In all this throng astray?
They shot my husband against a wall,
And my child (she said), too little to crawl,
Held up its hands to catch the ball
When the gun-muzzle turned its way.
I said: There are countries far from here
Where the friendly church-bells call,
And fields where the rivers run cool and clear,
And streets where the weary may walk without fear,
And a quiet bed, with a green tree near,
To sleep at the end of it all.
She answered: Your land is too remote,
And what if I chanced to roam
When the bells fly back to the steeples’ throat,
And the sky with banners is all afloat,
And the streets of my city rock like a boat
With the tramp of her men come home?
I shall crouch by the door till the bolt is down,
And then go in to my dead.
Where my husband fell I will put a stone,
And mother a child instead of my own,
And stand and laugh on my bare hearth-stone
When the King rides by, she said.
EDITH WHARTON
_Paris, August 27th, 1915_
[Illustration: _P. A. J. DAGNAN-BOUVERET_
BRITTANY WOMAN
FROM A DRAWING IN COLOURED CRAYONS]
_MARGARET L. WOODS_
FINISTERRE
O that on some forsaken strand,
Lone ending of a lonely land,
On such an eve we two were lying,
To hear the quiet water sighing
And feel the coolness of the sand.
A red and broken moon would grow
Out of the dusk and even so
As here to-night the street she faces,
Between the half-distinguished spaces
Of sea and sky would burn and go.
The moon would go and overhead,
Like tapers lighted o’er the dead,
Star after silver star would glimmer,
The lonely night grow calmer, dimmer,
The quiet sea sink in its bed.
We, at the end of Time and Fate,
Might unconcerned with love or hate
As the sea’s voices, talk together,
Wherefore we went apart and whither,
And all the exiled years relate.
Thus were life’s grey chance-’ravelled sleave’
Outspread, we something might perceive
Which never would to chance surrender,
But through the tangled woof its slender
Golden, elusive pattern weave.
Then while the great stars larger shone
Leaned on the sea, and drew thereon
Faint paths of light, across them faring
Might steal the ship that comes for bearing
Sore-wounded souls to Avalon.
MARGARET L. WOODS
_W. B. YEATS_
A REASON FOR KEEPING SILENT
I think it better that at times like these
We poets keep our mouths shut, for in truth
We have no gift to set a statesman right;
He’s had enough of meddling who can please
A young girl in the indolence of her youth
Or an old man upon a winter’s night.
W. B. YEATS
[Illustration: _JACQUES-ÉMILE BLANCHE_
PORTRAIT OF IGOR STRAVINSKY
FROM A STUDY IN OILS]
[Illustration: MUSICAL SCORE
_IGOR STRAVINSKY_
SOUVENIR D’UNE MARCHE BOCHE]
[Illustration: Music]
[Illustration: Music]
[Illustration: Music]
[Illustration: Music]
[Illustration: _THÉO VAN RYSSELBERGHE_
PORTRAIT OF VINCENT D’INDY
FROM A PHOTOGRAPH OF THE ORIGINAL PAINTING]
[Illustration: MUSICAL SCORE
_VINCENT D’INDY_
LA LÉGENDE DE SAINT CHRISTOPHE
PAGE OF SCORE OF UNPUBLISHED OPERA
[ACTE I, SCÈNE III]]
[Illustration: II
PROSE]
CONTRIBUTORS OF PROSE
MAURICE BARRÈS
SARAH BERNHARDT
PAUL BOURGET
JOSEPH CONRAD
ELEONORA DUSE
JOHN GALSWORTHY
EDMUND GOSSE
PAUL HERVIEU
GÉNÉRAL HUMBERT
HENRY JAMES
MAURICE MAETERLINCK
EDWARD SANDFORD MARTIN
PAUL ELMER MORE
AGNES REPPLIER
ANDRÉ SAURÈS
MRS. HUMPHRY WARD
LES FRÈRES
Je n’aime pas raconter cette histoire, dit le Général, parce que à
chaque fois, c’est bête, je pleure. Mais elle fait aimer la France....
Il s’agit de deux enfants admirablement doués, pleins de cœur et
d’esprit et qu’aimaient tous ceux qui les rencontraient. Je les avais
connus tout petits. Quand la guerre éclata, le plus jeune, François,
venait d’être admis à Saint-Cyr. Il n’eut pas le temps d’y entrer et
avec toute la promotion il fut d’emblée nommé sous-lieutenant. Vous
pensez s’il rayonnait de joie! Dix-neuf ans l’épaulette et les
batailles! Son aîné Jacques, un garçon de vingt ans, tout à fait
remarquable de science et d’éloquence, travaillait encore à la Faculté
de Droit dont il était lauréat. Lui aussi il partit comme
sous-lieutenant.
Les deux frères se retrouvèrent dans la même brigade de “la division de
fer,” le plus jeune au 26ᵉ de ligne et l’aîné au 27ᵉ. Ils cantonnaient
dans un village dévasté et chaque jour joyeusement se retrouvaient,
plaisant à tous et gagnant par leur jeunesse et leur amitié une sorte de
popularité auprès des soldats.
Bientôt on apprit que le régiment du Saint-Cyrien allait avoir à marcher
et que ce serait chaud. En cachette Jacques s’en alla demander au
colonel la permission de prendre la place de son petit François qu’il
trouvait trop peu préparé pour une action qui s’annonçait rude.
Le colonel reconnut la générosité de cette demande mais coupa court en
disant:
--On ne peut pas faire passer un officier d’un corps à un autre corps.
Le jour fixé pour l’attaque arriva. La première compagnie à laquelle
appartenait François fut envoyé en tirailleurs. Elle fut fauchée. Une
autre suivit. Et puis une autre encore. Leurs ailes durent se replier en
laissant sur le terrain leurs morts et une partie de leurs blessés. Le
petit sous-lieutenant n’était pas de ceux qui revinrent.
Le surlendemain nous reprîmes l’offensive. L’aîné en enlevant avec son
régiment les tranchées allemandes, passa auprès du corps de son petit
François tout criblé de balles. Un peu plus loin il reçut une blessure à
l’épaule.
Son capitaine lui ordonna d’aller se faire panser. Il refusa, continua
et fut blessé d’une balle dans la tête.
Les corps furent ramassés et ramenés dans les ruines du village. Les
sapeurs du 26ᵉ dirent alors:
--On n’enterrera pas ce bon petit sous-lieutenant sans un cercueil. Nous
allons lui en faire un.
Ils se mirent à scier et à clouer.
Ceux du 27ᵉ dirent alors:
--Il ne faut pas traiter différemment les deux frères. Nous allons, nous
aussi, faire un cercueil pour notre lieutenant.
Au soir, on se préparait à les enterrer côte à côte quand une vieille
femme éleva la voix.
C’était une vieille si pauvre qu’elle avait obstinément refusé
d’abandonner le village. “J’aime mieux mourir ici,” avait-elle dit. On
l’avait laissée. Elle gîtait misérablement dans sa cabane sur la paille
et n’avait pas d’autre nourriture que celle que lui donnaient les
soldats. Quand elle vit les deux jeunes cadavres et les préparatifs,
elle dit:
--Attendez un instant avant de les enfermer. Je vais chercher quelque
chose.
Elle alla fouiller la paille sur laquelle elle couchait et en tira le
drap qu’elle gardait pour sa sépulture. Et revenant:
--On n’enfermera pas, dit-elle, ces beaux garçons le visage contre les
planches. Je veux les ensevelir.
Elle coupa la toile en deux et les mit chacun dans son suaire, puis elle
leur posa un baiser sur le front, en disant chaque fois:
--Pour la mère, mon cher enfant.
* * * * *
Nous nous tûmes quand le Général eut ainsi parlé et il n’était pas le
seul à avoir des larmes dans les yeux. Une prière d’amour se formait
dans nos cœurs pour la France.
MAURICE BARRÈS
_de l’Académie Française_
1915
THE BROTHERS
[TRANSLATION]
I’m not fond of telling this story, said the General, because each time,
like the old fool I am, it brings tears to my eyes ... but the best of
France is in it.
It’s about two boys, astonishingly gifted, full of heart and brains,
that nobody could meet without liking. I knew them when they were tiny
little fellows. At the time war broke out, the younger one, François,
had just passed his examinations for St. Cyr. He had no time to enter;
he was rushed along in the wholesale promotion and made second
lieutenant then and there. Fancy what it meant to him--epaulettes and
battles at nineteen! His elder brother, Jacques, a boy of twenty,--a
really remarkable fellow in his studies, was hard at work in the Law
School, where he had taken honors. He went off to the front as second
lieutenant, too.
The two brothers were thrown together for the first time in the same
brigade of the “iron division,” as it was called--the younger in the
26th of the line, the other in the 27th. They were quartered in a ruined
village, and each day they met, making themselves liked everywhere and
enjoying a great popularity with the soldiers on account of their youth
and friendliness.
It soon got round that the St. Cyr boy’s regiment was going to get some
hot fighting. Jacques said nothing, but he went to his colonel and asked
for permission to take the place of his brother, whom he considered too
little prepared for what promised to be a violent engagement.
The colonel recognized the generosity of this request, but he cut the
young man short.
“An officer can’t be transferred from his own corps to another,” he
said.
The day fixed for the attack came. The first company--François’
company--was sent ahead to skirmish. It was simply mowed down. Another
followed, and then another. They finally had to fall back, leaving their
dead and part of the wounded on the field. The little second lieutenant
was not among those who returned.
Two days later our men took the offensive again. The elder brother,
storming the German trenches with his regiment, passed close by the body
of his little François as it lay there all shot to pieces. A bit farther
on, a bullet caught him in the shoulder.
His captain ordered him back to have the wound dressed; he refused, kept
on, and was hit full in the forehead.
The bodies were taken up and carried back to the ruins of the village.
The sappers of the 26th said:
“He was a fine fellow, that little second lieutenant. He shan’t go
underground without a coffin, at any rate. Let’s make one for him.”
And they began sawing and hammering.
Then the men of the 27th put their heads together and said:
“There must be no difference between the two brothers. We might as well
make a coffin for our lieutenant, too.”
By nightfall, when they were ready to bury the brothers side by side, an
old woman spoke up. She was a wretched old creature, so poor and broken
that she stubbornly refused to leave the village. “I’ve lived here, I’ll
die here,” she kept on saying. She lay huddled up on some straw in her
little hovel, and her only food was the leavings of the soldiers. When
she saw the bodies of the two lads and understood what was going on, she
said:
“Wait a minute before you nail the covers on. I’m going to fetch
something.”
She hobbled away, fumbled around in the straw she slept on, and pulled
out a piece of cloth that she was keeping for her shroud.
“They shan’t nail those boys up with their faces against the boards. I
want to shroud them,” she said.
She cut the shroud in two and wrapped each in a half of it. Then she
kissed each one of them on the forehead, saying,
“That’s for your mother, dearie.”
* * * * *
No one spoke when the General ended. And he was not the only one to have
wet eyes. In each of our hearts there was a prayer for France.
MAURICE BARRÈS
_de l’Académie Française_
1915
UNE PROMESSE
Séchez vos larmes, Enfants des Flandres!
Car les canons, les mitrailleuses, les fusils, les sabres et les bras
n’arrêteront leur élan que lorsque l’ennemi vaincu vous rendra vos
foyers!
Et ces foyers; nous, les femmes de France, d’Angleterre, de Russie et
d’Italie, nous les ensoleillerons.
SARAH BERNHARDT
1915
A PROMISE
[TRANSLATION]
Children of Flanders, dry your tears!
For all the mighty machinery of war, and the stout hearts of brave men,
shall strive together till the vanquished foe has given you back your
homes!
And to those homes made desolate, we, the women of France, of England,
of Russia and of Italy, will bring again happiness and sunlight!
SARAH BERNHARDT
[Illustration: _PIERRE-AUGUSTE RÉNOIR_
PORTRAIT OF HIS SON, WOUNDED IN THE WAR
FROM A CHARCOAL SKETCH]
_PAUL BOURGET_
APRÈS UN AN
Je me trouvais, au début de ce mois d’août 1915, voyager en automobile
dans une des provinces du centre de la France, que j’avais traversée de
même, juste une année auparavant, quand la mobilisation commençante
remplissait les routes de camions, de canons, de troupes en marche. Une
année! Que de morts depuis! Mais la résolution demeure la même qu’à
cette époque où le Pays tout entier n’eut qu’un mot d’ordre: y aller.
Non. Rien n’a changé de cette volonté de bataille. J’entre dans un
hôtel, pour y déjeuner. La patronne, que je connais pour m’arrêter là
chaque fois que je passe par la petite ville, est entièrement vêtue de
noir. Elle a perdu son frère en Alsace. Son mari est dans un dépôt à la
veille de partir au front. “Faites-vous des affaires?” lui
demandé-je.--“Pas beaucoup. Personne ne circule, et tous les mobilisés
s’en vont. La caserne se vide. Encore ce matin--”--“C’est bien long,”
lui dis-je, pour la tenter.--“Oui, monsieur,” répond-elle, “mais
puisqu’il faut çà--” Et elle recommence d’écrire ses menus, sans une
plainte. Dans la salle à manger, deux servantes, dont une aussi tout en
noir. Je la questionne. Son mari a été tué sur l’Yser. Son visage est
très triste. Mais pas une récrimination non plus. Elle est comme sa
maîtresse. Elle accepte “puisqu’il faut ça.” Un sous-officier ouvre la
porte. Il est suivi d’une femme en grand deuil, d’un enfant et d’un
homme âgé.--Sa femme, son fils et son père, ai-je su depuis. Je le vois
de profil, et j’observe dans son regard une fixité qui m’étonne. Il
refuse une place dans le fond, et marche vers la fenêtre: “J’ai besoin
d’avoir plus de jour maintenant,” répète-t-il, d’un accent singulier. A
peine est-il assis avec sa famille, qu’un des convives de la table
d’hôte, en train de déjeuner, se lève, et vient le saluer avec une
exclamation de surprise. “Vous ici! Vous êtes donc debout? D’ailleurs,
vous avez très belle mine.”--“Oui,” dit le sous-officier, “çà n’empêche
pas qu’il est en verre--” Et il montre son œil droit. En quelques mots,
très simplement, il raconte qu’une balle lui a enlevé cet œil droit en
Argonne. “C’est dommage,” continue-t-il, “on était si bien, si contents
de n’être plus dans l’eau et dans la boue.” Et l’autre de s’écrier:
“Vous êtes tous comme çà, dans l’armée, si braves, si modestes! Nous
autres, les vieux, nous n’avons été que de la Saint-Jean à côté de vous.
70, qu’est-ce que c’était? Rien du tout. Mais çà finira autrement.”--“Il
le faut,” dit le sous-officier, “et pour nous, et pour ces pauvres
Belges à qui nous devons d’avoir eu du temps. Oui,” insiste-t-il, en
posant sa main sur la tête de son enfant, “pour ceux-là aussi il le
faut.”--“Qui est ce monsieur?” dis-je à la servante.--“Ce
sous-officier?” répond-elle, “un négociant de Paris. Le frère de sa dame
a été tué.” Je regarde manger ces gens, si éprouvés. Ils sont bien
sérieux, bien accablés, mais si dignes. Les mots que ce borgne héroïque
a prononcés, cet “il le faut” donne à tous leurs gestes une émouvante
gravité.
Je reprends ma route, et je le retrouve cet “il le faut” du sergent, ce
“puisqu’il faut çà” de l’hôtelière, comme écrit dans tous les aspects de
cet horizon. C’est le moment de la moisson. Des femmes y travaillent,
des garçonnets, des petites filles. La suppléance du mari, du père, du
frère absents, s’est faite simplement, sans qu’il y ait eu besoin
d’aucun appel, d’aucun décret. Sur deux charrettes que je croise, une
est menée par une femme. Des femmes conduisent les troupeaux. Des femmes
étaient derrière les guichets de la Banque où je suis descendu chercher
de la monnaie, dans la petite ville. Un de mes amis, qui a de gros
intérêts dans le midi, me racontait que son homme d’affaires est aux
Dardanelles: “Sa femme gère mes propriétés à sa place. Elle est
étonnante d’intelligence et de bravoure.” Oui, c’est toujours ce même
tranquille stoïcisme, cette totale absence de plainte. Un bataillon de
territoriaux défile. Ils ne sont plus jeunes. Leur existence était
établie. Elle est bouleversée. Ils subissent l’épreuve sans un murmure
et marquent le pas sur la route brûlée de soleil avec une énergie qui
révèle, chez eux aussi, le sentiment de la nécessité. C’est, pour moi,
le caractère pathétique de cette guerre. Elle a la grandeur auguste des
actions vitales de la nature. Elle est le geste d’un pays qui ne veut
pas mourir, et qui ne mourra pas, ni lui ni cette noble Belgique, dont
parlait le sous-officier, et qui, elle, a prononcé avec autant de
fermeté résolue son “il le faut,” quand l’Allemand l’a provoquée, et
plus pathétiquement encore. Ce n’était pas pour la vie qu’elle allait se
battre, c’était pour l’honneur, pour la probité. Il n’est pas un
Français qui ne le sente, et qui ne confonde sa propre cause avec celle
des admirables sujets de l’admirable Roi Albert.
PAUL BOURGET
_de l’Académie Française_
ONE YEAR LATER
[TRANSLATION]
During the first days of August, 1915, I found myself motoring in one of
the central provinces of France. I had crossed the same region in the
same way just a year before, when the beginning of mobilization was
crowding the roads with waggons, with artillery and with marching
troops. Only one year! How many men are dead since! But the high resolve
of the nation is as firm as it was then, when all through the land there
was only one impulse--to go forward. The willingness to fight and to
endure has not grown less.
I went into an hotel for luncheon. I know the woman who keeps it,
because I always stop there when I go through the little town. I found
her dressed in black: she had lost her brother in Alsace. Her husband
was waiting to be sent to the front. I asked her if she were doing any
business. “Not much,” she answered. “Nobody is travelling, and all the
mobilized men are gone. The barracks are empty; why, only this
morning--” “It seems a long time,” I said, to draw her on. “Yes,” she
said, “but since we must ...” and she went back without complaint to the
task of writing her bills of fare. There were two maids in the
dining-room, one of them also in black. I questioned her and learnt that
her husband had been killed on the Yser. Her face was full of sorrow,
but like her mistress she blamed no one, and accepted her loss because
it “must” be so.
Soon a non-commissioned officer came in, followed by a woman in deep
mourning, a little boy, and an elderly man; I learnt afterwards that
they were the sergeant’s wife, his son, and his father. I saw his
profile, and noticed that he seemed to stare fixedly. He declined a
place at the back of the room, and came toward the window. “I need
plenty of light now,” he said in an odd voice. He and his family had
just seated themselves when one of the guests at the long _table d’hôte_
rose with an exclamation of surprise and came over to him, saying: “Why,
are you out again? How well you look!” “Yes,” said the sergeant; “but
all the same this one is glass,” pointing to his right eye, and in a few
words he told how it had been knocked out by a bullet in the Argonne.
“It was such a pity,” he said, “for we were all so glad when the
fighting began, and we got out of the mud and water in the trenches.”
“You are all just like that in the army!” said his friend, “all so
plucky and so simple! We old fellows were only amateurs compared to you!
What was the war of 1870 to this one? This time there will be a
different ending.” “There must be,” said the sergeant, “not only for us
but for the Belgians, who gained us so much time.” And he repeated,
laying his hand on his boy’s head, “Yes, for these little chaps also it
must be so.”
Presently I found a chance to ask the maid what she knew about the
soldier who had been speaking. “That sergeant? He is a Paris shopkeeper.
His wife’s brother has been killed.” I watched these people at table, so
serious, so sorely tried, but so full of dignity, and the words which
the half-blinded man had pronounced seemed to make even his ordinary
gestures impressive.
All along the road, for the rest of that journey the “it must be” of the
hotel-keeper and the sergeant seemed to be written over the whole
country-side. It was harvest-time, and women, lads and little girls were
working in the fields, replacing absent husbands, fathers and brothers.
They were doing it quite simply, not drawn by any appeal, nor compelled
by any order. Every other cart I met was driven by a woman. Women were
herding the cattle. There was a woman at the cashier’s desk of the bank
in the town where I went to get some money changed.
One of my friends, who has large interests in the south of France, told
me that his man of business was at the Dardanelles. “His wife looks
after my property in his place. She is astonishingly intelligent and
capable.” Everywhere the same tranquil stoicism, the same entire absence
of complaint.
A battalion of territorials marched past. They were not young men. All
of them had had fixed duties and habits which were now broken up. Yet
they submitted without a murmur, marching along the hot and dusty road
with an energy which revealed in them also the same sense of compelling
necessity. That, to my mind, gives to this war its pathetic side. It has
all the imposing grandeur of the vital forces of nature; it is the
heroic movement of a country which defies death, which is not meant to
die. Nor will she allow Belgium to die--the Belgium to whom the sergeant
paid his tribute, and whose “we must” rang out with such poignant
firmness under the German menace. It was not for life alone that Belgium
fought, but for honour and for justice. No Frenchman lives who does not
feel this, and who does not merge his own cause in that of the
indomitable subjects of Belgium’s indomitable King.
PAUL BOURGET
_de l’Académie Française_
[Illustration: _LÉON BONNAT_
PEGASUS
FROM A PENCIL AND PEN-AND-INK SKETCH]
[Illustration:
à Madame Wharton
hommage très respectueux.
L^{éon} Bonnat
]
_JOSEPH CONRAD_
POLAND REVISITED
I
I have never believed in political assassination as a means to an end,
and least of all if the assassination is of the dynastic order. I don’t
know how far murder can ever approach the efficiency of a fine art, but
looked upon with the cold eye of reason it seems but a crude expedient
either of impatient hope or hurried despair. There are few men whose
premature death could influence human affairs more than on the surface.
The deeper stream of causes depends not on individualities which, like
the mass of mankind, are carried on by the destiny which no murder had
ever been able to placate, divert or arrest.
In July of [1914] I was a stranger in a strange city and particularly
out of touch with the world’s politics. Never a very diligent reader of
newspapers, there were at that time reasons of a private order which
caused me to be even less informed than usual on public affairs as
presented from day to day in that particular atmosphere-less,
perspective-lessness of the daily papers which somehow for a man with
some historic sense robs them of all real interest. I don’t think I had
looked at a daily for a month past.
But though a stranger in a strange city I was not lonely, thanks to a
friend who had travelled there with me out of pure kindness, to bear me
company in a conjuncture which, in a most private sense, was somewhat
trying.
It was this friend who one morning at breakfast informed me of the
murder of the Archduke Ferdinand.
The impression was mediocre. I was barely aware that such a man existed.
I remembered only that not long before he had visited London, but that
memory was lost in a cloud of insignificant printed words his presence
in this country provoked. Various opinions had been expressed of him,
but his importance had been archducal, dynastic, purely accidental. Can
there be in the world of real men anything more shadowy than an
archduke? And now he was no more, and with a certain atrocity of
circumstance which made one more sensible of his humanity than when he
was in life. I knew nothing of his journey. I did not connect that crime
with Balkanic plots and aspirations. I asked where it had happened. My
friend told me it was in Serajevo, and wondered what would be the
consequences of that grave event. He asked me what I thought would
happen next.