[Illustration: Windmills
Gilbert Cannan]
WINDMILLS
A BOOK OF FABLES
BY
GILBERT CANNAN
[Illustration]
NEW YORK B. W. HUEBSCH, INC. MCMXX
COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY
B. W. HUEBSCH, INC.
PRINTED IN U. S. A.
TO
D. H. LAWRENCE
... _a huge terrible monster, called Moulinavent, who, with four
strong arms, waged eternal battle with all their divinities,
dexterously turning to avoid their blows, and repay them with
interest._
A TALE OF A TUB
CONTENTS
SAMWAYS ISLAND, 1
I TITTIKER, 3
II THE BISHOP, 5
III ARABELLA, 7
IV THE SKITISH NAVY, 10
V CAPTAIN COURAGEOUS, 15
VI HOSTILITIES, 16
VII SIEBENHAAR, 18
VIII MORE OF SIEBENHAAR, 22
IX SIEBENHAAR ON WOMEN, 24
X LOVE, 26
XI MUSIC, 26
XII ADRIFT, 29
XIII HUNGER, 31
XIV MILITARY, 31
XV NAVAL, 37
XVI NATIONAL, 38
XVII REUNION, 41
XVIII BETROTHAL, 42
XIX REACTION, 44
XX HOME, 46
ULTIMUS, 49
I THE SON OF HIS FATHER, 51
II QUESTIONS, 53
III CIVILISATION, 57
IV WAR AND WOMEN, 62
V WIRELESS, 65
VI BICH IS OBSTINATE, 67
VII PLANS, 72
VIII IN FATTISH WATERS, 74
IX AN AFTERNOON CALL, 77
X THE MOST BEAUTIFUL WOMAN, 80
XI HIGH POLITICS, 82
XII THE PUBLIC, 87
XIII THE EMPEROR, 89
XIV WAR, 93
XV SIEBENHAAR ON SOCIETY, 97
XVI PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS, 98
XVII PEACE, 102
XVIII THE RETURN OF THE ISLAND, 104
GYNECOLOGIA, 107
I HISTORY, 109
II CASTAWAY, 112
III MY CAPTOR, 114
IV THE CHANGE, 117
V THE HOMESTEAD, 121
VI OBSEQUIES, 124
VII SLAVERY, 127
VIII A STRANGE WOOING, 128
IX THE RUINED CITY, 130
X THE OUTLAWS, 132
XI EDMUND, 135
XII THE NUNNERY, 138
XIII IN THE CAPITAL, 142
XIV THE EXAMINATION, 146
XV MEN OF GENIUS, 149
XVI REVOLUTION, 153
OUT OF WORK, 159
I MR. BLY’S HEART BREAKS, 161
II MR. BLY IS IMPRISONED, 162
III THE DARK GENTLEMAN, 163
IV THE DARK GENTLEMAN’S STORY, 165
V COGITATION, 167
VI CONFLAGRATION, 167
VII TIB STREET, 169
VIII MR. BLY’S SERMON, 171
IX THE EFFECT OF MR. BLY’S SERMON, 173
X THE WIDOW MARTIN, 173
XI MAKING A STIR, 175
XII MAKING A STIRABOUT, 176
XIII SPARKS FLYING, 177
XIV SMOULDERING, 178
XV SUCCOUR, 178
XVI ON THE ROAD, 181
XVII JAH, 183
XVIII JAH SPEAKS, 185
XIX SONG, 186
XX MORNING, 187
XXI HOPE, 187
PREFACE TO AMERICAN EDITION
Prophecy of an event is unlikely to be interesting after it and this
may be the reason why my prophetic utterances regarding the Great War
took the form of Satire. The first of these fables has a history. It
was published originally in London as a little orange-covered booklet,
called Old Mole’s Novel and it was issued simultaneously with Old Mole,
a character to whom I was so attached that it gave me great pleasure
to attribute authorship to him. Only a small edition was printed and
it soon ran out of print. A copy of it reached Germany and fell into
the hands of a group of young men who were incensed by the nonsense
the high-born Generals and Admirals were talking in the Reichstag and
I received enthusiastic letters asking for more so that these caustic
prophecies might circulate in Germany and serve as an antidote. That
was more encouragement than I had received in England and so, for my
German friends, who had the advantage of living under a frank and not a
veiled Junkerdom, I composed the remaining fables and finished them a
few months before the outbreak of war. The translation was proceeded
with but so far as I know the book was never issued in Germany. It
appeared in England early in 1915 and this intensely patriotic effort
of mine was condemned as unpatriotic because we had already caught the
German trick of talking of war as holy. It sold not at all in its first
expensive edition because it was not a novel, nor an essay, nor a play
and the British public had no training in Satire, but I have since had
letters from both soldiers and conscientious objectors saying that
the book was their constant companion and solace, and I have recently
learned that in a certain division of the British Army it was declared
to be a court-martial offense for any officer to have the book in his
possession, presumably on the principle that the soldier must not read
anything which his superiors cannot understand. That of course was good
for the sale of the book and the cheap edition also ran out of print
just about the time when the shortage of paper produced a crisis in the
affairs of authors and publishers.
The book was useful to me when the time came as evidence that my
objection to war was not an objection to personal discomfort, the
element of danger, owing to my ill health, not arising as a point at
issue, though that would not have made any difference to my position.
My objection to war is that it does not do what its advocates say it
does, and that no good cause can be served by it. Good causes can only
be served by patience, endurance, sympathy, understanding, mind and
will.
The attempt to remove militarism and military conceptions from among
human preoccupations is a good cause and that I will serve with the
only weapon I know how to use--the pen, which they say is mightier than
the sword or even the howitzer. Having applied myself to this service
before the outbreak of the Great War, which for me began in 1911, I was
not to be diverted from it by the panic confusion of those who were
overtaken by the calamity rather than prepared for it. With Windmills,
my essay on Satire, my critical study of Samuel Butler, the Interlude
in Old Mole, I was an active participant in the Great War before it
began, but of course no one pays any attention to a prophet, especially
when he is enough of an artist to desire to give his prophecy permanent
form. That indeed was my mistake. Had I thundered in the accents of
Horatio Bottomley instead of clipping my sentences to the mocking
murmur of satire I might have been a hero to some one else’s valet, not
having one of my own. Peace has her Bottomleys no less renowned than
war, but I am afraid I am not among their number, for I have long since
returned to the serious business of life, the composition of dramatic
works, and I am in the position that most ensures unpopularity, that
of being able to say ‘I told you so.’
I am a little alarmed when I consider how closely the Great War
followed my prophecy of it and turn to the fables, Gynecologia and
Out of Work, which follow logically from the other. A world governed
by women as lopsidedly as it has been by men would be much like that
depicted here, and the final collapse, if it came, would surely follow
the lines indicated in Out of Work. None of us knows exactly of what we
are a portent and who can imagine to what Lady Astor’s flight into fame
may lead? If I had not already dedicated this book to my friend D. H.
Lawrence I would, without her permission, inscribe upon it the name of
the first woman to take her Seat in the worst club in London, the House
of Commons.
GILBERT CANNAN.
New York, 1919.
Samways Island
I: TITTIKER
George Samways awoke one night with a vague distressful feeling that
all was not well with his island. The moon was shining, but it was
casting the shadow of the palm tree in which he slept over the hollow
wherein he cooked his meals, and that had never happened before.
He was alarmed and climbed down his palm tree and ran to the tall hill
from which he was accustomed to observe the sea and the land that
floated blue on the edge of the sea. The ascent seemed longer than
usual, and when he reached the summit he was horrified to find a still
higher peak before him. At this sight he was overcome with emotion and
lay upon the earth and sobbed. When he could sob no more he rose to his
feet and dragged himself to the top of the furthest peak and gazed out
upon an empty sea. The moon was very bright. There was no land upon the
edge of the sea. He raised his eyes heavenwards. The stars were moving.
He looked round upon his island. It was shrunk, and the forests were
uprooted and the little lake at the foot of the hill had disappeared.
Before and behind his island the sea was churned and tumbled, as it
was when he pressed his hands against the little waves when he went
into the water to cleanse himself.
And now a wind came and a storm arose; rain came beating, and he
hastened back to the hole in the ground he had dug for himself against
foul weather. Then, knowing that he would not sleep, he lit his lamp of
turtle oil and pith and read _Tittiker_.
_Tittiker_ was the book left to him by his father whom he had put
into the ground many years before, even as he had seen his father do
with his mother when he was a little child. He had been born on the
island, and could just remember his mother, and his father had lived
long enough to teach him how to fish and hunt and make his clothes of
leaves, feathers, and skins, and to read in _Tittiker_, but not long
enough to give him any clue to the meaning of the book. But whenever
he was sad it was a great solace to him, and he had read it from cover
to cover forty times, for it was like talking to somebody else, and it
was full of names and titles, to which he had attached personages, so
that the island was very thickly populated. Through _Tittiker_ he knew
that the earth moved round the sun, that the moon moved round the earth
and made the tides, that there were three hundred and sixty-five days
in the year, seven days in the week, and that printing is the art of
producing impressions from characters or figures.
II: THE BISHOP
When, the next morning, he crawled out of his lair he saw a man
strangely clad in black, with a shiny corded hat on his head and an
apron hanging from his middle to his knees, gazing up into his palm
tree and down into his kitchen. The man in black saw him and, in the
language of _Tittiker_, said:
“Alas, my poor brother!”
“Are you my brother?” asked George.
The man in black stepped back in amazement.
“You speak Fattish?” he cried.
“I have had no one to speak to for many years,” replied George; “but my
father spoke as you do.”
“Let us pray,” said the man in black, kneeling down on the sands.
“Pray? What is that?”
“To God. Surely you are acquainted with the nature of God?”
The word occurred in _Tittiker_.
“I often wondered what it was,” said George.
“Ssh!” said the man in black soothingly. “See! I will tell you. God
made the world in six days and rested the seventh day....”
“It took me nearly six days to dig my father’s grave, and then I was
very tired.”
“Ssh! Ssh! Listen.... God made the world in six days, and last of all
he made man and set him to live in his nakedness and innocence by the
sweat of his brow. But man ate of the fruit of the tree of knowledge
and became acquainted with original sin in the form of a serpent,
and his descendants were born, lived and died in wickedness and were
reduced to so terrible a plight that God in His mercy sent His son to
point the way to salvation. God’s son was crucified by the Jews, was
wedded to the Church, and, leaving His bride to carry His name all over
the world and bring lost sheep home to the fold, ascended into Heaven.
But first He descended into Hell to show that the soul might be saved
even after damnation, and He rose again the third day. His Church,
after many vicissitudes, reached the faithful people of Fatland, which
for all it is a little island off the continent of Europe, has created
the greatest Empire the world has ever seen. The Fattish people have
been favoured with the only true Church, whose officers and appointed
ministers are deacons, priests, rural deans, prebendaries, canons,
archdeacons, deans, bishops, archbishops. I am a Bishop.”
“All that,” said George, “is in _Tittiker_.”
And he recited the names and salaries of six dioceses, but when he
came to the seventh the Bishop blushed and bade him forbear.
“That,” he said, “is my diocese.” And he swelled out and looked down
his nose and made George feel very uncomfortable, so that to bridge the
difficulty he went back to the Bishop’s story.
“I like that,” he said. “And Hell is such a good word. I never heard it
before.”
“Hell,” replied the Bishop, “is the place of damnation.”
“Ah! my father used to say ‘damnation.’”
“Ssh!”
“There is something about Jews in _Tittiker_, but what is original sin?”
The Bishop looked anxiously from left to right and from right to left
and in a very low, earnest voice he said:
“Are there no women on your island?”
III: ARABELLA
Even as the Bishop spoke there came round the point a creature than
whom George had not even dreamed of any more fair. But her garments
seemed to him absurd, because they clung about her nether limbs so as
to impede their action. She came with little steps toward them, crying:
“Father!”
“My child! Not dead!”
“No, dear father. I have been drying myself over there. I have been
weeping for you. I thought I was the only one saved.”
“So I thought of myself. What a wonderful young woman you are! You look
as if you were going district visiting, so neat you are.”
George was staring at her with all his eyes. Never had he heard more
lovely sounds than those that came from her lips.
“My daughter, Arabella,” said the Bishop.
She held out her hand. George touched it fearfully as though he dreaded
lest she should melt away.
“I like you,” he said.
“I’m so hungry,” cried Arabella.
“I could eat an ox,” declared the Bishop.
George produced a kind of bread that he made from seeds, and the leg
of a goat, and went off to the creek near by to fetch some clams. He
also caught a crab and they had a very hearty breakfast, washed down
with the milk of cocoanuts. The Bishop had explained the situation to
Arabella, and she said:
“And am I really the first woman you have ever seen!”
“I had a mother,” replied George simply, “But she was not beautiful
like you. She dressed differently and her legs were fat and strong.”
“There, there!” said the Bishop. But Arabella laughed merrily.
The Bishop told how they had been with nineteen other Bishops and
their families upon a cruise in the steam-yacht _Oyster_, each Bishop
engaging to preach on Sundays to the lay passengers, and how the
propeller had been broken and they had been carried out of their course
and tossed this way and that, and finally wrecked (he thought) with the
loss of all hands, though the wireless operator had stuck to his post
to the last and managed to get off the tidings of the calamity with
latitude and longitude into the air.
It all conveyed very little to George, but it was an acute pleasure to
him to hear their voices, and as they talked he looked from one to the
other with a happy, friendly smile.
He was very proud to show his island to his visitors, but distressed
at the havoc wrought by the storm, and he apologised for its unusual
behaviour in moving.
“It has never done it before,” he explained, and was rather hurt
because Arabella laughed.
He showed them where, as far as he could remember, his father and
mother lay buried, and he took them to the top of the hill, and to
amuse them caught a goat and a little kind of kangaroo there was in
the forest, and a turtle. He displayed his hammock in the palm tree and
showed how he curled up in it and wedged himself in so as not to fall
out, and promised to prepare two other trees for them. They demurred.
The Bishop asked if he might have the lair, and Arabella asked George
to build her a house. He did not know what a house was, but looked it
up in _Tittiker_ and could find mention only of the House of Swells and
the House of Talk. Arabella made a little house of sand; he caught the
idea and spent the day weaving her a cabin of palm branches and mud
and pebbles. He sang whole passages from _Tittiker_ as he worked, and
when it was finished he led Arabella to the cabin and she smiled so
dazzlingly that he reeled, but quickly recovered himself, remembered as
in a vision how it had been with his mother, flung his arms round her
neck and kissed her, saying:
“I love you.”
“I think we had better look for my father,” said Arabella.
IV: THE SKITISH NAVY
For three nights did the Bishop sleep in the lair and Arabella in
her cabin. A grey scrub grew on the Bishop’s chin, and during the
daytime he instructed George solemnly and heavily as he delivered
himself of his invariable confirmation address,--(on the second day
he baptised George in the creek, and Arabella was delighted to be his
god-mother)--with an eager pride as he told him of the Skitish Isles
where his diocese and the seat of the Empire lay. The United Kingdom,
he said, consisted of four countries, Fatland, Smugland, Bareland, and
Snales, but only Fatland mattered, because the Fattish absorbed the
best of the Smugs and the Barish and the Snelsh and found jobs for the
cleverest of them in Bondon or Buntown, which was the greatest city in
the world. He assured George that he might go down on his knees and
thank God--now that he was baptised--for having been born a Fattishman,
and that if they ever returned to Bondon he would receive a reward for
having added to the Skitish Empire.
George knew all about the Emperor-King and his family, and liked the
idea of giving his island as a present. He asked the Bishop if he
thought the Emperor-King would give him Arabella.
“That,” said the Bishop, “does not rest with the Emperor-King.”
“But I want her,” answered George.
Thereafter the Bishop was careful never to leave his daughter alone,
so that at last she protested and said she found Mr. Samways very
interesting and was perfectly able to take care of herself.
So she was, and next time George kissed her she gave him a motherly
caress in return and he was more than satisfied; he was in an ecstasy
of happiness and danced to please her and showed her all the little
tricks he had invented to while away the tedium of his solitude, as
lying on his back with a great stone on his feet and kicking it into
the air, and walking on his knees with his feet in his hands, and
thrusting his toe into his mouth. He was downcast when she asked him
not to repeat some of his tricks.
On the fourth day, for want of any other employment, the Bishop decided
to confirm George, who consented willingly when he learned that
Arabella had been confirmed. The ceremony impressed him greatly, and he
had just resolved never to have anything to do with Original Sin when
a terrifying boom broke in upon their solemnity. Some such noise had
preceded the detachment of the island, and George ran like a goat to
the top of the hill, whence, bearing down, he saw a dark grey vessel
belching smoke and casting up a great wave before and leaving a white
spume aft. Also on the side of the island away from his dwelling he saw
two sticks above water, and knew, from the Bishop’s description, that
it must be the steam-yacht _Oyster_. He hastened back with the news,
and presently the vessel hove in sight of the beach, and it conceived
and bare a little vessel which put out and came over the waves to the
shore. A handsome man all gold and blue stepped out of the little
vessel and planted a stick with a piece of cloth on it on the sands and
said:
“I claim this island for the Skitish Empire.”
“This island,” said the Bishop, “is the property of Mr. George Samways.”
“Damme,” roared the man in gold and blue, “it isn’t on the chart.”
“Mr. Samways was born here,” said Arabella with the most charming smile.
“Yes.” George saw the man glance approvingly at Arabella and was
anxious to assert himself. “Yes, I was born on the island, but it broke
loose in a storm.”
The officer roared again, the Bishop protested, the men in the boat
grinned, and at last Arabella took the affair in hand and explained
that her father was the Bishop of Bygn and that they had been in the
ill-fated _Oyster_.
The officer removed his hat and begged pardon. They had received
messages from the _Oyster_, but the bearings were wrongly reported.
Sighting land not marked on the chart, they had decided to turn in to
annex it, but, of course, if Mr. Samways were a Skitish subject that
would be unnecessary, and--hum, ha!--All’s well that ends well and it
was extremely fortunate.
Arabella said that Mr. Samways was not only a Skitish subject but a
member of the Church of Fatland, and would be only too pleased to
hand over his island to the Colonial or whatever office might desire
to govern it. Mr. Samways was, so far, the island’s whole permanent
population and would gladly give all particulars. For herself she was
only anxious to return to Fatland, and was excited at the prospect of
travelling on board one of the Emperor-King’s ships of war. Meanwhile
would Mr. ----
“Bich.”
--would Mr. Bich stay to luncheon?
Mr. Bich stayed to luncheon. In the afternoon he made a rough survey
of the island, sounded the surrounding waters, declared that movement
had ceased, and that so far as he could make out the island was fast
on a submarine reef, with which it had collided so violently that
a promontory had cracked and was even now sinking, and with it the
_Oyster_.
Careful examination of the shore on that side of the island revealed
no more than the bodies of two Lascars, two nailbrushes, a corded silk
hat, a Bible, a keg of rum and five tins of condensed milk. In that
awful shipwreck had perished nineteen Bishops and their families, a
hundred and ten members of the professional and trading classes, the
crew, the captain, mates, and a cat.
They stood there on that wild shore amid the solitude of sea and sky,
the Skitish officer, the Bishop, Arabella, and George Samways, and
their emotions were too deep for words.
V: CAPTAIN COURAGEOUS
The ship lay-to, and, while the Captain and Mr. Bich discussed the
island in the language of their trade, the Bishop, whenever possible,
preached a sermon, or discoursed on the beauties of nature; but
Arabella took George under her protection, had his hair cut and his
beard shaved, and with a smile bought of the youngest sub-lieutenant
a suit of his shore-going clothes, a set of shirts, collars, and all
necessary under-garments. George found them most uncomfortable, but
bore with them for her sake.
As the result of the eloquence of Mr. Bich the Captain went ashore
and returned to report that, the promontory now having sunk to the
depths of the ocean, a very decent harbour had been made and the island
would be valuable to the Empire as a coaling-station. His pockets were
bulging when he came aboard, and Arabella elicited from Mr. Bich that
the island was rich in precious stones and metals, and that the pebbles
of which her cabin had been built were emeralds and aquamarines such as
had never before been seen. Arabella told her father, and he bade her
say nothing, adding impressively:
“We must protect Mr. Samways’ interests.”
But George was thinking of nothing but the best means of obliterating
Mr. Bich, upon whom it seemed to him that Arabella was casting a too
favourable eye.
VI: HOSTILITIES
As the ship steamed away from the island the smoke of another vessel
was sighted. It was signalled, but no reply was hoisted. There was
great excitement on board and the chief gunner said:
“Let me have a go at them.”
The Captain stood upon the bridge, a figure of calm dignity with a
telescope to his eye. Mr. Bich explained to Arabella and George that
the ship was a Fatter ship, and that the Fatters had lately been taking
islands on the sly without saying anything to anybody, because they
were jealous of the Skitish Empire and wanted to have one too.
“Do islands make an Empire?” asked George.
“Anything you can get,” replied Mr. Bich.
The Fatter ship was making for the island. After her went the grey
vessel, and it was a nose-to-nose race who should first reach the
harbour. The Fatter ship won. The grey vessel fired a gun. The gig was
lowered and the Captain, looking very grim and determined, put off in
her.... Arabella dropped a pin and it was heard all over the vessel.
It was a relief to all on board when the Bishop knelt and offered up
a prayer for the Captain’s safety. The Amen that came at the end of
it brought the tears to George’s eyes, and his blood ran cold when it
swelled into a cheer as the Captain’s gig broke loose from the Fatter
ship and came tearing over the smooth waters.
The Captain’s face was very white as he stepped on deck and called Mr.
Bich and the other officers to his state-room, and whiter still were
the faces of Mr. Bich and the officers when they left it. The vessel
shook with the vibration of the engines: there was a strange and stormy
muttering among the men: the vessel headed for the open sea. George was
taken to his cabin and locked in. He lay down on the floor and tried
to go to sleep. A roaring and a rumbling and a banging and a thudding
made that impossible. The shaking made him feel so sick that he wished
to die. Near by he could hear Arabella weeping, and that was more
than he could bear. He thrust and bumped against his door and worked
himself into a sweat over it, but it seemed that it would not give. As
he reached the very pit of despair, the door gave, the floor gave, the
walls heaved in upon him; in one roaring convulsion he was flung up and
up and up, and presently came down and down and down into the sea. It
tasted salt and was cool to his sweating body and he was glad of it.
VII: SIEBENHAAR
He was not glad of it for long, because he soon became very cold and
was nipped to numbness. He assumed that it was the end, and felt a
remote regret for Arabella. Other thought he had none.
When he came to himself he was, or seemed to be, once more in the room
from which he had been so violently propelled, but there were two men
standing near him and talking in a strange tongue. Presently there came
a third man who spoke to him in Fattish.
“Hullo! Thought you were done in,” said the man.
George stared.
“Done in. Dead.”
“Yes, I was.”
The man laughed.
“Funny fellow you are. Eyes just like a baby.”
“Where is Arabella?” asked George. “Where am I?”
“Give you three guesses,” said the man.
“On a ship?”
“Right.”
“The Emperor-King’s ship?”
“No. The King-Emperor’s. You have the honour to be the first prisoner
in the great Fattero-Fattish war.”
“War? What is that?”
“War? You don’t know what war is? Have you never read a newspaper?”
“I have only read _Tittiker_. It tells about a War Office, but I never
knew what it was for.”
“My name’s Siebenhaar, engineer and philosophical student, and I fancy
you are the man I have been looking for all my life. You should be
capable of a pure idea....”
“What,” asked George, “is an idea?”
Siebenhaar flung his arms around him and embraced him and recited a
long poem in his own language.
“You shall be presented at the Universities!” he said. “You shall be a
living reproach to all writers, thinkers, artists, and I, Siebenhaar,
will be your humble attendant.”
“Did I say anything unusual?”
“Unusual? Unique! Colossal! The ultimate question! ‘What is war? What
is an idea?’ Ach?”
George insisted on an explanation of the meaning of war, and then he
asked why the Fattish and the Fatters should be intent upon mutual
destruction, and also what the difference between them might be.
“Difference?” said Siebenhaar. “The Fattish drink beer that you can
hold; the Fatters drink beer that runs through you. That is all there
is to it.”
With that he sent for some Fatter beer and drank a large quantity
himself and made George taste it. He spat it out.
“Is that why they are making war?”
Siebenhaar smacked his lips.
“Man,” he said, “is the creature of his internal organs, almost, I
might say, their slave. The lungs, the heart, the kidneys, the stomach,
the bladder, these control a man, and every day refashion him. If
they do their work well, so does he. If they do it ill, then so does
he. Each of the organs has secretions which periodically choke their
interaction, and bring about a state of ill-humour and discomfort in
which the difference between man and man is accentuated, and their good
relations degenerate into hatred and envy and distrust. At such times
murders are committed and horrible assaults, but frequently discretion
prevails over those desires, suppresses them but does not destroy them.
They accumulate and find expression in war, which has been led up to
by a series of actions on the part of men suffering from some internal
congestion. Modern war, they say, is made by money, and the lust for
it. That is no explanation. No man becomes a victim of the lust for
money except something interferes with his more natural lusts: no man,
I go so far as to say, could so desire money as to become a millionaire
except he were const----”
“But what has this to do with beer?” interrupted George.
“I’m coming to that,” continued Siebenhaar.
“Beer taken in excess is a great getter of secretions, and man is so
vain an animal as to despise those whose secretions differ from his
own. What is more obvious than that the implacable enemies of the
Eastern hemisphere should be those whose drink is so much the same
but so profoundly different in its effects? Internal congestion may
bring about war, but in this war the material is undoubtedly supplied
by beer. And I may add, in support of my theory, that once war is
embarked upon, those engaged in it suffer so terribly from internal
disorganisation as to become unanswerable for their actions, and so
mad as to rejoice in the near prospect of a violent death. Moltke was
notoriously decayed inside and the state of Napoleon’s internal organs
will not bear thinking on.”
George protested that he had never heard of Napoleon or Moltke, and
Siebenhaar was on the point of embracing him, when, muttering something
about Fatter beer, he rose abruptly and left the room.
VIII: MORE OF SIEBENHAAR
“There is a woman aboard,” said Siebenhaar when he returned. “I suppose
you have never seen a woman?”
“Two,” said George simply.
Siebenhaar slapped his leg.
“Have you any theory about them?” he asked.
“Theory? I don’t know what theory is. I loved them. I put my arms round
their necks and rubbed my face against their soft faces. It was very
nice. I should like to do it every night before I go to sleep. I should
like to do it now.”
“You shall,” said Siebenhaar, and he went out and came back with
Arabella.
George leaped from his berth and flung his arms round her neck and
embraced her, and she was so surprised and delighted that she kissed
him, and Siebenhaar wept to see it.
“I don’t know who you are, madam,” he said, “but if I were you I should
stick to that young man like a barnacle to a ship’s bottom. I would
creep into his heart and curl up in it like a grub in a ripe raspberry,
and I would go down on my knees and thank Heaven for having sent me
the one man in the modern world who may be capable of a genuine and
constant affection. You have him, madam, straight from his mother’s
arms, with a soul, a heart, as virgin as I hope your own are.”
Arabella disengaged herself from George’s now ardent embrace, drew
herself up, and with the haughtiness of her race, said:
“My father was a bishop of the Church of Fatland.”
“That,” said Siebenhaar, “does not exempt you from the normal internal
economy of your sex or its need of the (perfectly honest) love of the
opposite sex. My point is that you have here an unrivalled opportunity
of meeting an honest love, and I implore you to take it.”
“I would have you know,” retorted Arabella, “that I am engaged to my
late father’s chaplain.”
“War,” said Siebenhaar, “is war, and I should advise you to seek
protection where it is offered.”
“If you would hold my hand in yours,” said George to Arabella, “I think
I should sleep now. I am so tired.”
Arabella held George’s hand and in two minutes he was asleep.
IX: SIEBENHAAR ON WOMEN
“There are some,” said Siebenhaar, “who regard women as a disease, a
kind of fungoid distortion of the human form. But only the very lowest
species are hermaphrodite, and the higher seem to be split up into
male and female for the purpose of reproduction without temporary
loss of efficiency in the task of procuring food. The share of the
male in the act of reproduction is soon over, and among the wisest
inhabitants of the globe the male is destroyed as soon as his share is
performed. Human beings are not very wise: they have an exaggerated
idea of their importance; and they are reluctant to destroy the life of
their kind except in occasional outbursts of organised homicide such
as that on which we are now engaged. The share of the female entails
the devotion of many months, during which she needs the protection of
the male, whom, for that reason, and also because she hopes to repeat
the performance, she retains by every art at her disposal. Hence has
arisen the institution of marriage, which pledges the male to the
protection of the female and their offspring. Whether a moral principle
is engaged in this institution is a question upon which philosophers
cannot agree. It is therefore left out of most systems of philosophy.
Mine is based on my answer to it, which is that there is no moral
principle engaged. Morality is for the few who are capable of it. Few
men have the capacity for ideas, but all men love women, except a
few miserable degenerates, who prefer a substitute. There is no idea
in marriage. It is an expedient. Sensible communities admit of open
relief from it; in duller communities relief has to be sought in the
byways. And still no moral principle is engaged. It is a matter only
of supplying the necessities of human nature. Now, love is a different
affair altogether. Love is an idea, a direct inspiration. It alone
can transcend the tyranny of the internal organs and lead a man not
only to perceive his limitations but within them to create beauty, and
creative a man must be directly he becomes aware of the heat of love in
the heart of a woman. There is no other such purging fire, none that
can so illuminate the dark places of the world or so concentrate and
distil such lightness as there is. All evil, I have said, comes from
congestion; to release the good a purge is necessary, and there is no
purge like woman. Therefore, madam, I do most solemnly charge you to
tend the fire of love in your heart. Never again will you find a man so
sensible to its warmth--(most men can see no difference between love
and indigestion)--Oh, madam, discard all thoughts of marriage, which is
an expedient of prudence, which is cowardice, of modesty, which is a
lure, of innocence, which in an adult female is a lie, to the winds, do
exactly as you feel inclined to do, and love. Madam ----”
But by this Arabella was asleep. She had sunk back against George, her
lovely tresses lay upon his shoulder, and her hand clasped his.
Siebenhaar wiped away a tear, heaved a great sigh, took his beer-mug in
his hand and crept away on tip-toe.
X: LOVE
XI: MUSIC
On deck was a band playing dirge-like dragging hymns, for the Admiral
of that ship was a very pious man and believed that the Almighty was
personally directing the war against the enemies of Fatterland, and
would be encouraged to hear that ship’s company taking him seriously.
No sooner did Siebenhaar set foot on deck than he was arrested.
The Chaplain had listened to every word of his discourse and reported
it to the Admiral, who detested Siebenhaar because he was always
laughing and was very popular with the crew. Word for word the
Chaplain had quoted Siebenhaar’s sayings, so that he could deny nothing
but only protest that it was purely a private matter, a series of
opinions and advice given gratuitously to an interesting couple.
“Nothing,” roared the Admiral, “is given to the enemies of our country.”
“We are all human,” said Siebenhaar. “I was carried away by the
discovery of human feeling amid the callousness of this pompous war.”
The Admiral went pale. The Chaplain shuddered. The officers hid their
faces.
“He has spoken against God’s holy war,” said the Chaplain.
“That’s all my eye,” said Siebenhaar. “Why drag God into it? You are
making war simply because you have so many ships that you are ashamed
not to use them. The armament companies want to build more ships and
can invent no other way of getting rid of them.”
“God has given us ships of war,” said the Chaplain, “even as He has
given us the good grain and the fish of the sea. Who are we that we
should not use them?”
The sub-Chaplain had been sent to discover the effect of Siebenhaar’s
advice upon the enemies of Fatterland. The accused had just opened
his mouth to resume his defence when the sub-Chaplain returned and
whispered into the ear of his chief.
“God help us all!” cried the Chaplain. “They are desecrating His ship!”
There was a whispered consultation. George and Arabella were brought
before the court, and if George was the object of general execration,
Arabella won the admiration of all eyes, especially the Admiral’s, who
regarded his affections as his own particular, private and peculiar
devil and was now tempted by him. The Chaplain held forth at great
length; the Admiral grunted in apostrophe. Only Siebenhaar could
interpret. He said:
“They say we have blasphemed their God of War. I by giving advice, you
by acting on it. It is not good to be fortunate and favoured among
hundreds of mateless males. It will go hard with us.”
“And Arabella?” asked George.
“They will keep Arabella,” replied Siebenhaar.
They were silenced.
A boat was stocked with corned beef, biscuits, and water. George and
Siebenhaar were placed in it and it was lowered. The band resumed its
playing of dirge-like dragging hymns, and through the wailing of the
oboes and the cornet-à-piston George could hear the sobs of Arabella.
XII: ADRIFT
“Now,” said Siebenhaar, “you have an opportunity to exercise your
national prerogative and rule the waves.”
George made no reply. His internal organs were supplying him with an
illustration of Siebenhaar’s theory. The waves did just as they liked
with the boat, sent it spinning in one direction, wrenched it back in
another, slipped from under it, picked it up again and every now and
then playfully sent a drenching spray over its occupants.
Siebenhaar talked, sang and slept, and, when he was doing none of these
things, ate voraciously.
“I insist on dying with a full stomach,” he said when George protested.
George ate and slept and thought of Arabella, when he could think at
all.
“Death,” said Siebenhaar, “must be very surprising: but then, so is
life when you penetrate its disguises and discover its immutability.
We hate death only because it is impossible to pretend that it is
something else, so that it comes at the end of the comedy to give us
the lie. After this experience I think I shall change my philosophy
and seek the truth of life with the light of death. You never know: it
might become fashionable. Women like their thoughts ready-made, and
they like them bizarre. Women are undoubtedly superior to men....”
But by this time George was in such a state of discomfort that he lay
flat on his face in the bottom of the boat and groaned:
“I am going to die.”
“Eat,” said Siebenhaar, “eat and drink.” And he offered corned beef and
water.
“I want to die,” moaned George, and he wept because death would not
come at once. He hid his face in his hands and howled and roared.
Siebenhaar himself ate the corned beef and drank the water, and went on
eating and drinking until he had exhausted all their supply. Then he
curled up in the bows and went to sleep and snored.
And the waves changed their mood and gave the boat only a gentle
rocking.
George opened his eyes and gazed up into the sky. It was night and the
stars were shining brilliantly. Red and yellow and white they were and
they danced above him. He was astonished to find that he did not wish
to die. He was very hungry. He crawled over to Siebenhaar and shook him
and woke him up.
There was neither food nor water in the locker.
“In the great cities of the civilised world,” said Siebenhaar, “there
are occasional performers who go without food for forty days. We shall
see.”
“I am thirsty,” whimpered George.
“Those occasional performers,” returned Siebenhaar, “drink water and
smoke cigarettes, and they are sheltered from the elements by walls of
glass. We shall see.”
With that he turned over and went to sleep again.
XIII: HUNGER
George’s face was sunk and his eyes glared. Siebenhaar tried to spit
into the sea, but it was impossible. He was daunted into silence.
Another day began to dawn.
“If this goes on,” said George in a dry whistling croak of a voice, “I
shall eat you.”
And he glared so at Siebenhaar’s throat that the philosopher turned up
his coat collar to cover it.
XIV: MILITARY
At dawn a shower of rain came. They collected water in George’s boots.
They had already eaten Siebenhaar’s.
Thus revived, George stood up, and on the edge of the sea saw blue land
and little white sails. They came nearer and nearer, and presently they
were delivered by a little vessel that contained one white man and ten
negroes. Neither George nor Siebenhaar could speak, but they pointed to
their bellies and were given to eat.
“I recant,” said Siebenhaar. “There is nothing to be learnt from death,
for death is nothing. The stomach is lord of life and master of the
world.”
With that he recounted their adventures and the reason for their being
in such a woeful plight. The master of the ship, on learning that
Siebenhaar was a Fatter, said that he must deliver him up as a prisoner
when they reached Cecilia, the capital of the Fattish colony which they
would see as soon as the fleet--for it was a fishing fleet--turned into
the bay.
“As a Philosopher,” said Siebenhaar, “I have no nationality. As an
engineer--but I am no longer an engineer. The Admiral and the Chaplain
will have seen to that. My life is now devoted to Mr. Samways, as in
a certain narrower sense it has nearly been.” And he told the master
of the ship how George was by birth the proprietor of the island in
dispute between the two nations, and how the island shone with precious
stones and glittered with a mountain of gold. The master’s cupidity was
aroused, and he agreed to grant Siebenhaar his liberty on the promise
of a rich reward at the conclusion of the war. He was a Fattishman, and
could not believe that there would be any other end than a Fattish
triumph.
A pact was signed and they sailed into Cecilia, the governor of which
colony was Siebenhaar’s cousin and delighted to see him and to have a
chance of talking the Fatter language and indulging in philosophical
speculations for which his Fattish colleagues had no taste. He welcomed
George warmly on his first entry in a civilised land, and was delighted
to instruct him in the refinements of Fattish manners: how you did
not eat peas or gravy with your knife, and how (roughly speaking)
no portion of the body between the knees and shoulders might be
mentioned in polite society, and how sneezing and coughing and the like
sudden affections were to be checked or disguised. George talked of
Arabella and the wonderful stir of the emotions she had caused in him.
Colonel Sir Gerard Schweinfleisch (for that was his name) was greatly
shocked, and told how in the best Fattish society all talk of love was
forbidden, left by the men to the women, and how among men the emotions
were never discussed, and how, since it was impossible to avoid all
mention of that side of life, men in civilisation had invented a system
of droll stories which both provided amusement and put a stop to the
embarrassment of intimate revelations.
However, as George’s vigour was restored by the good food he ate in
enormous quantities, he could not forbear to think of Arabella or to
talk of her. He spoke quite simply of her to a company of officers, and
they roared with laughter and found it was the best story they had ever
heard.
When the officers were not telling droll stories, they were playing
cards or ball games or boasting one against the other or talking about
money.
George asked what money was, and they showed him some. He was
disappointed. He had expected something much more remarkable because
they had been so excited about it. They told him he must have money,
and Colonel Sir Gerard Schweinfleisch gave him a sovereign. A man in
the street asked George to lend him a sovereign and George gave it to
him. The officers were highly amused.
The adventurers had not been in Cecilia above a week when the town was
besieged and presently bombarded. Except that there was a shortage of
food and that every day at least thirty persons were killed, there was
no change in the life of the place. The officers told droll stories and
played cards or ball games or boasted one against the other or talked
about money. They ate, drank, slept, and quarrelled, and George found
them not so very much unlike himself except that he was serious about
his love for Arabella, while they laughed. He asked Siebenhaar what
civilisation was. Said the philosopher with a wave of his hand:
“They have built a lot of houses.”
“But the ships out there are knocking them down.”
“They have made railways from one town to another.”
“But the black men have torn the railways up.” (For the native tribes
had risen.)
Said Siebenhaar:
“No one can define civilisation. It means doing things.”
“Why?”
“Thou art the greatest of men,” replied Siebenhaar, and his face beamed
approbation and love upon his friend. But to put an unanswerable
question to Siebenhaar was to set him off on his theories.
“First,” he said, “the stomach must be fed. Two men working together
can procure more food than two men working separately. That is as far
as we have got. Until the two men trust each other we are not likely to
get any further. Until then they will steal each other’s tools, goods,
women, and squabble over the proceeds of their work and make the world
a hell for the young. When one man steals or murders it is a crime:
when forty million men steal, murder, rape, burn, destroy, pillage,
sack, oppress, they are making glorious history, a lot of money, and,
if they like to call it so, an Empire. But Empire and petty thefts
are both occasioned by the lamentable distrust of the two men of our
postulate.”
“But for Arabella,” said George, “I could wish I had never left my
island.”
News of the war came dribbling in. The island had been twice captured
by the Fatter fleet, and twice it had been evacuated. The Fatters had
suffered defeat in their home waters but had gained a victory in the
Indian seas. Came news that the island had again been captured, then
the tidings that the whole of the Fatter fleet and army was to be
concentrated upon Cecilia and the colony of which it was the capital.
“Why?” asked George.
“Because a new reef of gold has been discovered up-country.”
The bombardment grew very fierce. From the mountain above the town
ships of war could be seen coming from all directions, and some of them
were Fattish ships, but not enough as yet to come to grips with the
Fatter fleet.
The inland frontiers were attacked but held, though with frightful loss
of life. Then one night from the Fatter fleet came a landing party,
and Colonel Sir Gerard Schweinfleisch called a council of war, and the
officers sat from ten o’clock until three in the morning debating what
had best be done.
At half-past one the landing party were only a mile away. A shell
burst in the street as George was walking to his lodging and three men
were killed in front of him. It was the first time he had seen such a
thing. It froze his blood. He gave a yell that roused the whole town,
ran, was followed by a crowd of riff-raff seizing weapons as they went,
and rushed down upon the enemy, who had stopped for a moment to see
two dogs fighting in the road. They were taken by surprise and utterly
routed.
There is no more rousing episode in the whole military history of
Fatland. George was for three days the hero of the Empire. He received
by wireless telegraphy countless offers of marriage, ten proposals
from music-hall engagements, and by cable a demand for the story of
the fight from the noble proprietor of a Sunday newspaper. It was
impossible to persuade that noble proprietor that there was no extant
photograph of Mr. Samways, and a fortune was spent in cablegrams in the
fruitless attempts to do so.
XV: NAVAL
As it turned out the concentration on Cecilia was a fatal tactical
error, directly traceable to the King-Emperor, who had never left the
capital of Fatterland and had been misled by certain telegrams which
had been wrongly deciphered. The entire Fattish navy was collected
upon the bombarding fleet and utterly destroyed it.
George and Siebenhaar watched the engagement from the mountain above
Cecilia. It was almost humorous to see the huge vessels curtsey to the
water and so disappear. It was astonishing to see the Fattish admiral
surround nine of his own vessels and cause them also to curtsey and
disappear.
“What in hell,” said George, who had by now learned the nature of an
oath, “what in hell is he doing that for?”
“That,” said Siebenhaar, “is for the benefit of the armament
contractors. A war without loss of ships is no use to them.”