I know now that I loved her from the first meeting of our eyes. I did not realize it then nor for many days after. The impulse that drew me to her was so imperious that I yielded completely to it, without power of pausing to put questions to myself.
*****
That night I was possessed of many conflicting emotions. I was an American again after years of exile, making contact with my own kind, accustoming my ear to old accents, familiar phrases, forgotten bits of slang, my heart warming with their exuberance, their youthful spirits. Even the drummer by my side at the table, nasal, rough and loquacious, was a type so comprehensible that I found myself beaming with grateful pleasure as he talked of “God’s country,” stretched for the hors d’oeuvres, and addressed his neighbor as “Sonny.”
Supper was a hasty, scrambling meal, with the portholes sealed. The crowd was oddly mixed, like a herd of refugees arrived from an inundation; a score of youngambulance men returning, the gray-blue of a few French officers, sailors and officers from torpedoed boats, crews of cattle boats, commercial travelers, and those endless rovers of the sea, dressmakers and journalists. The conversation, freed by the sense of the abnormal, rose about me without restriction.
“What are we stoppin’ down here for?”
“Moon’s coming up: waiting for it to cloud over.”
“Why that?”
“Clear moon’s what submarines like, lady. They can see us, and we can’t see them.”
“That’s how they got us, second night out of Genoa, just a ripple blowing, and full moon.”
“What were you in?”
“Three-master, carrying lumber—that we’d landed—return voyage. Well, I ain’t got no kick coming. We pulled off ten round trips, and the balance is on the right side.”
“Torpedoed?”
“Yep—and sunk in ten minutes.”
“Spry work getting into boats?”
“Sure was.”
“All off?”
“Most of us.”
“Where was your section?”
“We were up in the Vosges.”
“Know Harrity?”
“He was down in Verdun with us.”
“That was rather hot, wasn’t it?”
“Quite hot enough.”
“Shucks! I don’t believe there’s any danger,” said a voice.
“If they sank us, it would mean war, sure.”
“That is, if it could be proved: and what chance would there be of proving it, a night like this?”
“Guess that’s sense, too; besides, there’s always a chance at a mine.”
Joe Hungerford joined me as I left the table.
“Going to spend the night on deck?”
“It’s orders.”
A little moonlight had come filtering in between the decks, as the heavy moon rolled up over the horizon. A faint streak ran along the railing and touched the stanchions with the luster of fallen snow. In the shadows we could distinguish shapes stretched out on steamer chairs, while others arrived, trailing life preservers and rugs, with an occasional handbag.
“Quite a picnic.”
“Don’t like the children being around, Hungerford.”
“No, that’s not pleasant. If it weren’t for that, wouldn’t mind having a run in with a submarine. Hello—sounds like the anchor coming up.”
We mounted to the upper deck, under the open sky, with its opalescent tints and shifting clouds to the west. Red lights and green lights on ghostlike shadows dotted the stretch of foggy water. Ahead, from the last sentinel of the world underfoot, a shaft of light came whirling in broken iteration,—like a can of fire that a small boy whirls in the night. A group of sailors shuffled by. The shrill of a whistle, the thrum of engines, and ahead the whirling beacon crept around the bow and, returning, slid down amidships. The door shot out its feeble ray of light. A group from the smoking room crowded out to witness the running of the channel. Then, a sudden rise of voices.
“Well, bring on your submarines!”
“If they get us, I take my chances on deck.”
“You young fellows are mighty chipper; wait till you get shaken up once.”
“Well, you got away, didn’t you?”
“Gosh, with that light playing on us, anything ought to hit us.”
“Back to the good old U. S. A., boys!”
“Well, enough scenery! Let’s start up a game!”
There was a laugh, and the crowd shuffled back to the card room.
“Going to sit in, Littledale? It’s a good crowd.”
“Perhaps, later.”
I went below, bundled up my great-coat, fished out a couple of life preservers, and groped my way to my chair. She was there as I had placed her, but in the black of the deck I could not tell whether she was awake or asleep. I hesitated a moment and then, slipping in, made myself comfortable for the night.
Brinsmade at my right was struggling with a tinder which refused to light.
“Have abriquet,” said a voice.
“Thanks.”
The next moment the steel struck sparks and an odor of burning tobacco filled the air. Slight as had been the light it provoked remonstrances and down the deck the plaint of a woman was heard.
“I don’t see why they allow such a thing as that!”
“No lights!”
“Put it out!”
“Good many persons seem unduly excited about submarines,” said the voice of our neighbor, high-pitched, pleasing, if not resonant.
“Well—there’s always a risk.”
“Hardly. Germany doesn’t want us in the war.”
“Germany? Think so? From what I’ve seen of her, she doesn’t care what we think or any one else—except what she wants at the time.”
Our new acquaintance was silent a moment, as though unwilling to venture too rapidly forward.
“Well, thank God, we’re out of it!” he said, at last. “The election settled that. If it had gone the other way, there might be a little more excitement.”
“Pacifist?”
“Absolutely.”
There was a long silence, broken at last by a question.
“Been over long?”
“Three months.”
“In France?”
“Yes.”
“So—and you still come back with those ideas?” said Brinsmade’s bass voice, studiously polite but with a note of criticism.
“Does that mean you’d have us in the war?” said the other, in a tone which showed that he recognized the criticism and resented it. “To pull the chestnuts out of the fire for France and England?”
“Over on business?”
“No, I don’t desire peace to keep on making money,” answered the other, with a suavity which suggested a smile. “I am a journalist. Suppose I’d better warn you—a socialist; worse, still—the editor ofThe Protest.”
“The Protest?Yes, I read it,” said the other. “Then you are Peter Magnus?”
“Now you know the worst.”
“Glad to know you. Well, I’m rather on the other side. Stephen B. Brinsmade,—one of the unconvicted rich, I suppose you’d call us.”
“Really? And you readThe Protest?” said Magnus in surprise. “May I ask why?”
“Why I read it? Certainly; to know what the other side thinks.” He laughed, and continued with the good humor men of politics use as a cloak but which in his case was the complacency of success. “Honestly, I’m glad to meet you, Magnus, and I look forward to talkingthings over with you. That’s rather odd, for I suppose we’ll get to hating each other cordially. However, I’ll promise to keep my temper.”
“I don’t see why.”
“Well—that’s my experience. Men can meet in physical combat and, the struggling over, sit down over a friendly chop. They may fight each other with their wits; as lawyers, blackguard each other in public for the benefit of the unsuspecting jury, and retain a friendly liking; but when it comes to a combat of ideas, we seem to acquire a secret antipathy for the man who disagrees with us.”
“That’s because the conflict of ideas is the most fundamental and irrepressible of all conflicts,” said Magnus thoughtfully.
“Quite right.” Brinsmade drew on his pipe until the ashes reddened, outlining the fingers which screened it. Then he began to whistle, softly, to himself, drawing in his breath.
Outside, the lighthouse was sinking into the sea, while the whirling beams continued to blazon the sky like flashes of heat lightning. To the south a star swam out from the horizon, swelled and glittered, as a new lighthouse took up its warning. A rift of clouds spread over the risen moon, obscuring the crested ripples that had been following us. A patrol of sailors went heavily overhead, to the sound of a dragging rope, the creak of a pulley,—and through the hiss of cleft waters and the whistle of the wind the thud of powerful engines shook the decks.
“Feels like ‘Full Speed,’ Davy,” said Brinsmade. “Guess we’re clear.”
“Suppose we’re convoyed. Well, anyhow, it’s clouded over, and that’s a good thing. Hardly think there’s any danger,” said Magnus.
“Neither did our friends on theLusitania.” Brinsmade changed the subject to one which had evidently been in his mind. “So you’ve been over here in this hallowed land three months, and you come back with the same ideas you started with?”
“Only more so.”
“No offence. Most men I know have had their pre-conceived ideas pretty badly shaken up. That’s my own experience. Well—time enough to discuss all that. Only—I’ll say this. Whatever you may think of war, and I was a good deal of a pacifist, myself, to have been over here, to see what this old world is capable of in a crisis, gives me a better liking for my fellow man. I haven’t always had a very affectionate regard for him. But, by Jove, what I’ve seen of this people over here makes me respect myself a little more just as a plain human being!”
“You’re plumb right there, Mister, whoever you may be!” said a voice back of us, a voice with the nasal Yankee twang.
“It is glorious, I grant you,” said Magnus quietly.
“But useless?”
“Quite useless, because it accomplishes nothing toward a final solution; but, of course, where we differ, and, I suppose, in all arguments will come back to it, is that I don’t admit the necessity of nationality.”
“That’s frank, and glad you mentioned it,” said Brinsmade, with a certain joy. “For that is the one big thing that has come out of the war, and it’s bigger than creed or politics, Magnus. See what happened to your German Socialists! It’s the rock on which you’ve split!”
“For the present, quite true,” said Magnus, “but it’s the backbone of Socialism and, if we are not internationalists, we are not Socialists.”
“Why?”
“Well—put it this way. You’ll agree that war is savagery, and contrary to the spirit of civilization; in other words, that what we are all seeking is a final and enduring peace?”
“Two years ago I’d have agreed. Now, I’m not quite so sure I do believe that is possible in our vision. However, for the sake of argument, go on.”
“What is war? Competition. Competition of what? Of rival nationalities. Seeking what? Commercial aggrandizement—subjecting the many to benefit the few. America, Germany, England, France have been at war with each other commercially one hundred years. War is only a commercial ultimatum, when a commercial tariff is too slow. The trouble is, men are guided by their sentiments to think nationally, instead of by their logic to conceive of themselves as a world race.”
“You are a Jew, of course, Magnus?”
“I am.”
“And proud of the history of your race?”
“I am exceedingly proud.”
“And rightfully. It is a wonderful race. But if it had been guided by such theories as you now profess, it would have disappeared centuries ago, like a drop of ink in a barrel of water. Racial solidarity has been the immortality of you Jews, and sometimes—no offence, Magnus—I’m inclined to believe that the instinct that moves many of your brilliant race into Socialism is a contempt of mere national definitions which in your own world-solidarity have no meaning to you.”
“The Jewish race is not socialistic,” said Magnus, with a note of impatience.
“It is increasingly so, and most of its intellectuals are.”
“It was not a Jew, but William Lloyd Garrison, who said ‘Our Country is the world.’”
“A fair rejoinder in a debate, but we are not appealingto the applause of an audience, but, I take it, as two men holding diametrically opposite opinions, honestly seeking to find out what each believes.”
“All right,” said Magnus, evidently favorably influenced by the other’s good nature, for he answered more frankly. “It is possibly true that the Jewish race is most ready to embrace the principle of internationalism on account of its past history. I will grant that. But that does not affect the general proposition. Pacifism, which is good Christianity, is the first step to internationalism, and don’t forget that the most determined opponents of militarism are of a Christian sect,—your Quakers.”
“Two years ago,” said Brinsmade, carefully, “when I called myself a pacifist, I might have denied that. By pacifism then I meant opposition to war,—the belief in the possibility of universal disarmament and settlement of all difficulties by arbitration. But I never associated that with internationalism.”
“Am I not logical when I say that pacifism must be considered the first step to internationalism?” said Magnus. There was in his voice the persuasive gentleness of the born debater, who is confident of leading his opponent to the conclusion he seeks. “If you wish nations to renounce warring on each other by arms, isn’t it because we are coming to the point of view that we are all human beings on the same globe, artificially divided by national lines? And if it is abhorrent to you that one nation should murder another with gunpowder, isn’t it just as wrong to seek by commercial warfare to impoverish and reduce an inferior to a state of commercial slavery, a portion of the same human race?”
I sat up, listening with strong attention. Thoughts which had struggled for clarification in my own deliberate mind started up. Once or twice I had come nearbreaking in with a question, so close to my own problems had the debate come. Here were two men discussing theories that might apply in a thousand years, when the immediate problem was this present thing: what should a nation—my nation—do in this world crisis, for its greater good?
“Well, now, Magnus—there’s logic in what you say, and I’m the more ready to admit it in that I haven’t the slightest patience with what I used to believe.”
“What’s changed you?”
“France. Keeping my eyes open and seeing things as they are in this world, and not as I want them to be. Your internationalism is a political millennium, which will come just about as soon as the other millennium. I used to think that we were all pretty much alike, English, American, German, and French. I’ve found out we’re not. We’re not pursuing the same ideas. The English world has settled down to an easy-going existence, each man sufficient unto himself, occupied in his own private affairs, getting farther and farther away from his national ideal, looking on government as a convenient policeman, a central telephone, and all that. And then, there’s Germany—and the explanation of Germany is national solidarity—every man fitting into the national scheme, and every man working for the national aggrandizement. ‘Deutschland uber alles!’ We used to laugh at that. I don’t. It impresses me now. And it terrifies me.”
“Do you want to live under such a system?”
“I’ll come back to that. No, I don’t want to be subjected to that. That’s why I’m done with pacifism. Because the world’s up against not simply German armies but the German idea. And we may as well admit that it is the German idea that’s got to be destroyed or adopted: no two ways.”
“What does the man in the fields, or the man in the street, care about all that?” said Magnus softly.
“If the French peasant and the French workman can understand that, I guess we can,” said Brinsmade. “I said France has changed me over to a belief in a strong national feeling. It has. I don’t want German militarism, but I want the sort of military education you see in the French army,—preparation, with absolute democracy.”
“Compulsory service?”
“Of course. And I want it because I want my sons to be educated into democracy, and I know no better way than sending them out for a year or two to rough it with the fellow who comes up out of the mines and fields, out of the city slums and the wharves. I want them to eat together, tramp together, sleep together, to learn how to talk to each other. I want them to respect a man, wherever found, and I want them to make themselves respected as men. Moreover, I want them to have a vision of what America is and can be. Why? Because the wealth I leave them is going to make them leaders and instead of artificial leadership I want intelligent leadership.”
“You’ll never get compulsory training in America,” said Magnus shortly. “That’s one thing I’m not worrying about.”
“If we need it for nothing else, we need it to digest our foreign classes,” said Brinsmade, warming up; “German, Italian, Russian, Greek, Swedish; we need it for self-education, to form our own race,—a clear-cut, united American type. But of course,” he said, stopping suddenly, “that doesn’t enter into your philosophy.”
“No,” said Magnus directly. “To me the greatness of America is that it is not American. It has the whole world in it and, as long as these world elements remaindistinctly defined in their inherited traditions, just so long America remains the natural Parliament of Man.”
“The little Sassenach,” said a voice out of the night. “Damned if I don’t hope a submarine gets us.”
Brinsmade laughed.
“Thanks, friend,” he said. “I feel almost that way, myself.”
“Whether you like it or not, it is so to-day,” said Magnus, “and the reason that internationalism will come as an American doctrine is just that. We are international, and not in a hundred years can we be anything else. This to you may seem abhorrent, but to me it is the greatest destiny that could come to us. You would wipe out our links to other nations. I say, keep them; do nothing to weaken them, and make them great bonds of political thought, that America may lead the world.”
“What gets me—and by George, it does get me—” Brinsmade blurted out, “is your assumption to speak for my country. Good heavens; my family fought in three wars, and you have been here twenty years and tell me what America is, and—damn it—the worst is, I believe you do know!”
“Yes, Mr. Brinsmade, I do,” said Magnus quietly. “What do you know of the great East Side of New York? What do you know of how multitudes think and act,—the great labor organizations, the I. W. W? What do you know of what you call the foreign press? Do you know that there are over four hundred newspapers published in a foreign tongue—German, French, Italian, Swedish, Jewish and Hungarian—and that they represent a circulation of millions? The foreign element that was born abroad, or whose parents were born abroad, represents twenty millions; you represent a dwindling minority. You represent—we are talking frankly—an insular element, and the strange thing is that you stillpersist in seeing America in that spirit of nationalism which existed in Revolutionary days. America has passed beyond such limitations, and you don’t realize it.”
“And this from a man who came to my country twenty-five years ago!”
“But who has, perhaps, a greater vision of your country’s mission in world affairs than you have,” retorted Magnus.
“You are probably right,” said Brinsmade. “You place crudely things that are coming into my mind and the minds of others like me. Probably we are not awake. Have we, the old American strain, lost our inheritance?” He added, as if to himself, “And if so, is it our fault?”
Up the deck a spear of light shot across the night from an open door. A group of young men, emerging from the card room for a breath of air, came shuffling down the deck, singing as they came.
I was drunk last night, dear mother;I was drunk the night before,And if I live till to-morrow,I’ll be—
I was drunk last night, dear mother;I was drunk the night before,And if I live till to-morrow,I’ll be—
I was drunk last night, dear mother;I was drunk the night before,And if I live till to-morrow,I’ll be—
“Hello there—Littledale!”
I cursed them mentally and returned an uninviting grunt.
“Hello.”
“Counting the submarines?”
Four figures loomed at the foot of my chair.
“Some games running up there! Four tables. Better take a hand.”
Farther up the line of chairs, a child, awakened by their coming, began to cry.
“Not to-night. And say, if you want to make a night of it, you fellows, tramp the upper deck. People want to sleep down here.”
“Yes, Captain,” said a laughing voice; but another said, “Shut up, Limpy. The women are round here. Come on: clear out.”
The sound of their heavy tramp died out in the distance. A woman behind me sat up, rearranged her pillow, and settled back. The child whimpered sleepily and then grew quiet. In the distance some one began to snore. The ship had begun a slight roll, as it fled, ghostlike in a ghostly night, followed by noises of unseen things; the hiss of hidden waves, a sudden leap of spray, the creak of pulleys, a stifled whistle, and the rumble of the invisible force that thrust it forward.
Magnus laughed.
“Your American inheritance; there it is!”
“Damned if I can listen to any more of that!”
I rose abruptly, kicking the rugs from my legs, and went down the deck. I am, I suppose, too young not to resent unwelcome arguments with a hot intolerance. Socialism had meant to me little more than a name, which I rejected on faith as something akin to anarchy. The voice of the immigrant, speaking for my America, roused in me a blind rebellion. The more so that, while he had cut across every traditional instinct, I was at a loss in the poverty of my mental experience to answer the coldly stated propositions which, despite my will, convinced me of some measure of their truth. Yet what had he done but state in his own words thoughts which had been in my own mind; yes, even those opinions which had been surging uppermost,—that, in the coming test of a changed democracy, my generation had let slip the leadership that was its by inherited responsibility. I could say this to myself, yet I could not brook it from another. Why? Perhaps Mr. Brinsmade was right, and in the conflicts of man to man there is no antagonism so deep-rooted, so unreasoning, so obedient to inherited repulsions,as that antagonism which in the field of ideas has led men to persecute, to torture and to stamp out one another with the fury of unreasoning beasts.
Of this reflection I was not then conscious. I felt only the resentment of the man of action for the man of thought. It was not the ideas, but the ideas in the mouth of Peter Magnus which aroused my fury. I remember standing a long time forward, sheltering myself behind a bulging canvas which slapped against its chains with windy explosions, trying to shake off my ill-humor, until the cold cut of the spray which hissed over the decks brought back some equanimity.