JULIEN
Earth has her usual delights--which can be met with six days out of the
seven. But here and there upon grey earth there exist, like the flying
of sunlight, celestial pleasures also--and one of these is the heaven of
success. When, puffed-up and glorious, the successful creature struts
like a peacock, gilded in a passing radiance. And in a radiance, in a
magic illumination, the newcomers danced in the drawing-room of the
Commandant Dormans, and tasted that which cannot be found when sought,
nor held when tasted.
Old tapestries of tropical foliage hung around the walls, dusk upon one
wall, dawn upon another. Trees climbed from floor to ceiling laden with
lime-coloured flowers, with birds instead of fruits upon the branches.
When at a touch the yellow dust flew out under the lamplight it seemed
to the mazy eye of the dancer that the trees sent up a mist of
pollen and song.
In this happy summer, Fanny, turning her vain ear to spoken flattery,
her vain eye to mute, danced like a golden gnat in fine weather.
The Commandant Dormans spoke to her. If he was not young he had a quick
voice that was not old. He said: "We welcome you. We have been waiting
for you. We are glad you have come."
Faces surrounded her which to her fresh eyes were not easy to read.
Names which she had heard last night became young and old men to her
--skins red and pale and dark-white--eyes blue and olive and black--gay,
audacious and mocking features. She was dazzled, she did not hurry to
understand. One could not choose, one floated free of preference, all
men were strangers.
"One day I shall know what they are, how they live, how they think." But
she did not want that day to come.
The Commandant Dormans said: "You do not regret Bar-le-Duc?"
"No, no, no."
"I hear you are all voracious for work. I hear that if you do not drive
from morning to night we cannot hope to keep you with us!"
Denis said to her: "Be careful of him! He believes there is no end to
the human strength."
She replied joyously: "There is no end to our strength!"
When she had eyes to see, to watch, to choose, she found that there was
in the room a man who was graceful and young, whose eyes were a peculiar
shape, who laughed all the time gently as he danced. He never looked at
her, never came near her. This young man was indifferent to her, he was
indifferent to her ... Soon he became a trouble and a pleasure to her.
With whom was he dancing now ... and now? Who was it that amused him?
His eyes and his hair were bright ... but there were many around her
whose eyes and hair were as bright. Before she had seen that young man
laugh her pleasure had been more complete.
While she was talking to Denis a voice said to her: "Won't you dance
with me?"
Looking up she saw who it was. His mouth smiled, his eyes were clever
and gay.
The moment she danced with him she began to grow proud, she began to
find herself. Someone whispered to her: "The section must leave at such
and such an hour...."
She thought in a flash: "For me the section is dissolved ... I am I, and
the others are the others!"
The evening wore on. The musicians flagged and took up their courage
again. It was late when Stewart, touching Fanny's arm, showed her that
they were almost the only two women in the room.
"Where are the others?"
"In the hall, putting on their coats. We are all going."
"Aren't they in a hurry?"
"They have had orders, which were brought up just now, for runs early
to-morrow morning. But you and I have nothing, and Denis has asked
us ... if you are quick you can slip away ... to have supper with him
at Moitriers."
"Well?"
"We can. The others go home in two cars which have been sent for us. No
one will know that we are not in the other car. I'm so hungry."
"So am I, starving. Very well."
They joined the others, put on their coats, hunted ostentatiously for
their gloves, then slipped ahead down the dark stairway into the square
below. Denis joined them.
"Splendid. I have my car round that corner. It will be only a matter of
half an hour, but if you are both as hungry as I you will welcome it.
Everything was finished upstairs, every crumb and cake. We must get a
fourth. Who shall I get?"
"Any one whom you would like to bring," said Stewart. "I don't think I
have mastered the names yet. I really don't mind."
"And you, mademoiselle?"
"Nor I either," said Fanny, sniffing at the frosty air, at the fresh
night.
"Whom you like!"
"Then I won't be a moment. I'll bring whom I can."
"Monsieur!"... as he reached the corner. He turned back.
"There is an artillery captain ... in a black uniform with silver."
"An artillery captain ..." he paused enquiringly.
"In black and silver. There was no other in the room."
"Oh, yes, there were two in black and silver!"
"Tall, with ..."
"Ah, tall! The other is very short ... The tall one is the Commandant's
aide, Captain Chatêl. He may not be able.... But I will see!" He
disappeared again.
When he returned he had the young man beside him.
"One moment," said Châtel, as they walked towards the car; "who asked
for me, the girl with the fair hair, or with the dark?"
"With the fair."
Moitriers was closed when they reached it, and they drove on to the only
other place where food could be bought past the hour of midnight--the
station buffet.
Pushing past the barriers at the entrance to the station they entered a
long corridor filled with heavy civilian life. Men and women lay, slept
and snored upon the stone ledges which lined the side of the tunnel,
their bags and packets stacked around them. Small children lay asleep
like cut corn, heads hanging and nodding in all directions, or propped
against each other in such an intricate combination that if one should
move the whole sheaf of tired heads slipped lower to the floor.
Further on, swing doors of glass led to a waiting-room, and here the
sleeping men and women were so packed upon the ground and around the
little tables that it was difficult to walk between them. Men sat in
groups of nine or ten around a table meant for four each with his head
sunk down between his hands upon the marble surface. On one table a
small child wrapped in shawls lay among the circle of heads, curled like
a snail, its toe in its father's ear. At each end of the room stood
soldiers with fixed bayonets.
Denis paused at the entrance. "Walk round here," he said, "there is a
gangway for the sentry."
"If we talk too loud," said Fanny, "we shall wake them."
"They must soon wake in any case. It must be near the time for the
train. You know who they are?"
"Who?"
"Germans. Expelled from Metz. They leave in batches for Germany every
night--by a train that comes in and goes out at some horrible hour."
Passing through more glass doors they came to an inner room where,
behind a buffet, a lady in black silk served them with beer and slices
of raw ham and bread.
The four sat down for a moment at a little table--Denis talking of the
system by which the outgoing Germans were nightly weeded from those who
had permission to remain behind in Metz. Julien Châtel joined in the
conversation. He spoke with the others but he glanced at Fanny. For the
briefest of seconds he thought as he looked at her face that he saw a
new interest smile upon it. He did not know that his own face wore the
same look. His look said as he looked at her: "You, you, you!" At one
moment she thought: "Am I pretty?" At the next she was content only to
breathe, and thought no more of herself. She took in now his eyes which
seldom rested on her, now a movement of his lips which made her feel
both happy and miserable, and suddenly she learnt how often his finger
traced some letter upon his cheek.
These things were important. They were like the opening sentences of a
great play to which one must listen, absorbed, for fear of
misunderstanding all the story.
It was not long before they rose, threaded their way back between the
sleeping Germans, regained the car, and drove down the silent streets
towards the Cathedral.
"Have you seen it?" said Julien in a low voice, addressing her directly.
"The Cathedral?"
"Yes. I want to show it to you. Will you meet me there to-morrow at
three?"
(The others talked and smiled and knew nothing. Whoever has a secret is
stronger than they who know nothing. Fanny thought: "My companions, to
be as you are is not to exist! Whatever you feel, you are feeling
nothing ...")
"Will you?"
"Yes," she answered, and joined her hands tightly, for this was where
the play really began.
* * * * *
The sun shone gaily. Here was no mud, no unhappiness, here were no
puzzled women, and touching mayors of ruined villages, but instead gay
goblin houses, pointed churches like sugar cake, the old French theatre
with its stone garlands glittering in the sun; sun everywhere, streaming
over the Place du Théâtre, over women shaking coloured rags from the
windows, women washing linen by the river; everything that had been wet
was drying, everything that had savoured of tears and age and sadness
was burning up under the sun, and what moisture remained was brighter
than jewels.
"Suppose he never came!"
"Why, then, be ready for that. Very likely he wouldn't come. Very likely
he would think in daylight--' She is not a woman, but an English
Amazon...'" Fanny glanced down at her clothes regretfully. She was
ill-equipped for an assignation.
"At least I might have better gloves," she thought, and walked into a
small shop which advertised men's clothes in German across the window.
She bought yellow washing-leather gloves at twenty-eight francs a pair,
and would have paid a hundred had the salesman insisted.
And now with yellow gloves, silk stockings, shining shoes and a heart
as light as a leaf upon a wind she walked towards the Cathedral.
"He won't come. He won't be there...." She pushed at the east door.
He was under a Madonna, his black and silver hat in his hand, his eyes
critical and pleased as he walked to meet her. They sat down together
on a seat, without speaking. Then, each longing for the other to speak
--"You have come...." he said first. (His face was oval and his hair
was shining.)
"Yes," she nodded, and noticed a peculiar glory in the Cathedral. The
dark cave shone as white flesh and youth can shine through the veils of
a mourner.
They no longer lived their own separate lives; they had come together at
each other's call.
"I thought you wouldn't come."
"Why, why did you think that?"
Little questions and little answers fell in a sudden rain from their
lips. Yet while Fanny spoke he did not seem to know what she said, and
answered at random, or sometimes he did not answer at all, but smiled.
Afraid of the fragile avowal of silence, evading it, she found little
words to follow one another. But he answered less and less, and smiled
at her, till his face was full of this smile. So then she said: "We'll
go out and walk by the river," and he rose at once and followed her
among the forest of wooden chairs. They forgot that he was to have shown
her the Cathedral. In all its length she never saw one statue except
the first Madonna, not one stone face but his young face with the cold
light upon it, his hands as white as stones, as long and fine as any of
the carved fingers which prayed around them.
They walked together down the winding path below the bridge to the very
edge of the Moselle, which lay in light winter sunlight, its banks
buried in shrubberies of green.
Mont St. Quentin, conical, covered with waving trees, shone like a hill
in summer, and beyond it the indigo forest of every Lorraine horizon
floated indefinitely like a cloud.
A young doctor lounged beside them, putty-coloured under his red plush
cap. "Why are all doctors plain in France?" she laughed.
"Hush!" He wound his hand round and round like the player of a barrel
-organ. "I have to stop you when you say silly things like a phonograph,
at so much a metre."
So he believed he might tease her.... Delighted, she stopped by the bank
of the river and stared into the water. The sun ran over her shoulders
and warmed her hands. The still shine of the river held both their eyes
as movement in a train holds the mind.
"I am enjoying my walk," he said. He did not mean it like that, or as a
compliment to her. When it was said he thought it sounded banal, and was
sorry. "What a pity!"
But she was not critical because she was looking for living happiness,
and every moment she was more and more convinced that she would get it.
But when he asked her her name and she repeated it, it sounded so much
like an avowal that they both turned together down the tow-path with a
quick movement and spoke of other things, for they were old enough to be
afraid that the vague happiness that fluttered before them down the path
would not be so beautiful when it was caught. And at this fear she said
distinctly to herself: "In love!" and wondered that she had not said
it before.
Coming back to him with her words, she then began to wound and to delay
him. "You mustn't be late for your office...."
"When shall I see you again?"
They dropped into a long silence. She summoned her coquetry that she
called pride. The blue, blue forest at the edge of her sight tilted a
little like a ship, the watery hill-country rolled towards it in
mysterious kilometres.
"It is beautiful," she said clumsily, avoiding his question, ignoring
it. "Yet when I go there it is always more beautiful on the next hill.'
"I must hurry," he said at once, "I shall be late at my office."
"Where is your office?"
He looked round vaguely. "There in that group of pines." They walked
towards it, they were almost at the door, but he would not repeat his
question. Would he not at the last moment? No. Had it not then been
clear that the living happiness was at her lips? No. Could he let her
go, could it have been a failure? He was holding out one of the stone
hands. He was going.
She looked up and the sun was streaming in his eyes, blinding him, and
without seeing her he stared into the darkness that was her face. "I
have so enjoyed my walk," he said. "Thank you for coming."
All her face said "Oh!" in a hurt, frightened stare, but the sun only
came round the edges of her hair and cap and left the panic in a
shifting darkness. He was gone.
She went back to her street. Reaching the big, populous house she
followed the corridor that led from the stone courtyard, climbed to the
first floor and opened the door of her own room. A bitter disillusion
ran through her. The close-packed furniture seemed to say indifferently,
"There's not much room for you!" and she knew quite well as she sat down
on the bed that it was not her room at all, but had been as public to
the birds of passage as the branch of a tree to the birds of the air.
"I did so little. I did so little. It was such a little mistake!"
Self-pity flooded her.
"And why did he ask me to come to the Cathedral if such a little thing,
such a little thing...." Indignation rose.
"Things don't crumble like that, don't vanish like that!" She stared,
astonished, at the scenes she had left behind her, the shining of the
dark Cathedral, the ripple on the Moselle. "But they do, they do,
they do...."
Down in the street her own name caught her ear, and she went to the
window.
"Are you there, are you there?" cried the voice.
Hanging waist-deep out of the window she received her orders for the
next day.
"I came down to tell you now," said the girl below on the pavement. "I
thought you might have things to do to the car. You must be at the Hôtel
Royal, near the station, at half-past six to-morrow morning."
"Have you any idea whom I'm to take? Or where?"
"I don't know where, but the man is a Russian colonel."
She drew her head back through the window, and the gay tumble of the
street gave way to the impersonal, heavy room. Cramming her oil-stained
overall into her haversack, she put on her leather coat and went up to
the garage.
The sun had disappeared. A cold wind struck the silk-clad ankles.