Penury now is of another kind, but courage, always! Yet is it even sure
that moral effort bears any fruit?
_January 13, morning_ (in the trench).
I hope that when you think of me you will have in mind all those who
have left everything behind: their family, their surroundings, their
whole social environment; all those of whom their nearest and dearest
think only in the past, saying, 'We had once a brother, who, many years
ago, withdrew from this world, we know nothing of his fate.' Then I,
feeling that you too have abandoned all human attachment, will walk
freely in this life, closed to all ordinary relations.
I don't regret my new rank; it has brought me many troubles but a great
deal of experience, and, as a matter of fact, some ameliorations.
So I want to continue to live as fully as possible in this moment, and
that will be all the easier for me if I can feel that you have brought
yourself to the idea that my present life cannot in any way be lost.
I did not tell you enough what pleasure the _Revues Hebdomadaires_ gave
me. I found some extracts from that speech on Lamartine which I am
passionately fond of. Circumstances led this poet to give to his art
only the lowest place. Life in general closed him round, imposing on his
great heart a more serious and immediate task than that which awaited
his genius.
_January 15_ (in a new billet), 12.30 P.M.
We no longer have any issue whatever in sight.
My only sanction is in my conscience. We must confide ourselves to an
impersonal justice, independent of any human factor, and to a useful and
harmonious destiny, in spite of the horrors of its form.
_January 17, afternoon_ (in a billet).
What shall I say to you on this strange January afternoon, when thunder
is followed by snow?
Our billet provides us with many commodities, but above all with an
intoxicating beauty and poetry. Imagine a lake in a park sheltered by
high hills, and a castle, or, rather, a splendid country house. We lodge
in the domestic offices, but I don't need any wonderful home comforts
to perfect the dream-like existence that I have led here for three days.
Last night we were visited by some singers. We were very far from the
music that I love, but the popular and sentimental tunes were quite able
to replace a finer art, because of the ardent conviction of the singer.
The workman who sang these songs, which were decent, in fact moral (a
rather questionable moral, perhaps, but still a moral), so put his soul
into it that the timbre of his voice was altogether too moving for our
hostesses. Here are the ideal people: perhaps their ideal may be said
not to exist and to be purely negative, but months of suffering have
taught me to honour it.
I have just seen that Charles Péguy died at the beginning of the war.
How terribly French thought will have been mown down! What surpasses our
understanding (and yet what is only natural) is that civilians are able
to continue their normal life while we are in torment. I saw in the _Cri
de Paris_, which drifted as far as here, a list of concert programmes.
What a contrast! However, mother dear, the essential thing is to have
known beauty in moments of grace.
The weather is frightful, but one can feel the coming of spring. At a
time like this nothing can speak of individual hope, only of great
general certainties.
_January 19._
We have been since yesterday in our second line positions; we came to
them in marvellous snow and frost. A furious sky, with charming rosy
colour in it, floated over the visionary forest in the snow; the trees,
limpid blue low down, brown and fretted above, the earth white.
I have received two parcels; the _Chanson de Roland_ gives me infinite
pleasure--particularly the Introduction, treating of the national epic
and of the Mahabharata which, it seems, tells of the fight between the
spirits of good and evil.
I am happy in your lovely letters. As for the sufferings which you
forebode for me, they are really very tolerable.
But what we must recognise, and without shame, is that we are a
_bourgeois_ people. We have tasted of the honey of civilisation--poisoned
honey, no doubt. But no, surely that sweetness is true, and we should
not be called upon to make of our ordinary existence a preparation for
violence. I know that violence may be salutary to us, especially if in
the midst of it we do not lose sight of normal order and calm.
Order leads to eternal rest. Violence makes life go round. We have, for
our object, order and eternal rest; but without the violence which lets
loose reserves of energy, we should be too inclined to consider order as
already attained. But anticipated order can only be a lethargy which
retards the coming of positive order.
Our sufferings arise only from our disappointment in this delay; the
coming of true order is too long for human patience. In any case,
however suffering, we would rather not be doers of violence. It is as
when matter in fusion solidifies too quickly and in the wrong shape: it
has to be put to the fire again. This is the part violence plays in
human evolution; but that salutary violence must not make us forget what
our æsthetic citizenship had acquired in the way of perdurable peace and
harmony. But our suffering comes precisely from the fact that we do not
forget it!
_January 20, morning._
Do not think that I ever deprive myself of sleep. In that matter our
regiment is very fitful: one time we sleep for three days and three
nights; another time, the opposite.
Now Nature gives me her support once more. The frightful spell of rain
is interrupted by fine cold days. We live in the midst of beautiful
frost and snow; the hard earth gives us a firm footing.
My little grade gets me some solitude. I no longer have my happy walks
by night, but I have them in the day; my exemption from the hardest work
gives me time to realise the beauty of things.
Yesterday, an unspeakable sunset. A filmy atmosphere, with shreds of
tender colour; underneath, the blue cold of the snow.
Dear mother, it is a night of home-sickness. These familiar verses came
to me in the peace:
'Mon enfant, ma soeur,
Songe à la douceur
D'aller là-bas vivre ensemble
Au pays qui te ressemble.'
Yes, Beaudelaire's _Invitation au voyage_ seemed to take wing in the
exquisite sky. Oh, I was far from war. Well, to return to earthly
things: in coming back I nearly missed my dinner.
_January 20, evening._
Acceptation always. Adaptation to the life which goes on and on, taking
no notice of our little postulations.
_January 21._
We are in our first-line emplacements. The snow has followed us, but
alas, the thaw too. Happily, in this emplacement we don't live in water
as we do in the trenches.
Can any one describe the grace of winter trees? Did I already tell you
what Anatole France says in the _Mannequin d'Osier_? He loves their
delicate outlines and their intimate beauty more when they are uncovered
in winter. I too love the marvellous intricate pattern of their branches
against the sky.
From my post I can see our poor village, which is collapsing more and
more. Each day shells are destroying it. The church is hollowed out, but
its old charm remains in its ruins; it crouches so prettily between the
two delicately defined hills.
We were very happy in the second line. That time of snow was really
beautiful and clement. I told you yesterday about the sunset the other
day. And, before that, our arrival in the marvellous woods. . . .
_January 22._
. . . I have sent you a few verses; I don't know what they are worth,
but they reconciled me to life. And then our last billet was really
wonderful in its beauty. Water running over pebbles . . . vast, limpid
waters at the end of the park. Sleeping ponds, dreaming walks, which
none of this brutality has succeeded in defiling. To-day, sun on the
snow. The beauty of the snow was deeply moving, though certainly we had
some bad days, days on which there was nothing for us but the wretched
mud.
It seems that we won't be coming back to this pretty billet. Evidently
they are making ready for something; the regularity of our winter
existence has come to an end.
_2 o'clock._
Splendid weather, herald of the spring, and we can make the most of it,
because in this place we are allowed to put our noses out of doors.
I write badly to-day. I can only send you my love. This war is long, and
I can't even speak of patience.
My only happiness is that during these five and a half months I have so
often been able to tell you that everything was not ugliness. . . .
_January 23._
. . . As for me, I have no desires left. When my trials are really hard to
bear, I rest content with my own unhappiness, without facing other
things.
When they become less hard, then I begin to think, to dream, and the
past that is dear to me seems to have that same remote poetry which in
happier days drew my thoughts to distant countries. A familiar street,
or certain well-known corners, spring suddenly to my mind--just as in
other days islands of dreams and legendary countries used to rise at the
call of certain music and verse. But now there is no need of verse or
music; the intensity of dear memories is enough.
I have not even any idea of what a new life could be; I only know that
we are making life here and now.
For whom, and for what age? It hardly matters. What I do know, and what
is affirmed in the very depths of my being, is that this harvest of
French genius will be safely stored, and that the intellect of our race
will not suffer for the deep cuts that have been made in it.
Who will say that the rough peasant, comrade of the fallen thinker, will
not be the inheritor of his thoughts? No experience can falsify this
magnificent intuition. The peasant's son who has witnessed the death of
the young scholar or artist will perhaps take up the interrupted work,
be perhaps a link in the chain of evolution which has been for a moment
suspended. This is the real sacrifice: to renounce the hope of being
the torch-bearer. To a child in a game it is a fine thing to carry the
flag; but for a man, it is enough to know that the flag will yet be
carried. And that is what every moment of great august Nature brings
home to me. Every moment reassures my heart: Nature makes flags out of
anything. They are more beautiful than those to which our little habits
cling. And there will always be eyes to see and cherish the lessons of
earth and sky.
_January 26._
Your dear letter of the 20th reached me last night. You must not be
angry with me if occasionally, as in my letter of the 13th, I lack the
very thing I am always forcing myself to acquire. But I ask you to
consider what can be the thoughts of one who is young, in the fulness of
productiveness, at the hour when life is flowering, if he is snatched
away, and cast upon barren soil where all he has cherished fails him.
Well, after the first wrench he finds that life has not forsaken him,
and sets to work upon the new ungrateful ground. The effort calls for
such a concentration of energy as leaves no time for either hopes or
fears. It is the constant effort at adaptation, and I manage it, except
only in moments of the rebellion (quickly suppressed) of the thoughts
and wishes of the past. But I need my whole strength at times for
keeping down the pangs of memory and accepting what is.
I was thinking of the sad moments that you too endure, and that was why
I encouraged you to an impersonal idea of our union. I know how strong
you are, and how prepared for this idea. Yes, you are right, we must not
meet the pain half-way. But at times it is difficult to distinguish
between the real suffering that affects us, and that which is only
possible or imminent.
Mind you notice that _I have perfect hope_ and that I count on
prevailing grace, but, caring more than anything to be an artist, I am
occupied in drawing all the beauty out, in drawing out the utmost
beauty, as quickly as may be, none of us knowing how much time is meted
to us.
_January 27, afternoon._
After two bad nights in the billet owing to the lack of straw, the third
night was interrupted by our sudden departure for our emplacement in the
second line.
Superb weather, frost and sun.
Great Nature begins again to enfold me, and her voice, which is now
powerful again, consoles me.--But, dear, what a hole in one's existence!
Yes, since my promotion I have lived through moments which, though less
terrible, recalled the first days of September, but with the addition of
many blessings. I accept this new life, with no forecast of the future.
_January 28, in the morning sun._
The hard and splendid weather has this marvellous good--that it leaves
in its great pure sky an open door for poetry. Yes, all that I told you
of that beautiful time of snow came from a heart that was comforted by
such triumphant beauty.
In the Reviews you send me I have read with pleasure the articles on
Molière, on the English parliament, on Martainville, and on the
religious questions of 1830. . . .
Did I tell you that I learnt from the papers of the death of
Hillemacher? That dear friend was killed in this terrible war.
_February 1._
MY VERY DEAR MOTHER,--I have your dear letters of the 26th and 27th;
they do bring new life to me.
Up till now, our first-line emplacement, which this time is in the
village, has been favoured with complete calm, and I have known once
more those hours of grace when Nature consoles me.
My situation has this special improvement, that the drudgery I do now is
done at the instance of the general good, and no longer at the dictation
of mere routine.
_February 2._
DEAR MOTHER,--I go on with this letter in the billet, where the great
worry of accumulated work fills up the void which Melancholy would make
her own.
Dark days have come upon me, and nothingness seems the end of all,
whereas all that is in my being had assured me of the plenitude of the
universe. Yes, devotion, not to individuals but to the social ideal of
brotherhood, sustains me still. Oh, what a magnificent example is to be
found in Jesus and in the poor. That righteous aristocrat, showing by
His abhorrent task the infinite obligation of altruistic duty, and
teaching, above all, that no return of gratitude should be demanded. . . .
To my experience of men and things I owe this tranquillity of
expecting nothing from any one. Thus duty takes an abstract form,
deprived of a human object.
An unspeakable sunrise to-day! Another spring draws near. . . . I want
to tell you about our three days in the first line.
Snow and frost. We went down the slopes leading to our emplacement in
the village. The night was then so beautiful that it moved the heart of
every soldier to see it. I could never say enough about the fine
delicacy of this country. How can I explain to you the chiselled effect,
allied to the dream-like mists, with the moon soaring above? For three
days my night-service took me straight to the heart of this purity,
this whiteness.
Tarnished gold-work of the trees. And, in spite of the mist, many
colours, rose and blue.
There are hours of such beauty that those who take them to themselves
can hardly die. I was well in front of the first lines, and never did I
feel better protected. This morning, when I came, a pink and green
sunrise over the blue and rosy snow; the open country marked with woods
and covered fields; far off, the distance, in which the silvery Meuse
fades away. O Beauty, in spite of all!
_February 2._
DEAR BELOVED MOTHER,--Your letter of the 29th has this moment come to
the billet. A nameless day, a day without form, yet a day in which the
spring most mysteriously begins to stir. Warm air in the lengthening
days; a sudden softening, a weakening of Nature. Alas, how sweet this
emotion would be if it could be felt outside this slavery, but the
weakness which comes ordinarily with spring only serves here to make
burdens heavier.
Dear mother, how glad I am to feel the sympathy of those who are far
away. Ah, what sweetness there is!
I am delighted by the Reviews; in an admirable article on Louis Veuillot
I noticed this phrase: 'O my God, take away my despair and leave my
grief!' Yes, we must not misunderstand the fruitful lesson taught by
grief, and if I return from this war it will most certainly be with a
soul formed and enriched.
I also read with pleasure the lectures on Molière, and in him, as
elsewhere, I have viewed again the solitude in which the highest souls
wander. But I owe it to my old sentimental wounds never to suffer again
through the acts of others. My dearly loved mother, I will write to you
better to-morrow.
_February 4._
Last night, on coming back to the barn, drunkenness, quarrels, cries,
songs and yells. Such is life!. . . But when morning came and the
wakening from sleep still brought me memories of this, I got up before
the time, and found outside a friendly moon, and the great night taking
wing, and a dawn which had pity on me. The blessed spring day gilds
everything and scatters its promises and hopes.
Dear, I was reflecting on Tolstoi's title, _War and Peace_. I used to
think that he wanted to express the antithesis of these two states, but
now I ask myself if he did not connect these two contraries in one and
the same folly--if the fortunes of humanity, whether at war or at peace,
were not equally a burden to his mind. By all means let us keep faithful
to our efforts to be good; but in spite of ourselves we take this
precept a little in the sense of the placards: 'Be good to animals.' How
hard it is, in the midst of daily duties, to keep guard upon oneself.
_February 5._
A sleepless night. Hateful return to the barn. Such a fearful row that
the corporals had to complain. Punishments.
In the morning, on the march, and, in order to rest us, work to-night!
_February 6._
MY DEAR BELOVED MOTHER,--After the sleepless night in our billet, we had
to supply a working-party all the following night. So I have been
sleeping up till the very moment of writing to you. Sleep and Night are
refuges which give life still one attraction.
Mother dear, I am living over again the lovely legend of Sarpedon; and
that exquisite flower of Greek poetry really gives me comfort. If you
will read this passage of the _Iliad_ in my beautiful translation by
Lecomte de l'Isle, you will see that Zeus utters in regard to destiny
certain words in which the divine and the eternal shine out as nobly as
in the Christian Passion. He suffers, and his fatherly heart undergoes a
long battle, but finally he permits his son to die, and Hypnos and
Thanatos are sent to gather up the beloved remains.
Hypnos--that is Sleep. To think that I should come to that, I for whom
every waking hour was a waking joy, I for whom every moment of action
was a thrill of pride. I catch myself longing for the escape of Sleep
from the tumult that besets me. But the splendid Greek optimism shines
out as in those vases at the Louvre. By the two, Hypnos and Thanatos,
Sarpedon is lifted to a life beyond his human death; and assuredly Sleep
and Death do wonderfully magnify and continue our mortal fate.
Thanatos--that is a mystery, and it is a terror only because the urgency
of our transitory desires makes us misconceive the mystery. But read
over again the great peaceful words of Maeterlinck in his book on death,
words ringing with compassion for our fears in the tremendous passage of
mortality.
_February 7._
MOST DEAR AND MOST BELOVED,--I have your splendid letter of the first.
Please don't hesitate to write what you think I would call mere chatter.
Your love and the absolute identity of our two hearts appear in all your
letters. And that is all I really care for. Yet they tell me a thousand
things that interest me too.
We are living through hours of heavy labour. My rank gives me respite
now and then; but for the men it means five nights at a time without
sleep, and this repeatedly.
_February 9._
Another breathing-space in which, almost at my last gasp, I get a brief
peace. The little reviving breath comes again. I have had the good luck
to be appointed corporal on guard in delightful quarters, where I am in
command. Perfect spring weather. And what can I say of this Nature?
Never before have I so fully felt her amplitude of life. Hours and
seasons following one another surely, infallibly, unalterably, in
unchanging unity; the looker-on has a glimpse of the immensity of the
force that first set them afoot.
I had often known the delight of watching the nearer coming of a season,
but it had not before been given to me to live in that delight moment by
moment. It is so that one learns, without the help of any kind of
science, a certain intuition, vague perhaps, but altogether
indisputable, of the Absolute. There was a man of science, possibly a
great one, who declared that he had not discovered God under his
scalpel. What a shocking mistake for an able mind to make! Where was the
need of a scalpel, when the joy and the thrill of our senses are
all-sufficient to convince us of the purpose commanding our whole
evolution? The poet watches the coming of the seasons as it were great
ships that will, he knows, set sail again. At times the storm may delay
them, but at their next coming they will bring with them the rich
fragrance of the unknown coasts. A season coming again to our own shores
seems to bring us delights which it has learnt by long travel.
Ah, dearest mother, if one could have again a retreat for the soul! O
solitude, for those worthy to possess it! How seldom is it inviolate!
_February 11._
It may possibly be a great intended privilege for our generation to be a
witness of these horrors, but what a terrible price to pay! Well, faith,
eternal faith, is over all. Faith in an evolution, an Order, beyond our
human patience.
_February 11_ (2nd day in
the front line).
In such hours as these one must perforce take refuge in the extra-human
principle of sacrifice; it is impossible for mere humanity to go
further.
Let go all poor human hope. Seek something beyond; perhaps you have
already found it. As for me, I feel myself to be unworthy in such days
to be anything more than a memory. I picked some flowers in the mud.
Keep them in remembrance of me.
_5 o'clock._
Courage through all, courage in spite of all.
_February 13_ (4th day in
the front line).
BELOVED,--After the days of tears and of rebellion of the heart that
have so shaken me, I pull myself together again to say 'Thy will be
done.' So, according to the power and the measure of my faculties, I
would be he who to the very end never despaired of his share in the
building of the Temple. I would be the workman who, knowing full well
that his scaffolding will give way and who has no hope of safety, goes
on with his stone-carving of decoration on the cathedral front.
Decoration. I am not one who will ever be able to lift the blocks of
stone. But there are others for that job. Yes, I am getting back into a
little quiet thinking. The equable tranquillity I had hoped for is not
yet mine; but I have occasional glimpses of that region of peace and
light in which all things, even our love, is renewed and transfigured.
I am now at the foot of a peaked hill where Nature has brought the
loveliest lines of design together. Man is hunting man, and in a moment
they will be locked in fight. Meanwhile the lark is rising.
Even as I write, a strange serenity possesses me.
Something--extraordinary comfort. Be it a human quality, be it a
revelation from on high. All around me men are asleep.
_February 14_ (5th day in
the front line).
All is movement about us; we too are afoot. Even as the inevitable takes
shape, peace revisits my heart at last. My beloved country is defiled
by these detestable preparations of battle; the silence is rent by the
preliminary gun-fire; man succeeds for a time in cancelling all the
beauty of the world. But I think it will even yet find a place of
refuge. For twenty-four hours now I have been my own self.
Dear mother, I was wrong to think so much of my 'tower of ivory.' What
we too often take for a tower of ivory is nothing more than an old
cheese where a hermit rat has made his house.
Rather, may a better spirit move me to gratitude for the salutary shocks
that tossed me out of too pleasant a place of peace; let us be thankful
for the dispensation which, during certain hours--hours far apart but
never to be forgotten--made a man of me.
No, no, I will not mourn over my dead youth. It led me by steep and
devious ways to the tablelands where the mists that hung over
intelligence are no more.
_February 16._