Compiler--for what, he wondered would Gringoire insist on inserting
into his pages; and wouldn’t his patiently prosecuted work when, if
ever, it saw the light, wouldn’t it have the aspect of a mere rag-bag?
To these alarmed, if only half-expressed remonstrances, Gringoire,
arising to his lean, gray height, announced his immutable programme for
the day. It was by then towards four of a very hot, but fast cooling,
July afternoon. The sunflowers drooped on their stalks, flycatchers
made their curious, interrupted flights into the shining air and back
to the old roof. The cows from the meadow had crowded to the other side
of the quickset hedge, and, rubbing themselves unceasingly to get rid
of flies from their backs made a curious sound like the tearing of thin
paper interspersed with the deep, tranquil sighings of their breaths.
It was in short an English July afternoon--a time when, if ever, men
should sit and ruminate in quiet.
But there was such a clamor! You would have said that the itch of all
the authors and all the regimental sergeants major had entered into
our friend. Quick, the boy, dozing behind the house, must put in the
mare and go to the station and see if the Bombay duck had come for
the curry. Quick, the maid must bring tea half an hour before that
diminutive creature was accustomed to bring it. Or, no.... She must put
back tea an hour and Madame Sélysette must with her own incomparable
fingers blow three quarts of shandygaff and not forget the lime-juice.
And Madame Sélysette must find the article he had written at Nieppe,
and must put out paper and pens and cut two quills just as he liked
them and come down and entertain Compi--your humble servant the
compiler--and see that no wasps had got under the cabbage-leaves that
covered the syllabubs in the spring and see that the boy did not take
the traces up two holes too short and ...
Madame Sélysette put her charming and provocative bust out of the
little square window space above and to the left of the porch.
“You propose to write, my friend?” she asked. “But you swore this
morning that you would send me to Coventry for a week if I did not goad
you into picking the greengages....”
Gringoire made a sound like “Grrh”, as if the Wolf of the Mountains had
humorously snarled. He said:
“You have no soul!” She made at him a little grimace and disappeared.
But I could hear their endearments as they met on the sounding little
wooden stairs and felt all the summer regrets of the nearly old
bachelor.
There was however no rest that afternoon. It was well to have the great
blue three-quart jug of shandygaff on the seat in the porch; it was
agreeable to have Madame Sélysette to one’s self whilst she dotted a
few of the ‘i’s’ and crossed the ‘t’s’ as to the entangled career and
theories of her great man--and there is no better drink of an English
July afternoon than shandygaff that has a little edge of lime-juice
given to it and that since dawn has had all its ingredients cooled
in an ice-cold spring. And there is no pleasanter topic in the mouth
of a gay and tranquil young woman assured of the adoration of her
mate than her expressions of her humorous adoration for Himself and
his crotchets. You reply that the adoration of a lively young woman
expressed to yourself would be more agreeable, but that is not the
case. For lively young women do not express adoration to the faces of
their males; but, failing and replacing that, it is pleasant to sit
in a porch and hearken to adoration of a roaring genius overhead. For
it causes you to have daydreams of a time when you in revenge may sit
in an upper room, with a lively young woman expressing to a third the
adoration that she feels for yourself....
But continuously our Gringoire’s voice rumbled from inside his upper
room. Then coming to the window he would shout:
“Sélysette Sé ... ly ... _sette_.... What is the colloquial English for
...” Some phrase that I did not catch. Or:
“Sé ... ly ... sette.... _Est-ce que_ ...” And again something that
I did not catch for my French is none of the strongest. But I should
gather that it had something to do with his pots that were on the
stove in the disreputable shanty that he called his cookhouse. For
Madame would enter that erection like Eurydice disappearing into Orcus.
Immediately would come the thunder of Gringoire descending the stairs
as if he had fallen. He too would enter the cookhouse and there would
be the sound of impassioned and farcical altercations. Then Gringoire
would approach the porch with a face that resembled a beet root with
the heat. He would drink a pint of shandygaff at a swallow, exclaim:
“The stuff’s bilge.... No, I don’t mean the shandygaff. There is no one
like Sélysette for compounding cold drinks. I trained her. I mean my
prose. My prose is bilge....” And he would thunder up the stairs whilst
Madame tranquilly resumed her place.
Once she asked some questions about Mrs. Carmody and when I said that
lady had the greatest possible admiration for Gringoire and even had
some of his verses by heart she expressed amused relief. “For,” said
she, “there are going to be great storms and dinner won’t be ready till
ten.”
It wasn’t.
For, you understand, in the sometimes tranquil, sometimes tempestuous
but always complex nature of my friend, the pride of authorship had
for the moment come uppermost and he was determined to get _his_ prose
into his compiler’s volume. But of late he had only written in French
as he has told you. So he would come to the window and shout to me
the question whether he would be allowed to insert his French prose.
Without waiting for me to answer his question he would shout: “No, of
course you won’t!” and disappear. Then he would shout:
“But I can’t translate my own damned stuff. In heaven’s name what’s the
English for ... The beastly colloquial English....”
Towards seven, just when I was thinking that I must go and tidy myself
for the approach of Mrs. Carmody, he appeared before me, dishevelled
and with a mess of written papers dangling from his hands.
“Here, you,” he exclaimed, “get your reporter’s notebook and come with
me!”
And, at the bottom of the garden, under the hedge beneath the damson
trees he made me lie down in the grass which was there long and began
to dictate to me. He couldn’t, as he said, translate his own French
prose because his own French was near his heart and his English much
less. You might say that his passions were for English countrysides
and for French prose and here the two met to his confusion. Perhaps it
is impossible to interpret French prose in the long grass beneath an
English quickset hedge.
In any case Gringoire was distracted as he dictated and I was
distracted, using a shorthand that I almost never employ to take
down his words that he whispered or shouted or intermingled with
ejaculations that I was not intended to record.... And I was the more
distracted because at the top of the garden I could see Mrs. Carmody
and Madame Sélysette carrying implements and provisions for the dinner
from the house door to the little platform beneath the enormous oak
that overshadowed the spring. Those gay young things laughed over their
burdens--for Mrs. Carmody, out of her School House, was at least as gay
as Madame Sélysette. And every time that they laughed Gringoire, lying
in the long grass, groaned and writhed with the whole of his immense
length. I have relegated his French, for which he gave me the copy from
some Swiss magazine, to an appendix. I can only hope that his French is
better than his English version of it. But as to that I am no judge. I
only wish that he had not insisted on my presenting an untidy book to
the world, for in common, I believe, with most readers, I much dislike
appendices. For when on a bookstall I see a book and, examining it,
find appendices at the end, I think either that that is a learned work
for which I am seldom in the mood, having studies enough of my own to
pursue, or that the author is an untidy-minded fellow who has not given
himself the pains to digest and put into his own phraseology matter
that will almost certainly be tedious to read.
But in this case I have no alternative. The rages of Gringoire are
things that I have no mind to face. Print his lucubrations I must or
there would be the devil to pay. I am not certain that there won’t be
at least a minor fiend to propitiate as it is--I mean when Gringoire
comes to look for his prose and finds it at the end of the volume.
There certainly was a tremendous row when he discovered that he had
kept the ladies waiting. He howled with rage, sprang to his feet,
rushed into his cookhouse....
And the first view that Mrs. Carmody had of a poet for whom, as you
shall discover, she had a real veneration, was rushing along the face
of the house towards the dinner-table beneath the oak. He was hatless,
coatless, his shirt-collar was widely unbuttoned and he was bearing a
huge tray covered with little saucersful of the piquant messes that he
calls _hors d’œuvres_.
We dined.
I am, alas, no Brillat Savarin and Gringoire as cook is to say the
least inarticulate. When he is not that he is profane. We had his
_hors d’œuvres_. Then we had his curried lobster. What shall I say
about his curry?
Do you know the sensation of suddenly leaving the level and swooping
downwards on the little railways you get at Exhibitions or in
fairgrounds? It is like that. You take your first forkful of one of
Gringoire’s inventions with misgivings mingled with anticipations. Then
you are reassured. You say:
“This is at least supportable. I shall survive this.”
You take a sip of his white wine. After that it flies.
But you can’t _believe_ in Gringoire as cook.... I sometimes wonder
if even he believes in himself. I mean, I asked him the other day for
the recipe for his curry, just as, at the beginning of this book, as I
have reported, I tried to extract from him his directions for household
management. The results were even more inarticulate. He said:
“Oh, you take any old thing--tinned lobster, bully beef, cold
mutton.... And of course you fry ... But curry powder is good for
any dish.... Because of the garlic in it.... And which curry are you
talking about? There are hundreds. The only thing that unites them is
that the curry must be cooked. Don’t you understand? The curry--the
powder--itself must be cooked. For hours and hours. Do you see? No,
you don’t see. How can I remember what I put into the curry for your
friend? Any old thing....”
I know he hadn’t put in any old thing, though it is probably true that
the chief ingredient of his dish is his fine frenzy. But I remember the
energy he had put into securing the fresh lobsters for that particular
effort--and the special brand of French preserved oysters that he
had had to have for his beefsteak, kidney and oyster pudding which
on that menu followed the curry. The boy had been sent on a bicycle
in one direction, Madame Sélysette and I in the dogcart to Ulpeston,
he himself had borrowed a lift in the baker’s cart and gone to
Storrinton.... No, surely, not any old thing--though he surely believed
what he said....
At any rate towards eleven we were contented and he, appeased, sat back
in his chair and talked about poultry foods to Mrs. Carmody, that being
the first time that he had paid her any attention.
The great boughs of the oak in which there now hung three Chinese
lanthorns--Madame Sélysette loves Chinese lanthorns--the great boughs
of the oak towered quietly up towards the planets, great white moths
appearing and disappearing again into the blackness around the glow
of the lanthorns. The Dog-star hung low on the horizon before us and
the owls called at ten-yard intervals as they flew along the little
stream in the meadow. When they were silent the night-jar churned
intermittently. When we too were silent the little tinkle of the stream
from the spring made itself heard.
I think that Mrs. Carmody did not much want to talk about poultry
though her white Leghorns had taken many prizes at County or even more
important shows. I think she let the conversation drag purposely. For
suddenly, when we had all been pensive for a minute or two, her voice
said from the shadows:
“‘I should like to imagine a night...!’”
Gringoire exclaimed sharply:
“What? What’s that? Don’t!”
But Mrs. Carmody said defiantly:
“I will. Just to pay you.... To show you....” And she began again:
“‘I should like to imagine
A moonlight in which there would be no machine guns!
For it is possible
To come out of a trench or a hut or a tent or a church all in ruins;
To see the black perspective of long avenues
All silent;
The white strips of sky
At the sides, cut by the poplar trunks;
The white strips of sky
Above, diminishing--
The silence and blackness of the avenue
Enclosed by immensities of space
Spreading away
Over No Man’s Land....
For a minute ...
For ten....
There will be no star-shells
But the light of the untroubled stars;
There will be no Verey light,
But the light of the quiet moon
Like a swan.
And silence!...’”
The moon was at that moment just tipping over the ridge of trees before
us. Mrs. Carmody hesitated.
“‘Then ... a long way ...’”
The voice of Madame Sélysette said slowly:
“‘Then far away to the right ...’”
Mrs. Carmody said: “Thank you!” and continued:
“‘Then far away to the right thro’ the moonbeams
_Wukka Wukka_ will go the machine guns,
And, far away to the left
_Wukka Wukka_
And sharply
_Wuk_ ... _Wuk_ ... and then silence
For a space in the clear of the moon.’”
The impassive face of Gringoire that the moonlight just showed worked
suddenly, the mouth just moving--oh, rather like a rabbit munching. He
said:
“I wrote that in Nieppe in September ’sixteen....” He added:
“And it’s pleasant ... you two remembering....”
He reached out his right hand and took Mrs. Carmody’s left, and his
left and took Madame Sélysette’s right.
“‘Rest,’” he said with his heavy tired voice, “‘after toil, port after
stormy seas ...’” He paused and added after a moment: “‘Do greatly
please!’”
[Footnotes]
[13] Gringoire particularly asks me to style this chapter as above
because the Eminent Reformer, mentioned in Part I, Chapter VI, once
said that the Writing on the Wall at Belshazzar’s Feast was the first
recorded instance of a Kinematographic production. It seems stupid: but
our friend insists. He also asks me to say that Mme. Prudent’s name was
really _Dutoit_.
[14] It should be remembered that the military description of “tactics”
is the direction of troops when in contact with the enemy. “Strategy”
includes the direction of all movements that take place outside the
immediate firing line. The conversion of neutral nations into allies
or the cementing of bonds between allies by literary manifestations is
specifically and according to the textbooks a branch of strategy, so
that Gringoire is using the correct military word.
[15] As far as the compiler has been able to discover, the poet’s
only ground for this diatribe is a review that his last volume of
poems received from the ---- Literary Supplement. In this the reviewer
devotes one line to saying that the volume of poems is the best that
was published during the war and the rest to personal abuse of our
friend--and that is all. Our friend says that this is not cricket. It
probably is not; but one should never say so.
[16] _Note by Gringoire._ I do not know why I am haunted by the
remembrance of this man. He was killed by the direct hit of a shell.
When I last saw him, he was reading a paper with the spectacles at
the end of his nose like the caretaker at Albert. His tunic--with ten
ribbons!--was open over his fat stomach, and he wore carpet slippers.
He was as brave as a lion and as simple as a sheep: no soul then alive
knew his job better. He was a butcher of Stratford-on-Avon. If he have
left a young son, may the shade of the Divine William guide that young
son’s footsteps gently and humorously through the ways of life!
ENVOI
UNE PARTIE DE CRICKET
BEING A LETTER WRITTEN FROM THE LINES OF SUPPORT
TO CAPITAINE UN TEL AT PARIS.
Mon cher Monsieur, Camarade et Confrère,
C’était derrière le bois de Bécourt, un soir de juillet, et nous étions
en train de jouer au cricket tandis que les obus allemands passaient
au-dessus de nos têtes. Les obus allemands arrivaient, semblant vouloir
crier le mot anglais _weary_,--qui veut dire fatigué,--puis changeant
d’avis, ils disaient--et péremptoirement--_whack_. Mais en jouant au
cricket, on oublie l’orchestre boche: on n’entend plus les obus qui
passent. Nous courions; nous adressions des objurgations au malheureux
qui n’attrapait pas la balle; nous discutions même, parce que les
règles du jeu de cricket--qu’on joue avec une balle de tennis, deux
marteaux et deux caisses de _bully-beef_--sont un peu élastiques. La
pelouse est d’argile, dure et cuite par le soleil presque tropical; en
fait d’herbe nous n’avons que des chardons, pour spectateurs et pour
barrières à la fois, les mulets de transport, alignés. Mais jamais
le cricket international qu’on joue sur le terrain des Lords, dans
le bois de Saint-Jean, n’a été si accidenté ni si émouvant que notre
partie de cricket derrière le bois de Bécourt, ce soir de juillet. Nous
avons crié, gesticulé, discuté, hurlé ... nous, les officiers anglais,
mornes, taciturnes!
Je vous présente ces considérations en forme de lettre, mon cher ...
j’aurais voulu plutôt écrire un essai, soigné, balancé, bien pensant.
Mais il m’est impossible de ciseler de la prose ces jours-ci. “Que
voulez-vous,”--comme disent nos Tommies,--“c’est la guerre!” J’ai passé
vingt-cinq ans à chercher des cadences, à chasser des assonances, avec
une rage acharnée, comme celle du bon père Flaubert. Mais aujourd’hui
je n’écris que des lettres,--longues, diffuses, banales. L’autre
affaire demande trop de temps, de loisir,--de chance!
Donc, nous étions en train de jouer au cricket, quand je vis passer
tout près de nous un officier français de ma connaissance,--officier
d’une de ces batteries de 75, admirables, et que, la nuit surtout,
nous avons trouvées tellement réconfortantes, à cause de leur voix
qui roulait sans cesse, à peu de mètres derrière notre dos. C’était
un colosse gris-bleu, aux yeux bruns et sombres, à la moustache brune
et lourde. Il restait là, campé sur ses jambes et sur sa canne, comme
quelque instrument de guerre à trois jambes, silencieux et d’acier. Et
quand je m’approchai de lui, il me dit:
--_I find that a little shocking. Very shocking!_ (Je trouve ça un peu
shocking. Même très shocking.)
Il regardait les joueurs de cricket qui continuaient à crier, à
gesticuler et à courir entre les chardons gigantesques et les jambes
des mulets dangereux. Je m’écriai:
--Au nom du bon Dieu, pourquoi?
Il ne cessait pas de regarder les joueurs, et réfléchit longtemps avant
de répondre. Et ce fut moi qui, m’impatientant, commençai à parler, et
même à gesticuler. Je disais que nous étions nouvellement sortis des
tranchées; que le jeu donnait la santé, remettait le moral, faisait
oublier la guerre ... que sais-je? Il réfléchissait toujours, et moi je
parlais toujours. Puis enfin, il dit:
--_I find that this war should be a religion. On coming out the
trenches one should sit--and reflect. Perhaps one should pray_ ...
(Je trouve que cette guerre devrait être conduite en religion. En
sortant des tranchées l’on devrait s’asseoir--et réfléchir. Peut-être
devrait-on prier.)
Et puis ... je parlai encore longuement sans qu’il répondît autre chose
que:
--_I find that, all the same._
Alors j’éclatai de rire. Car la situation me semblait tout d’un coup
allégorique. Et si vous y pensez, mon cher, vous verrez pourquoi je
riais. C’est parce que c’était lui, le représentant de Cyrano de
Bergerac, qui parlait l’anglais et employait les monosyllabes d’un
lord Kitchener de théâtre; tandis que moi, le représentant de tant de
milords et officiers qui pendant tant de siècles n’ont rien trouvé
de plus à dire que les deux syllabes “O ... ah”,--moi, qui aurais dû
porter monocle et favoris jaunes, j’étais occupé à hurler et à mimer
des phrases d’un français assez incohérent, comme un vrai Tartarin. Et
tous les autres--officiers et O. R.--de mon régiment continuaient à
sauter, à crier et à rire comme des enfants méridionaux.
* * * * *
Et, en vérité, le changement est étonnant et quelque peu émouvant.
Nous avons toujours eu l’idée--tout le monde, même le Français a eu
l’idée--que le peuple français, et surtout les officiers et soldats
français étaient gais, débonnaires, loquaces, goguenards,--“bretteurs
et hâbleurs sans vergogne.” Eh bien, j’ai voyagé en permission de
Steenewerck à Paris,--voyage qui dura dix-sept heures. Et, pendant
ces dix-sept heures, quoiqu’il y eût toujours des officiers français
assis dans les voitures, ou debout dans les couloirs du train, le
voyage a été le plus silencieux que j’aie fait de ma vie. Personne ne
parlait. Mais personne! Il y avait des colonels, des commandants, des
capitaines. Et je ne puis croire que ce fût tout à fait de ma faute.
Il est vrai que, partout dans le train, on lisait: “Taisez-vous;
méfiez-vous”,--et le reste. Mais c’eût été impossible que _tous_ ces
messieurs gris-bleus m’eussent attribué les oreilles ennemies dont
parle l’affiche. Je portais l’uniforme khaki.
Non, certainement, le voyage n’a pas été accidenté. Je vais vous en
raconter les incidents: de Hazebrouck à Calais cinq officiers français,
qui n’échangèrent pas deux mots; de Calais à Abbeville, trente
officiers. Je m’adressai à un capitaine d’artillerie, en grognant que
le train marchait très lentement. Il me répondit en anglais:
--_Many troops moving!_
Et puis, silence!
A Amiens entre un monsieur en civil. C’était un samedi vers huit
heures du matin, et le train avait l’air de ne vouloir arriver à Paris
qu’après trois heures de l’après-midi. Comme j’avais des affaires à
Paris et que je devais partir le lundi avant six heures, je demandai à
ce monsieur si je trouverais les banques fermées, et les ministères, et
les magasins. Il me répondit qu’il n’en savait rien, qu’il n’était pas
chez lui à Paris. Il allait à Jersey pour prendre possession du corps
d’une jeune fille qui, ayant été noyée à Dieppe, avait flotté jusqu’à
Jersey. _Et lui aussi me répondit en anglais._
Il commençait à pleurer tout doucement.
Et puis ... silence; les officiers regardaient ce monsieur avec des
yeux qui ne disaient rien. Mais ce n’était pas gai!
A Creil montent deux dames, jolies et bien mises. Elles ont assez
parlé, ces deux-là. Croix-Rouge, œuvres de charité, colonels, familles!
Mais les officiers ne les regardaient jamais. Pas un ne levait les
yeux, quoiqu’elles fussent jeunes, jolies, bien mises....
Tandis que, pendant le trajet de Rouen à Albert, nous autres--qui
n’allions pas en permission!--nous avons chanté, parlé aux demoiselles
qu’on voyait sur les perrons; joué au football le long du train; grimpé
sur le toit des voitures.