When I next remember anything, Bernoline’s arms were around me, and I was staring at Von Holwitz, who was gasping for breath against the wall, a streak of blood curved on his cheek. De Saint Omer—he must have had arms of steel—had me by the collar, and I heard Bernoline crying,
“David, David, for my sake—don’t!”
I turned and looked at her,—a look that must have frightened her, for I heard her say:
“Ah, mon bien aimé, will you desert me now?”
My brain cleared instantly. I put my hand over my eyes and pressed against the dull numbness that filled my head. When I looked up, De Saint Omer had loosened his hold and stood watching me.
“David, understand well one thing,” he said sharply, to bring me to my senses. “As head of my family, Icommandhere.”
Even then nothing could have held me,—nothing but the touch of her hand.
“God! You can stand here andreason!”
“Come to your senses! At once!” he ripped out, with the suddenness of a drill master. “Do you hear me,LieutenantLittledale! At once!”
It was incongruous, grotesque, and involuntary, but I came to attention and my hand went up in salute. Our eyes met, and what I saw there made me forget everything else.
“Pardon, mon commandant.I am at your orders.”
Then I looked at Von Holwitz; if there was death brooding in the face of De Saint Omer, the face of the other was the face of the dead.
“David, you will do everything exactly as I decide,” De Saint Omer said more quietly, though his eyes continued to blaze imperiously, dominating my own. “Monsieur, I am quite capable of protecting the honor of my sister and the name of my family.”
“Do as he says,mon ami” said Bernoline, staring past me. “He has the right.”
“Mon commandant,” I repeated stiffly. “I shall obey.”
From that moment everything seemed to occur outside of me. I was there, but only to look on helplessly and incredulously,—an American watching the unfolding of some grim scene in the Middle Ages, a spectator before an older race, disciplined, proud, exact to their point of honor, as their old grim generations had held to that honor.
I, who could understand but the instinct of murder—blinding, groping, two-handed murder—was dominated, morally and physically, by the cold, punctilious, relentless decision in the burning eyes of De Saint Omer that sent a chill into my heart as though I were back in the days of the Sforzas and Malatestas. What was he going to do? What were they waiting for?
The next moment I knew. The gravel cried out; a shadow fell between us, and apoilustood at attention.
“Mon commandant, you sent for me?”
It was Père Glorieux, soldier of God and France, gun in hand, knapsack on his back.
“You have your surplice?”
“Oui, mon commandant.”
“Good. Just a moment.” He turned to me, designating Von Holwitz with his thumb. “You have your revolver?”
“Oui, mon commandant.”
I drew it but I did not trust myself to meet the eyes of Von Holwitz, who was sitting and staunching his wound with a handkerchief.
“Save yourself the trouble,” I heard him say. “I expect nothing!”
De Saint Omer, moving to one side, began to talk to Père Glorieux. Once or twice I saw the soldier start and glance in our direction, but immediately he controlled himself. Finally they returned.
“Mademoiselle, it is customary to confess,” Père Glorieux began, to my growing amazement.
“Mon père—I did—this morning.”
“I shall take communion, too,” said De Saint Omer. “If you will hear me, first—”
Thepoilu, for he still was the soldier, passed on and confronted Von Holwitz.
“You are Catholic?”
“I am.”
“Do you do this willingly?”
“More than willingly.”
“For the good of your soul, my son, you will confess!”
“That is my desire.”
He straightened up, solemn and abrupt, but the assumption of dignity was spoiled by the wound on his cheek which continued to flow and against which he kept continually pressing his handkerchief.
“Commandant de Saint Omer, I do not expect any mercy. I would not ask for it. That is understood. I ask you to trust to my honor. I shall not evade any decision you make.”
“Your honor?”
“Thereisan honor at such times—among men of our kind,” he said stubbornly.
Curiously enough, the phrase of Alan’s flashed into my mind; every man, his code. Even Von Holwitz, brute and bully, wished to die like an officer. I think De Saint Omer saw that, for he nodded, and I pocketed my revolver.
“Follow me,” he said peremptorily.
The three men moved across the garden, to a further niche in the wall. Père Glorieux, opening his knapsack, drew a surplice over his uniform and rose with a sudden majesty. De Saint Omer had fallen to his knees, while Von Holwitz waited, sitting some distance apart.
I had my arm around Bernoline, still supporting her broken strength, and at last I turned to her, screwing up courage to ask the question I feared.
“Bernoline!”
“Oui, mon ami?”
“What is it they’re going to do? What is going to happen?”
She tried to tell me, but couldn’t. Again I asked the question.
“You do not know?”
“For God’s sake, what is it?”
“David—I—I—am to marry him!”
“Marryhim!”
“It is for the honor of the family,” she said, as a tired child repeats a formula. “Maurice has said it must be so. I have no choice.”
“And afterward?”
She shivered and sagged against my shoulder. Again the world went black about me. To stand at her side and to witness that! Yet I knew I was powerless to oppose, and even in my misery I gave justice to his reason. The first part was clear, but—afterwards? The time seemed endless, as we waited there, clinging to each other, too numb with the sense of pain to utter word or protest.
“Lieutenant Littledale!”
I came sharply back to my senses.
“Follow us—take care of my sister—into the chapel—”
Père Glorieux first, then the two men, side by side, and back of them Bernoline and I; so we went, around the wall, where, I remember, Marianne’s wrinkled face shone wet with tears. There a ghastly thing happened.
The child, startled by our apparition, started to run, stumbled, and lurched against the leg of Von Holwitz. Never shall I forget the look on his face as he looked down!
Bernoline sprang forward, an instinctive movement of motherhood—who knows, perhaps the first—and snatched him up. The child, frightened, began to cry. I took him hurriedly and put him in the arms of the nurse. Bernoline stood, waiting my return, and the tears were standing in her eyes as she looked back.
“God help me to feel as a mother,” she said, staring beyond me. “David, your hand.”
Together, we picked our way across the strewn débris to the chapel.
“Charlotte Corday! Charlotte Corday!” kept running through my mind. Why? I don’t know. An irrelevant suggestion, unless it were the feeling of a martyr in the tumbrils of the Revolution, going to her execution. Yes, I think that was the thought.
I remember little of the mockery of a service. I stood in the shadows, unable to think or pray, hearing from time to time the shriek of a traveling shell, the mumbled, hurried cadences from the altar, and across the shattered walls, from time to time, in the quiet between explosions, the cry of the child; that child who, too, was a human being with an immortal soul, and must work out its destiny of wrath. Once, a stray shell burst several hundred yards away and a flying crumb of masonry fell in the nave and ricocheted a moment. No one moved. De Saint Omer stood like an avenging angel, arms folded, waiting.
*****
It was over. She came to me directly, gave a little sigh, and lay shuddering in my arms.
“And now?”
It was the voice of Von Holwitz, facing his judge.
“Follow me.”
“Murder?”
At this Bernoline started up and running to her brother, caught him by the arm.
“Maurice, qu’est-ce que tu vas faire?”
“Ne crains rien, ma petite soeur. Aie foi! La justice du bon Dieu se fera.General von Holwitz—are you ready?”
“I am curious to know your plan. Is it murder?”
“Monsieur, you forget that you are among Frenchmen,” he said, looking down at him. “I have no further explanations to make to you. Père Glorieux, you will inform Mademoiselle de Saint Omer.”
None of us noticed the slip until afterwards. Von Holwitz flushed under the rebuke, shrugged his shoulders, and then turned to Bernoline.
“I do not imagine that you contemplate claiming my name for my son.”
He waited. No one answered him.
“If you should wish a written attestation, I shall be glad to give it. That was all I wanted to say. Père Glorieux,”—he drew out his pocketbook and handed it to thepoilu,—“you will find here the address of my mother. The rest—for the necessary masses. Ready, now.”
He turned and, with the spirit of bravado that remained to the end, his heels clicked and his hand came to salute.
“Ahead of me—and walk as I direct you,” said de Saint Omer’s stern voice. “Bernoline, ma petite soeur, prie pour ton frère.”
The last I saw of Von Holwitz was the eternal red and white handkerchief pressed to his cheek,—a man who was going to his death, annoyed at a scratch! They passed and the voice of Père Glorieux cried out,
“Pray for the souls of both of them!”
*****
What happened I have never been able to see quite clearly. They went down the main street, twenty paces between them, and straight to the murderous intersection at the Square. What was the idea in the mediaeval imagination of De Saint Omer; the judgment of God, as by some trial of fire; or, if that failed him, a resort to the duel? I don’t know. Strange as it may seem, it is a question I have never asked. I couldn’t. The past between us two is something buried and protected by the granite weight of suffering. At any rate, it ended there in the Square. Thank God for that!
*****
We had been on our knees—I don’t know how long—Bernoline and I, shoulder to shoulder,—praying from the bottom of our hearts when De Saint Omer returned. I saw him coming and leaned towards her.
“Safe!”
She closed her eyes, and her head dropped on my shoulder. The next moment, the brother was beside her, kneeling.
“Your prayers were heard, little saint. And God has done justice.”
*****
I left them alone and went outside and sat on a toppled stone. Heavens, how benign and innocent that afternoon was, clear blue with powdery clouds above, the young green stealing along a sheltered bush, the shrill piping of a nesting bird somewhere,—a note that pierced through the shattering iteration of the bombardment and down into my brain. It terrified me, that insistent eternal cry of reborn nature that recked neither our sorrows nor our human passing.
Père Glorieux came out presently, drew off his surplice, ranged his communion service, packed it into a box and opened his knapsack. I watched him.Poiluonce more, gun at attention, he stood awaiting orders, a bronzed, bearded face that had looked into death and heard the laments of a thousand souls.
*****
“David, mon frère!”
I rose, seeing nothing. De Saint Omer came to me and took my hand in his quick, vibrating grip.
“From now on, we are brothers. It is a solemn promise,” he said, looking into my eyes. “And now, David,mon frère, there is only one person to be thought of,—Bernoline. You will give her the courage she needs. I know her decision. It is the only one. We are an old race, and, when we see our duty, we never hesitate. Come to me afterwards.” He opened his arms and took me into them in a long embrace. Then he turned to his sister.
“It is good-by until—” He raised his finger to the calm serenity above. “Sister, your blessing.”
He dropped to one knee. She laid her hands on his forehead and her lips moved silently. Then he rose and went hurriedly out. Thepoiluturned and went to join Marianne and the child. I was alone with Bernoline.
“Good God! If a shell would only end it all!”
“Mon ami, that is why death is not the hardest.”
I held out my arms. She came to them, her eyes looked into mine, our lips came together, and that first kiss, which was our last, was given with our mingled tears.
*****
I did not attempt to struggle against our fate. I knew it was hopeless. She did not move; nor did her arms relax their straining tension while time went by us unheeded,until—
“I love you, Davidmon adoré. I have always loved you, with all my being,” she said, looking into my eyes.
“Bernoline, I would marry you now, to-day. I could go with you anywhere, into any life—you and your child—nothing can matter,” I said brokenly.
“I know.” She tried to smile and couldn’t. “Thank you, dear, for not making it harder. And now come.”
She held out her hand and, taking it, I followed her blindly.
All that I remember is my standing there in the swept garden of the convent, is seeing her take the child from the nurse and raise it to her shoulder. Thus bearing her cross, she went out of my life forever.
*****
All the rest is only numbed pain and incomprehension,—weeks and months. To-day I am alive, and the world has somehow come back to me. How, I don’t know.
Now that I have written it down, I feel as though something had changed in me. Our sorrows destroy us, orthemselves. Somewhere before, I remember writing that. Something is gone in me that the rest may struggle up and go on.