And then, what pulled me up short was the thought of the old man, who must have heard me go out, who was alarmed no doubt already, whose life hung upon my return. Then I sat down. Ceasing to hypnotise myself by gazing at the torrent eating away the bank at my feet, my eyes strayed to the horizon. By a stretch of the imagination it seemed to me that I dominated the field where my individual happiness had been shattered.
The War! Had I not come—I remember the day before—to deify the word! Yes, it was a progressive spell. The War! While childishly attributing the rejuvenation of my soul to it, I had ended by seeing in it the fairy who was cruel to be kind. So many thinkers and poets had bowed down to this terrible goddess, before me.
My aberration fell to pieces. The War! The abominations which were really contained in this term rose up and quelled me.
Those villages, blazing like torches. The Meuse rolling by with its purple slime; the woods of Montrolles with their grasses stained with mottled patches violet, the traces of our brothers massacred there. O death, sole enemy of man, sneering at the orgies of the sword! So many beings who moved and loved, struck off the rolls, so many lights put out! De Valpic,the great-hearted, and Henriot and little Frémont; my excellent Bouillon, Prunelle, Icard; Descroix and Playoust, too, all or almost all, without discrimination—a crowd of friends and companions, now grimacing underground. And the anonymous multitude, those foul masses of corpses whose odour had pursued us all through our fighting from end to end. All that, oh! merely a prologue! As if it was enough that a million young men should be sacrificed. To death, to death with their elders, the fellows from thirty to forty. The trench fighting instituted, which would last how long, O God! The sons of the hostile races, face to face in their burrows, spitting murder and hatred at each other, tracing with their blood the baleful line of fire. Frenzy gaining the two fronts little by little, the zones of slaughter being displaced and stretched out, others being made. Where would the conflagration end? A craze for butchery sweeping through the world. Would there be an acre in Europe, to-morrow, which had not seen human remains decaying beneath the beaks of carrion crows, or which did not contain them in its depths, infecting the sources of their poisoned juices?
Ah! when the awakening came at last, and the diplomats, old vultures, were collected round the council-board to talk, they might congratulate themselves as they audited the balance sheet. Broken up, ground and crushed, these two, three, four generations of men who might have been great, and collaborated in the common cause. So many wounded who would soon succumb, wan wrecks, and so many others who, like myself, would only drag out the shadow of an existence. And all the rest! The ravaged homes, the wives abandoned to the terrors of their widowhood,the old parents dying with curses on their lips, the children delivered over without guidance to life's buffetings, the surplus girls especially, deprived of their natural associates, devoted to the sorrows of debauchery. With many of those who came back safely, the mind at least would be affected, their faith in work sapped, their brutal instincts let loose, and their desire for immediate enjoyment aroused. The public wealth destroyed, want bringing revolt in its train, the emasculated nations incapable of recovering, or even of governing themselves. The snare of revolutions, of frightful social convulsions. What could one depend upon henceforth? There would be no law or rule of any sort. The religions, Art, Science, all these would be humiliated before Force. The Ideal broken and trampled underfoot. An infected breath tainting the sacred legacies of the past. The genius of destruction hovering over a civilisation in ruins. That was what War meant!
A monstrous survival of primitive errors. How I abhorred them all of a sudden, the politics and morals which revere this scourge of God.
As to war raising the hearts of individuals and nations, alas, who could answer for it? For one soul purified, how many others would be vilified! And, above all, how terrible was the remedy, a thousand times worse than the complaint.
War might be necessary, and it was in this case, for the defence of our native land. Then it might give birth to the most noble effervescence. Then in its radiance virtues might thrive like plants beneath a tropical sun. But it remained no less the supreme calamity; the triumph of the powers of Death.
Care must be taken not to magnify it, not to flatterthe fluctuating mind of the nations with bellicose dreams. We must needs greet a like catastrophe with a fiercely hostile heart, abhor it, blaspheme against it, we miserable creatures, who had but one life to live, one brief chance of being happy.
CHAPTER V
A GIRL OF 1915
Mysister has rejoined us at Vichy with her children. We are to leave together for the South. The idea no longer holds any attraction for me, everything draws me in the opposite direction. But I cannot give my reasons. I pretend to be waiting for the delivery of my order from the American firm, not to want to move before it has arrived. Very well! The excuse serves for a few days. But now the limb is delivered. Ten times preferable to the other, light and strong at the same time. This knee that bends is a marvel! Though it matters little enough to me now, it is true.
How am I to withstand the family urgency now? In vain I argue that I am still weak. They all persist in extolling the advantage to be derived from a change of air. And then the tickets have been taken and our rooms engaged at Cannes in one of the only hotels not transformed into hospitals. I gain a week more. Here is Christmas, and the New Year's Day, so many All Souls' Days! Oh well, I shall have to give in.
A palace on the Antibes road; a park with luxuriant palms; a far-reaching view over the turquoise-coloured sea. Very few people—a diminished staff; war prices; besides, my father is making us a present of this holiday.
My sister-in-law at once makes inquiries about less pretentious quarters, where we may end the winter. Getting wind of this project, I hasten to remonstrate. She is surprised; what's the matter? Do I no longer like this part? Didn't I choose it myself? I admit that I have changed my mind—a convalescent's weak nerves—that I dream of less well-known neighbourhoods, Corsica or the Morocco coast.
It is quite true: I burn to escape from all that oppresses me on this coast. I avoid letting my eyes rest upon the headland of La Croisette. I can picture, too vividly, the bay behind it with its silver slopes, the Cape d'Antibes stretching out into the sea, with the white lighthouse at La Groupe, and, facing towards us amid the tangled mass of verdure, that dwelling so often described to me.
These associations overwhelm me. Be still, my heart, be still! This is the sun which warms her, these are the waves whose murmur lulls her to sleep, the air which quickens her. I cannot breath here!
My people, who enjoy being at Cannes, give way to my express wish: we are to leave again.
To-morrow will be our last day here. I am seated on the promenade. Where are the luxurious cars with their insolent footmen? Where are the dandies in white flannel, the fair pedestrians in toilettes fit for a queen? The patrons of the Riviera, this year, are those poor soldiers in faded uniforms.
I find myself near the place where the sea-gulls used, formerly, to whirl, catching in their flight the scraps which little girls threw to them. They have deserted the shore. They are playing together in the distance, skimming the gleaming surface of the waves.
I am waiting for Madeleine and my small nephew and niece. Here they come—she with her long veil. The passers-by think, as they meet her, of their losses of yesterday and to-morrow.
"A letter for you, Michel."
"Thanks."
I take it nonchalantly. Where is the news, to-day, with any power to stir me?
But the envelope torn the blood throbs in my temples! I can't believe....
It is from Madame Landry!
She writes that she has just seen my name in theJournal des Étrangers(so it still appears?). We were expected here. She and her grand-daughter would be delighted if I would go to see them, delighted, too, if my family would accompany me. She proposed a day, the day after to-morrow.
I don't know where I am. My hand tightens on the letter. Jeannine has taken care not to add a word. My heart swells with bitterness. But why this proceeding?
I shall not go! I cannot go!
Oh, my sister, the only friend left to me, why did I feel a longing to confide in someone, at the sight of your sweet melancholy? I began by joking:
"Halloa, an invitation!"
You searchingly fixed your eyes, full of affection on me.
Drawing a quadrant in the sand with the end of my stick, in a toneless voice, which I force myself to render frivolous, I have told Madeleine this story. But by some subtle feeling of bashfulness, I have not made myself out as ingenuous—I should have blushed for it—as I was. I have told her that directly I saw I had been damaged I had ceased to indulge in a hope grown fond. Our continued correspondence had been a consolation prize. Then when she had tired even of this game I lost interest in it too.
Madeleine has said to me, in her calm voice:
"It seems to me that nothing is lost."
I have protested.
"I shan't go!"
"You must go."
"What's the use?"
"Who can read in another's heart?" she murmured.
And she confides in me that on the day when Victor had asked for her hand in marriage, her mother had sent for her to consult her, as was seemly. And she, who loved him—and how she loved her young, intrepid soldier! This union was her one wish—she began to sob, stammering "No," amid her tears. They were unfathomable creatures, certainly!
But I smiled at my misery, and at this senseless renewal of intercourse.
Why have I obeyed her? Why have I got into this train alone? She would come next time, she assured me prettily. The rear carriage without a top races along, raising clouds of white dust. I catch frequent glimpses of the radiant stretch of water. Here is the Juan Vallauris Gulf. Now we are skirting the edges of the coast, the pearly foam frolicking almost at our feet on the pale strand.
I force myself to think of nothing. That would be best. I come to grief over it, and my thoughts are torture. Why am I going there? Out of cowardice? Or else is it a remnant of hope? No! We'll dismissthat idea! Rather, I think, in order to prove to myself that I am not afraid to suffer.
I stiffen myself. I will be correct and cold. Cold, poor wretch! Just now my tears welled up at the sight of the sunlit road where there might some day have gambolled lovely children, born to us.
I have got out, and have slowly traversed the deserted village, and rounded the tall pine-wood. My footsteps sink into the earth—an inconvenience shared by everyone. My jointed leg flexes at the difficulties in the ground, and does not call attention to my drawback. I just seem tired by my walk.
I have forbidden myself to think, to procrastinate, or to hesitate, or I should not have got as far as this threshold. Just as well, since I am embarked on this fantastic adventure. No backing out of it! For a soldier!
There it is. I recognise the gates, overhung with ivy, from the description they gave me. Here it is! I ring, with wonderful, unexpected calmness. My heart has stopped beating quickly, since my fate is sealed.
The sound of footsteps. Is it she? No, the maid coming to open the gate to me. Was I expected as early as this?
A short and fairly steep pathway brings us to the flight of steps leading up to the villa. No one at the windows—luckily! As a matter of fact, my careless carriage cloaks my lameness.
I have been taken into the drawing-room, and the maid has gone to tell—A prettily furnished room, unobtrusively luxurious, and smacking of the oldbourgeoisie, of matured and refined taste. Old furniture—flowers in modern vases. I go up to atable with photographs standing on it. Here is, or, rather, are hers. This one dates back to two years ago. She seems a child, with her hair down her back Thus it was that she entered upon life.
I am struck by a pastel on the wall—a gracious portrait of a young woman. That resemblance—Her mother, no doubt; her mother, who had died when she was twenty-four.
A door opens. It is Madame Landry, as slim and sprightly as ever, in her dark gown, but she has a tired expression, it is true. Is she still an invalid? She denies it, in a few disconnected sentences, and seems even more perturbed than I am.
"Jeannine is just coming down," she says.
I ask: "How is she? Quite fit?"
"Very."
Then, recovering herself:
"I've been annoyed—with her."
But here is Jeannine herself.
I admire my self-control, for I get up and go towards her. There is nothing constrained in my gait; I hardly drag my leg. Dazzled, and yet at the same time clear-sighted, I look at her with a prejudiced eye. I do not think her as lovely as she was.
I have bowed and pressed her hand; a commonplace greeting has been exchanged. The little brother has already appeared, and is deafening me with a crowd of questions which I answer good-naturedly. How easily it passes, this moment, which I had dreaded so much. We might be back at Ballaigues: the tone of courtesy and irony—and of indifference—recovered.
A strange hour. The conversation does not flag. Mention is made of my family, whose regrets I am supposed to have brought. Then I plunge into praiseof this heaven-blest country where they pass each winter. The grandmother interrupts me. This season is the last they will spend here.
"Really?"
Jeannine changes the subject.
The conversation, having wavered, naturally returns to the War. When will it end? In the spring? Yes, after the Big Push! We return to the first weeks. They ply me with questions. What have I seen? At first, I decline to be drawn out. They insist—I let myself go. They listen, and ask for details. Here is the perfect audience, interested and impassioned. Even technical details do not repel them, this sister and this daughter of soldiers, who have been staking out the maps with little flags; they, too.
I question them in my turn. It pleased me to hear them describing Paris' proud bearing at the time of our reverses. They have a right to speak of it, as they live there. When I mention our meeting with the two young Red Cross members at Rosny——
"It might have been me," says Jeannine. "I was at St. Denis that morning."
Heavens! I do not know what I had feared or desired. I become expansive. My mind is set at ease. What, is that Jeannine, who is listening to me, leaning her chin in her hand? Is it her pure, pensive gaze which mine meets without embarrassment?
And the grandmother is standing up. In the most natural tone in the world, she asks her grand-daughter to show me round the garden.
Jeannine hesitates, and looks at her. I wonder, at this moment, if Madame Landry has ever heard of our letters, if she sees the tragic undercurrents to this frivolous scene which is being enacted.
Jeannine is still considering. Is she afraid that the walk may tire me? I get up, and reassure her in advance. She blushes. The grandmother apologises for not accompanying us—the doctor forbids it.
So I call little André—I only forestall Jeannine—that there may be a third in the party.
The child jumps down the steps. I walk down gingerly, holding on to the rail; Jeannine, with her usual tact, more slowly still.
This garden is more like a park. Trees of twenty species meet here, mingled in a medley, with the luxuriance of primeval forests—palms, maples, and olives; and I am made to guess the name of magnolias and mastic trees. I admire the tangles of lichens and aloes and the "mimosa alley," running between two hedges of gold.
How sad and exquisitely sweet this loitering is. Our futile topics lend it a melancholy charm. I should like to be able to detain the fleeting moments. We are going up to the house again. I am going away—and I shall never come back.
"I don't like our garden any more," Jeannine suddenly declared. "I've not been down into it three times since we got there."
"Why not?"
"It doesn't belong to us now. The villa is sold."
"An accomplished fact?"
"Yes, with everything belonging to it. To some Americans, from the first of February."
This astonishes me:
"As soon as that?"
"We had to."
"Where are you going to spend the rest of the winter then?"
"We shall have to go back to Paris."
André seems bored by our pace, which is not lively enough for him. He outstrips us, comes back to fetch us, and covers twice the distance we do.
"I am sure he's dying to show me his playground."
"Probably," Jeannine acquiesced.
We reach a lawn. Here is a piece of ground which has been dug up, and a chalked line.
"How far can you jump now, André?"
"More than four yards," he exclaims.
He leaves his straw hat in our care, goes off to get room, takes a run, and jumps; and immediately turns round, triumphant, the four yards cleared.
"Bravo! You are getting on."
"Oh, it'll be a long time before I can jump like you."
He stops short, biting his lip. Too late. We all three redden, and recall that summer's day when, in compliance with a request from Jeannine, I had taken off my coat, and jumped nearly five yards on the sand. To-day? Alas, to-day!
Jeannine points out the croquet lawn to me, in passing.
"And what about tennis?"
"We've given up playing."
I begin to feel slightly tired. Jeannine, who suspects it, slackens her speed again, gracefully and unaffectedly. But it is heart-breaking for me—I who have such a vivid recollection of the rhythm of her usual pace. And had I not seen her at Ballaigues, challenging her brother to race with her, and beating him with ease?
The round is finished. We are going in. André proposes:
"Suppose we take Mr. Dreher to the Observatory?"
"Just what I meant to do," she says. "We'll have a rest—I'm worn out."
Is she putting it on, to make me forget my fatigue, or is she really tired out? Her rosy colour has certainly paled very suddenly. Her pure face is troubled, like limpid water which has been agitated.
Mounting some steps, we gain a shady retreat, bordering on and overlooking the road. A parasol, three chairs, a seat, an iron railing.
Jeannine has dropped into a chair. I have seated myself beside her. Our eyes roam over the stretch of country in front of us.
The short January afternoon is already drawing to a close. The sun is sinking behind the islands, which look like deep-sea monsters, with purple scales. The West is bathed in a luminous pallor, even the tracery of the Estérel is hardly discernible out yonder.
At the bottom of the orange bay, there lie white houses with red roofs and blazing windows, flaming as if the darkness were not near at hand. And that is the way of my destiny. The last moment of radiance, on the threshold of the eternal night!
Jeannine is still silent. André chatters, and I am glad of it, and keep him up to it. I profess an interest in the hairy cactus creeping along the wall. I ask him the names of certain plants, and pretend to get muddled in order to make him laugh.
Is it I who am talking and joking, I, who smile? There is another desperate I, coiled up at the centre of my being.
A tinkle. The door-bell. André peeps between the branches.
"I bet it's Maurice!"
I mechanically ask: "Who's Maurice?"
"A little neighbour," Jeannine replies.
"Yes, that's him all right."
The child bounds down the steps and leaves us alone. How awkward! Just the very thing which should have been avoided. I try to fill up the silence with a commonplace remark—Good God! This moment oftête-à-tête, for which my whole being longed in desperation in the hours of Death!
André's voice makes itself heard. He comes running back.
"I say, Jeannine, he wants to know if I may go and play with him."
I hardly listen to the reply. Turning away, I contemplate the violet crest of the Estérel, which has just revealed itself in the gloaming so boldly that it might be taken for the outline of a cloud.
One would almost say that Jeannine was hesitating. I listen, in spite of myself, for the words that will fall from her lips—I know she will recall her brother. The child is too useful here.
But, no; she says nothing. And now the little fellow begins again:
"May I, Jeannine? May I?"
That colourless voice, changed and dejected.
"Very well, run along," Jeannine has said.
The boy makes her repeat it:
"I may go?"
"Yes—yes."
His footsteps fly along the gravel.
A deep chord vibrates within me.
A trifling incident, and yet—of infinite import. Jeannine sending her brother away. Jeannine in favour of our being alone together.
The sea glitters in the west. Elsewhere it borrows vermilion and wine-coloured reflections from the conflict of sun and shade.
I consider Jeannine, her heaving bosom, her quivering eyelashes—and her hand, her adorable child's hand, lying on the rail, hypnotises me.
I am dreaming—I no longer recognise myself; with my leg stretched out and relaxed, I dream that I am like others—a man, young and impassioned; and this girl, pale and tender, the promised creature.
Then I say:
"Our letters—were delightful."
Jeannine does not answer, but her hand contracts convulsively. I dare everything. I dare to stretch out towards it my man's hand, big and strong. I seize it, limp and warm.
"Do you remember Le Suchet? That sunrise on the Alps."
She turns round and looks into my eyes. The dear, tormented face—I would give the world to banish even the shadow of a grief from it.
"Michel——"
She breaks off.
"Michel, have you something to say to me?"
Her gaze puts me to confusion. I bend down and kiss her fingers; then, I find nothing to say to her, but this:
"Shake hands, Jeannine."
A feverish pressure, in which our souls, too, hold each other first.
"Are we agreed?"
She answers: "Yes."
The tone of her voice is no longer veiled. I gaze on her. The suffering has suddenly vanished from hereyes. All the brilliance has returned to her complexion, just as it has to her glance. Again, the expression of which I had kept such a delightful recollection, Youth smiling at Happiness.
Am I not assisting at a like transformation in myself? I, too, with eyes re-opened, and heart illuminated and revived. All hail to the life of light.
"But, Jeannine," I ask her, at once, the past anguish throttling me again, "why have you made me suffer so much?"
"It was you," she murmurs. "Why did you stop writing to me?"
"Your last letter was so cold. You never came—there."
"I understood that you would rather we did not see you till you were—quite cured."
"An argument which I cannot refute. It's true—I did prefer that."
"And then—" She lowers her voice. "There was that other matter——"
"What matter?"
"Which I mentioned to you."
I do not understand. She continues in a more assured tone:
"Well, we're ruined. We must sell everything. We don't even know if that will be enough. Grandmother has had no luck. All her interests are in the North. She is most dreadfully unhappy about it."
So this was the reason. I am astounded, and stirred to the depths of my being. I hardly dare believe—I smile:
"Really! There really was nothing but that?"
"I got it into my head," she says. "I wanted toput you to the proof. You never answered me on that point."
Nothing but this scruple. It was she who thought she had lost value!
"All the same," she continues, sighing as if she had been pulled out of a fathomless abyss, "if Grandmother had not been determined—that there should be an explanation——"
I cannot prevent myself saying:
"I dreaded your grandmother."
"Why?"
"I was so much afraid she might put you off."
"But why?" Jeannine repeats.
Oh, that ingenuous tone. Oh, that clear gaze and pure forehead, behind which no mental reservations could revolve.
Her fresh voice in my ear is like a bell ringing in the days of joy. I could weep—I could go down upon my knees.
"You see," she says, gravely, "those of you who come back like this, you have so great a right to choose."
THE END
A Selection from the Catalogue ofG. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
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