curtain, a canvas
mountain-side was already rumbling rearward on castors. An overhead
of foliage jerked suddenly higher, revealed a vista of brick wall.
A soldiers' encampment, tents and all, rolled up like a window shade.
The ninety pound ingénue, withholding her silver-lace flouncings
from the raw edges of moving landscape, high-stepped to a rearward
dressing room; the khaki clad hero brushing past her and the pink
satin drummer boys for first place down a spiral staircase.