"Oui, Margot." Mademoiselle was standing, with her hand on her heart.
Randolph's eyes devoured her. He had taken no part in the conversation.
It was almost uncanny to see him sitting there, silent, arms folded,
shoulders hunched, sparkling eyes missing nothing. "It is true,"
mademoiselle told us earnestly, "that the tra-dee-tion says he will come
back--when France needs him--the soldiers talk of it."
"In almost every country," I said, "there is a story like that, of
heroes who will come again."
"But Napoleon, monsieur--surely he would not fail France?"
The thing that followed was inevitable. Randolph and Mademoiselle Julie
fell in love with each other. He drew her as he had drawn us at school.
She was not a Madge Ballou, mundane and mercenary; she was rather a
Heloise, a Nicolette, a Jeanne d'Arc, self-sacrificing, impassioned. She
met Randolph on equal ground. They soared together--mixed love of
country with love of lovers. They rose at dawn to worship the sun, they
walked forth at twilight to adore together the crescent moon.
And all the while war was at the gates; we could hear the boom of big
guns. The spring drive was on and the Germans were coming back.
I shall never forget the night that Randolph and I were ordered to the
front. Mademoiselle had come in with her hands full of violets.
Randolph, meeting her for the first time after a busy day, took her
hands and the frail blossoms in his eager clasp. He was an almost
perfect lover--Aucassin if you will--Abelard at his best.
"Violets," he said. "May I have three?"
"Why three, monsieur?"
"For love, mademoiselle, and truth and constancy."
He took his prayer-book from his pocket, and she gave him the violets.
He touched them to her lips, then crushed them to his own. I saw
it--sitting back in the shadows. I should never have thought of kissing
a girl like that. But it was rather wonderful.
He shut the violets in the little book.
They sat very late that night by the fire. I went in and out, not
disturbing them. I saw him kneel at her feet as he left her, and she
bent forward and kissed his forehead.
He talked of her a great deal after that. More than I would have talked
of love, but his need of an audience drove him to confidences. He felt
that he must make himself worthy of her--to go back to her as anything
less than a hero might seem to belittle her. I am not sure that he was
braver than other men, but his feeling for effect gave him a sort of
reckless courage. Applause was a part of the game--he could not do
without it.
And so came that night when a small band of us were cut off from the
rest. We were intrenched behind a small eminence which hid us from our
enemies, with little hope of long escaping their observation. It had
been wet and cold, and there had been no hot food for days. We, French
and Americans, had fought long and hard; we were in no state to stand
suspense, yet there was nothing to do but wait for a move on the other
side, a move which could end in only one way--bayonets and bare hands,
and I, for one, hated it.
I think the others hated it, too, all but Randolph. The rain had stopped
and the moon flooded the world. He turned his face up to it and dreamed.
The knowledge came to us before midnight that the Huns had found us. It
became only a matter of moments before they would be upon us, the thing
would happen which we hated--bayonets and bare hands, with the chances
in favor of the enemy!
Somewhere among our men rose a whimper of fear, and then another. You
see, they were cold and hungry and some of them were wounded, and they
were cut off from hope. It wasn't cowardice. I call no man a coward.
They had faced death a thousand times, some of them. Yet there was
danger in their fears.
Randolph was next to me. "My God, MacDonald," he said, "they've lost
their nerve--"
There wasn't a second to spare. I saw him doing something to his hat.
As I have said, there was a moon. It lighted that battle-scarred world
with a sort of wild beauty, and suddenly in a clear space above us on
the little hill a figure showed, motionless against the still white
night--a figure small yet commanding, three-cornered hat pulled low--oh,
you have seen it in pictures a thousand times--Napoleon of Marengo, of
Austerlitz, of Jena, of Friedland--but over and above everything,
Napoleon of France!
Of course the Germans shot him. But when they came over the top they
were met by Frenchmen who had seen a ghost. "C'est l'Empereur! C'est
l'Empereur!" they had gasped. "He returns to lead us."
They fought like devils, and--well, the rest of us fought, too, and all
the time, throughout the bloody business, I had before me that vision of
Randolph alone in the moonlight. Or was it Randolph? Who knows? Do great
souls find time for such small business? And was it small?
His medals were, of course, sent to the colonel. But the violets in the
little book went back to mademoiselle. And the old hat, crushed into
three-cornered shape, went back. And I told her what he had done.
She wrote to me in her stiff English:
"I have loved a great man. For me, monsieur, it is enough. Their souls
unite in victory!"