by this kind of anonymous warfare from the traditional valour in war, as
conceived by the civilian. And the clamour of this morning reminds me,
in the midst of my calm, that young men, without any personal motive of
hate, can and must fling themselves upon those who are waiting to kill
them.
But the sun rises over my country. It lightens the valley, and from my
height I can see two villages, two ruins, one of which I saw ablaze for
three nights. Near to me, two crosses made of white wood. . . . French
blood flows in 1914. . . .
_November 20._
From the window near which I write I see the rising sun. It shines upon
the hoar-frost, and gradually I discover the beautiful country which is
undergoing such horrors. It appears that there were many victims in the
bayonet charge which I heard yesterday. Among others, we are without
tidings of two sections of the regiment which formed part of our
brigade. While these others were working out their destiny, I was on the
crest of the most beautiful hill (I was very much exposed also at other
times). I saw the daybreak; I was full of emotion in beholding the peace
of Nature, and I realised the contrast between the pettiness of human
violence and the majesty of the surroundings.
That time of pain for you, from September 9th to October 13th,
corresponds exactly with my first phase of war. On September 9th I
arrived, and detrained almost within reach of the terrible battle of the
Marne, which was in progress 35 kilometres away. On the 12th I rejoined
the 106th, and thenceforward led the life of a combatant. On October
13th, as I told you, we left the lovely woods, where the enemy artillery
and infantry had done a lot of mischief among us, especially on the 3rd.
Our little community lost on that day a heart of gold, a wonderful boy,
grown too good to live. On the 4th, an excellent comrade, an
architectural student, was wounded fairly severely in the arm, but the
news which he has since sent of himself is good. Then until the 13th,
terrible day, we lived through some hard times, especially as the
danger, real enough, was exaggerated by the feeling of suffocation and
of the unknown which hemmed us round in those woods, so fine at any
other time.
The important thing is to bear in mind the significance of every moment.
The problem is of perpetual urgency. On one side the providential
blessing, up till the present, of complete immunity. On the other, the
hazards of the future. That is how our wish to do good should be applied
to the present moment. There is no satisfaction to be had in questioning
the future, but I believe that every effort made now will avail us then.
It is a heroic struggle to sustain, but let us count not only on
ourselves but on another force so much more powerful than our human
means.
_November 21._
To-day we lead a _bourgeoise_ life, almost too comfortable. The cold
keeps us with the extraordinary woman who lodges us whenever we visit
the village where we are billeted three days out of nine.
I will not tell you about the pretty view from the window where I write,
but I will speak of the interior which shelters many of our days. By day
we live in two rooms divided by a glass partition, and, looking through
from one room to another, we can admire either the fine fire in the
great chimney-place or the magnificent wardrobe and the Meuse beds made
of fine old brass. All the delicate life of these two old women (the
mother, 87 years old, and the daughter) is completely disorganised by
the roughness, the rudeness, the kind hearts and the generosity of the
soldiers. These women accept all that comes and are most devoted.
As for Spinoza, whose spirit you already possess, I think that you can
go straight to the last theorems. You will be sure to have intuitive
understanding of what he says about the soul's repose. Yes, those are
moments experienced by us too rarely in our weakness, but they suffice
to let us discover in ourselves, through the blows and buffetings of our
poor human nature, a certain tendency towards what is permanent and
what is final; and we realise the splendid inheritance of divinity to
which we are the heirs.
* * * * *
Dear mother, what a happy day I have just spent with you.
There were three of us: we two and the pretty landscape from my window.
Seen from here, winter gives a woolly and muffled air to things. Two
clouds, or rather mists, wrap the near hillside without taking any
delicacy from the drawing of the shrubs on the crest; the sky is light
green. All is filtered. Everything sleeps. This is the time for
night-attacks, the cries of the charge, the watch in the trenches. Let
our prayers of every moment ask for the end of this state of things. Let
us wish for rest for all, a great amends, recompense for all grief and
pain and separation.
YOUR SON.
_Sunday, November 22, 9.30._
I write to you this morning from my favourite place, without anything
having happened since last night that is worth recording--save perhaps
the thousand flitting nothings in the landscape. I got up with the sun,
which now floods all the space with silver. The cold is still keen, but
by piling on our woollen things we get the better of it on these nights
in billets. There is only this to say: that to-morrow we go to our
trenches in the second line, in the woods that are now thin and
monotonous. Of our three stations, that is the one I perhaps like the
least, because the sky is exiled behind high branches. It is more a
landscape for R----, but flat, and spoilt by the kind of existence that
one leads there.
Hostilities seem to be recommencing in our region with a certain amount
of energy. This morning we can hear a violent fusillade, a thing very
rare in this kind of war, in which attacks are generally made at night,
the day being practically reserved for artillery bombardments.
Dear mother, let us put our hope in the strength of soul which will make
petition each hour, each minute. . . .
* * * * *
. . . Yes, it gives me pleasure to tell you about my life; it is a fine
life in so many ways. Often, at night, as I walk along the road where
my little duty takes me, I am full of happiness to be able thus to
communicate with the greatness of Nature, with the sky and its
harmonious pattern of stars, with the large and gracious curves of these
hills; and though the danger is always present, I think that not only
your courage, your consciousness of the eternal, but also your love for
me will make you approve of my not stopping perpetually to puzzle over
the enigma.
So my present life brings extreme degrees of feeling, which cannot be
measured by time. Feeling produced, for instance, by beautiful leafage,
the dawn, a delicate landscape, a touching moon. These are all things in
which qualities at once fleeting and permanent isolate the human heart
from all preoccupations which lead us in these times either to
despairing anxiety, or to abject materialism, or again to a cheap
optimism, which I wish to replace by the high hope that is common to us
all, and which does not rely on human events.
All my tenderness and constant love for grandmother; for you, courage,
calm, perfect resignation without effort.
_November 23._
DEAR MOTHER,--Here we are arrived in our shelters in the second line. We
lodge in earth huts, where the fire smokes us out as much as it warms
us. The weather, which during the night was overcast, has given us a
charming blue and rosy morning. Unfortunately the woods have less to say
to me than the marvellous spaces of our front lines. Still, all is
beautiful here.
Yesterday my day was made up of the happiness of writing to you; I went
into the village church without being urged by a single romantic feeling
nor any desire for comfort from without. My conception of divine harmony
did not need to be supported by any outward form, or popular symbol.
Then I had the great good fortune to go with a carriage into the
surrounding country. Oh, the marvellous landscape--still of blue and
rosy colour, paled by the mist! All this rich and luminous delicacy
found definite accents in the abrupt spots made by people scattered
about the open. My landscape, always primitive in its precision, now
took on a subtlety of nuances, a richness of variety essentially modern.
One moment I recalled the peculiar outer suburbs of Paris with their
innumerable notes and their suppressed effects. But here there is more
frankness and candour. Here everything was simply rose and blue against
a pale grey ground.
My driver, getting into difficulty with his horse, entrusted the whip to
me to touch up the animal: I must have looked like a little mechanical
toy.
We passed by the Calvaries which keep guard over the Meuse villages, a
few trees gathered round the cross.
_November 24, 3.30_
(back from the march).
I have just received a letter of the 16th and a card, and a dear letter
of the 18th. These two last tell me of the arrival of my packet. How
glad I am to hear that! For a moment I asked myself whether I was right
to send you these impressions, but, between us two, life has never been
and can never be anything but a perpetual investigation in the region
of eternal truths, fervent attention to the truth each earthly spectacle
presents. And so I do not regret sending you those little notes.
My worst sufferings were during the rainy days of September. Those days
are a bitter memory to every one. We slept interlocked, face against
face, hands crossed, in a deluge of water and mud. It would be
impossible to imagine our despair.
To crown all, after these frightful hours, they told us that the enemy
was training his machine-guns upon us, and that we must attack him.
However, we were relieved; the explosion was violent.
As for my still unwritten verse, '_Soleil si pale_,' etc., it relates to
the 11th, 12th, and 13th of October, and, generally, to the time of the
battle in the woods, which lasted for our regiment from September 22nd
to October 13th. What struck me so much was to see the sun rise upon the
victims.
Since then I have written nothing, but for a prayer which I sent you
five or six days ago. I composed it while I was on duty on the road.
_November 25, in the morning._
. . . Yesterday, in the course of that march, I lived in a picture by my
beloved primitives. Coming out of the wood, as we went down a long road,
we had close by us a large farm-house, plumed by a group of bare trees
beside a frozen pool.
Then, in the under-perspective so cleverly used by my dear painters with
their air of simplicity, a road, unwinding itself, with its slopes and
hills, bound in by shrubs, and some solitary trees: all this precise,
fine, etched, and yet softened. A little bridge spanning a stream, a man
on horseback passing close to the little bridge, carefully silhouetted,
and then a little carriage: delicate balance of values, discreet, yet
well maintained--all this in front of a horizon of noble woods. A kind
of grey weather which has replaced the enchantment, so modern in
feeling, of the nuances of last Sunday, takes me back to that incisive
consciousness which moves us as a Breughel and the other masters, whose
names escape me. Like this, too, the clear and orderly thronging in
Albert Dürer backgrounds.
_November 26._
DEAREST MOTHER,--I didn't succeed in finishing this letter yesterday. We
were very busy. And now to-day it is still dark. From my dug-out, where
I have just arrived in the front line, I send you my great love; I am
very happy. I feel that the work I am to do in future is taking shape in
myself. What does it matter if Providence does not allow me to bring it
to light? I have firm hope, and above all I have confidence in eternal
justice, however it may surprise our human ideas. . . .
_November 28._
The position we occupy is 45 metres away from the enemy. The roads of
approach are curious and even picturesque in their harshness, emphasised
by the greyness of the weather.
Our troops, having dodged by night the enemy's vigilance, and come up
from the valley to the mid-heights where the rising ground protects them
from the infantry fire, find shelters hollowed from the side of the
hill, burrows where those who are not on guard can have some sleep and
the warmth of an Improvised hearth. Then, farther on, just where the
landscape becomes magnificent in freedom, expanse, and light, the
winding furrow, called the communication trench, begins. Concealed thus,
we arrive in the trench, and it is truly a spectacle of war, severe and
not without grandeur--this long passage which has a grey sky for
ceiling, and in which the floor is covered over with recent snow. Here
the last infantry units are stationed--units, generally, of feeble
effective. The enemy is not more than a hundred metres away. From there
continues the communication trench, more and more deep and winding, in
which I feel anew the emotion I always get from contact with newly
turned earth. The excavating for the banking-up works stirs something in
me: it is as if the energy of this disembowelled earth took hold of me
and told me the history of life.
Two or three sappers are at work lengthening the hollows, watched by the
Germans who, from point to point, can snipe the insufficiently protected
places. At this end the last sentry guards about forty metres.
You can picture the contrast between all this military organisation and
the peace that used to reign here. Think what an astonishment it is to
me to remember that where I now look the labourer once walked behind his
plough, and that the sun, whose glory I contemplate as a prisoner
contemplates liberty, shone upon him freely on these heights.
Then, too, when at dusk I come out into the open, what an ecstasy! I
won't speak to you of this, for I feel I must be silent about these
joys. They must not be exposed: they are birds that love silence. . . .
Let us confine our speech to that essential happiness which is not
easily affrighted--the happiness of feeling ourselves prepared equally
for all.
_November 29, in the morning_
(from a billet).
MY VERY DEAR MOTHER,--Yesterday evening I left the first line trenches
in broken weather which, in the night, after my arrival here, turned
into rain. I watch it falling through the fog from my favourite window.
If you like I will tell you of the wonders I saw yesterday.
From the position described in my letter of yesterday, can be seen, as
I have often written to you, the most marvellous horizon. Yesterday a
terrible wind rent a low veil of clouds which grew red at their summits.
Perhaps the background of my 'Haheyna' will give you a faint idea of
what it was. But how much more majestic and full of animation was the
emotion I experienced yesterday.
The hills and valleys passed in turn from light to shade, now defined,
now veiled, according to the movement of the mists. High up, blue spaces
fringed with light.
Such was the beauty of yesterday. Shall I speak of the evenings that
went before, when, on my way along the road, the moon brought out the
pattern of the trees, the pathetic Calvaries, the touching spectacle of
houses which one knew were ruins, but which night seemed to make stand
forth again like an appeal for peace.
I am glad to see you like Verlaine. Read the fine preface by Coppée to
the selected works, which you will find in my library.
His fervour has a spontaneity, I might almost say a grossness, which
always repels me a little, just because it belongs to that kind of
Catholic fervour which on its figurative side will always leave me cold.
But what a poet!
He has been my almost daily delight both here and when I was in Paris;
often the music of his _Paysages Tristes_ comes back to me, exactly
expressing the emotion of certain hours. His life is as touching as that
of a sick animal, and one almost wonders that a like indignity has not
withered the exquisite flowers of his poetry. His conversion, that of an
artist rather than of a thinker, followed on a great upsetting of his
existence which resulted from grave faults of his. (He was in prison.)
In the _Lys Rouge_ Anatole France has drawn a striking portrait of him,
under the name of Choulette; perhaps you will find we have this book.
In _Sagesse_ the poems are fine and striking because of the true impulse
and sincerity of the remorse. A little as though the cry of the _Nuit de
Mai_ resounded all through his work.
Our two great poets of the last century, Musset and Verlaine, were two
unhappy beings without any moral principle with which to stake up their
flowers of thought--yet what magnificent and intoxicating flowers.
Perhaps I tire you when I speak thus on random subjects, but to do so
enables me to plunge back into my old life for a little while. Since I
had the happiness of getting your letters, I have not taken note of
anything. Do not think that distractions by the way make me forgetful of
our need and hope, but I believe it is just the beautiful adornment of
life which gives it, for you and me, its value.
I am still expecting letters from you after that of the 22nd, but I am
sure to get them here in this billet. Thank you for the parcel you
promise: poor mothers, what pains they all take!
_December 1, in the morning_
(from a billet).
I remember the satisfaction I felt in my freedom when I was exempted
from my military duties. It seemed to me that if, at twenty-seven years
old, I had been obliged to return to the regiment, my life and career
would have been irretrievably lost. And here I am now, twenty-eight
years old, back in the army, far from my work, my responsibilities, my
ambitions--and yet never has life brought me such a full measure of
finer feelings; never have I been able to record such freshness of
sensibility, such security of conscience. So those are the blessings
arising out of the thing which my reasonable human foresight envisaged
as disaster. And thus continues the lesson of Providence which,
upsetting all my fears, makes good arise out of every change of
situation.
The two last sunrises, yesterday and to-day, were lovely. . . .
I feel inclined to make you a little sketch of the view from my
window. . . .
* * * * *
It is done from memory; in your imagination you must add streaks of
purple colour, making the most dramatic effect, and an infinite stretch
of open country to right and left. This is what I have been able again
and again to look upon, during this time. At this moment, the soft sky
brings into harmony the orchards where we work. My little job dispenses
me from digging for the time. Such are the happinesses which, from afar,
had the appearance of calamities.
_December 1_ (2nd letter).
I have just received your letters of the 25th, 26th, and 27th, as well
as a dear letter from Grandmother, so valiant, so full of spirit, and so
clear-minded. It gave me great pleasure, and brings me a dear hope, of
which I accept the augury with joy. Each one of your beloved letters,
too, gives me the best of what life holds for me. My first letter of
to-day replies to what you say about the acceptation of trials and the
destruction of idols.
You will see that I think absolutely as you do, and I trust that there
is in this hour no impeding idol in my heart. . . .
I think that my last prayer is in fact very simple. The spirit of the
place could not have borne to be clothed in an art that was overloaded.
God was everywhere, and everywhere was harmony: the road at night, of
which I speak to you so often, the starry sky, the valley full of the
murmuring of water, the trees, the Calvaries, the hills near and far.
There would not have been any room for artifice. It is useless for me to
give up being an artist, but I hope always to be sincere and to use art
as it were only for the clothing of my conscience.
_December 5, in the morning._
. . . We have come out of our burrows, and three days of imprisonment are
followed by a morning in the open. It would be impossible to imagine
such a state of mud.
Your pretty aluminium watch is the admiration of everybody.
Is André's wound serious? The mothers endure terrible agony in this war,
but courage--nothing will be lost. As for me, I get on all right, and am
as happy as one may be.
A terrific wind to-day, chasing the fine clouds. Keen air, in which the
branches thrive. Beautiful moonlight on all these nights, all the more
appreciated if one has been cheated of the day.
Dear, I am writing badly to-day because we are bewildered by the full
daylight after those long hours of darkness, but my heart goes out to
you and rests with you.
. . . Let us bring to everything the spirit of courage. Let us have
confidence in God always, whatever happens. How much I feel, as you do,
that one can adore Him only with one's spirit! And like you I think that
we must avoid all pride which condemns the ways of other people. Let our
love lead us in union towards the universal Providence. Let us, in
constant prayer, give back our destiny into His hands. Let us humbly
admit to Him our human hopes, trying at every moment to link them to
eternal wisdom. It is a task which now seems full of difficulty, but
difficulty is in everything in life.
_Sunday, December 6._
I am happy to see you so determinedly courageous. We have need of
courage, or, rather, we have need of something difficult to obtain,
which is neither patience nor overconfidence, but a certain belief in
the order of things, the power to be able to say of every trial that it
is well.
Our instinct for life makes us try to free ourselves from our
obligations when they are too cruel, too oft-repeated, but, as I am
happy to know, you have been able to see what Spinoza understood by
human liberty. Inaccessible ideal, to which one must cling
nevertheless. . . .
. . . Dear mother, these trials that we must accept are long, but
notwithstanding their unchanging form one cannot call them monotonous,
since they call upon courage which must be perpetually new. Let us unite
together for God to grant us strength and resource in accepting
everything. . . .
You know what I call religion: that which unites in man all his ideas of
the universal and the eternal, those two forms of God. Religion, in the
ordinary sense of the word, is but the binding together of certain moral
and disciplinary formulas with the fine poetic imagery of the great
biblical and Christian philosophies.
Do not let us offend any one. Looked at properly, religious formulas,
however apart they may remain from my own habit of mind, seem to me
praiseworthy and sympathetic in all that they contain of aspiration and
beauty and form.
Dear mother whom I love, let us always hope: trials are legion, but
beauty remains. Let us pray that we may long continue to contemplate
it. . . .
_Monday, December 7._
MY BELOVED MOTHER,--I am writing this in the night . . . by six o'clock
in the morning military life will be in full swing.
My candle is stuck on a bayonet, and every now and then a drop of water
falls on to my nose. My poor companions try to light a reluctant fire.
Our time in the trenches transforms us into lumps of mud.
The general good humour is admirable. However the men may long to
return, they accept none the less heroically the vicissitudes of the
situation. Their courage, infinitely less 'literary' than mine, is so
much the more practical and adaptable; but each bird has its cry, and
mine has never been a war-cry. I am happy to have felt myself responsive
to all these blows, and my hope lies in the thought that they will have
forged my soul. Also I place confidence in God and whatever He holds in
store for me.
I seem to foresee my work in the future. Not that I build much on this
presentiment, for all artists have conceived work which has never come
to light. Mozart was about to make a new start when he died, and
Beethoven planned the 'Tenth Symphony' in ignorance of the all too brief
time that was to be allowed him by destiny.
It is the duty of the artist to open his flowers without dread of frost,
and perhaps God will allow my efforts to fulfil themselves in the
future. My very various attempts at work all have an indescribable
immaturity about them still, a halting execution, which consorts badly
with the real loftiness of the intention. It seems to me that my art
will not quite expand until my life is further advanced. Let us pray
that God will allow me to attain. . . .