Читать книгу The Ordeal by Fire - Marcel Berger - Страница 5

"Well!" he called to me, "what do you say to that?"

"I can't believe it yet!"

In so saying I ingeniously betrayed my dominant feeling.

He offered me a cigarette, and said quickly:

"Shall we take a turn?"

I was going to agree to doing so when I suddenly thought of my preparations; and I was seized with the vain idea of guarding against future fatigue.

"Thanks," I said, "I've got my packing to do. What about you?"

I understood him to say he had finished. I continued:

"Are you going by my train?"

"What train?"

"The 6:50, if it still exists. The Paris Express."

He was silent.

"Are you going to rejoin soon?"

He shook his head abruptly and exclaimed:

"Not I!"

I looked at him; I understood. He went on in an aggressive tone:

"You won't catch me going to be knocked on the head, when I've the luck to be out of it! And you, are you itching for it, Dreher?"

"Yes, I'm going back," I said.

"Well, well! And I thought you so emancipated!" He went on ironically. He only had one skin, and he meant to stick to it; he hadn't the slightest desire to fight for Serbia, as I was saying just now. … No, it was astounding! A nice mess our diplomatists must have made of it! … All the more so since, as we suspected nothing, we naturally were not ready! And so it meant catastrophe! … We were going to get a licking!

He ended by taking me by the arm:

"Come along and have a smoke and then we can chat."

"No," I said decidedly. "I'm going up again."

"In that case, my dear fellow, good-bye."

"Au revoir."

"Oh! there's not much chance of our ever meeting again!"

Was it the effect of these banal remarks? Hardly had I regained my room and gone to lean my elbows on the rail of the balcony than I felt as if crushed by the revelation I had witnessed during the last three hours.

A formidable adventure was in the making and my part as a finite being was to consider it as a spectator. The things I was saying just now, without attaching any definite meaning to them appeared to me clothed suddenly in their imperious significance: Yes, in three days I should be at F——, in four my rifle and my outfit would have been handed over to me, shortly afterwards I should be entrained. … Here the vision lost its clearness; only a few concise pictures rose from a sombre haze: marches and counter marches, the bleeding feet, the exhaustion, the cold, the filthy promiscuousness, nothing to eat; and then one day the battle; not an entertaining engagement like those during manœuvres, interrupted towards 11 A.M. by the bugle call, but the grim struggle, glued to the ground advancing foot by foot, day after day and night after night, against an invisible opponent, desperate, superior in discipline and in numbers, armed with frightful machines … the whistle of the bullet, the explosion of the shells … ! And one morning, in some hole or corner, an obscure and crushing death.

Presentiments were unknown to me: I suddenly believed in them. I saw myself killed, it was all over and done with my career as a man, this life I had been pleased to order so ingenuously. The horror of the annihilation so near at hand suffocated me.

I breathed the scented night air like a drowning man. At my feet was the dark terrace, a servant had just cut off the electricity. I heard the gravel crunching beneath a footstep. A shadow ascended the steps. It must be Cipollina.

His words echoed in my ears, his "Not much!" I was suddenly seized with fury against him—the coward!—a fury which was almost immediately turned against myself. Was it not his conduct that was logical. He refused to sacrifice himself. He coldly applied his Doctrine, our Doctrine, of calm selfishness. I fumed to see this shopkeeper, this table d'hôte philosopher, superior in practical wisdom to myself, when I had ruminated my system for so long, and looked at it from every point of view.

Why did I not imitate him? I upbraided myself harshly on my lack of rational courage. For since I was the enemy of sentimental chimeras! … What could I believe in? Nothing, nothing! Duty, Honour, the Ideal? They were so many hollow sounds to me. Patriotism? No word was more foreign to me. I too was a Citizen of the World! The chauvinism of my father, a native of Lorraine, and an old soldier, seemed to me out-of-date, an ill-omened and ridiculous passion; in that, as in everything else, I was so little his son. As far back as I could remember, I had never espoused his craze for war and revenge. In former days when we used to spend our holidays at Eberménil, some miles from the frontier, nothing irritated me so much when quite a child, as to feel how immovable the people were in their wild enmity against their neighbour. They never opened their mouths without making insolent or dangerous remarks; they never dreamt, it appeared, except of bringing back a cursed year. Why this rancour? As if it ought not to have satisfied them to continue to be Frenchmen themselves? What did it matter to them that their brothers from the neighbouring villages should have changed their name. Were the former more unhappy than the latter? My handbooks of history were full of exchanges of this kind, carried out without any one rebelling against them.

Grown older, I had only strengthened, by reasoning, my instinctive indifference in regard to the fate of the Lost Provinces. I had gone one better; what a high doctrine, I thought, was that of Internationalism! And convenient, too. I should have declared myself its adherent quite openly, but for my systematic slackness, my fear of committing myself. The result was that I took an interest in those theories which denied that there was any meaning in the term Fatherland.

I happened to find in them the subject for some daring developments, with which during even the last few days, I had taken a delight in upsetting Jeannine Landry's convictions.

Germany, especially, inspired me with no enmity; on the contrary, I had a weakness for the genius of her philosophers and musicians. Two years ago I had travelled in the country, and had stayed at Iéna for three weeks with one of my friends, a lecturer at the university. We had wandered together in the Thuringian forests, and slept, rolled in our cloaks, at the top of the Schnee-Kopf. How could one fail to be won over by those glorious surroundings. As for the men over there … I had pleasant recollections of a few merry shooting friends, one named Kroemer among others. If they had not appealed to me as a whole, did any one by any chance imagine that I cherished the slightest sympathy for the millions of beings—ugly, vain, and unintelligent—who made up the great majority of the nation which was mine by birth. In Paris it was true that, within a restricted circle, I experienced certain satisfactions which I should hardly have relished anywhere else. But, when finally analysed, even these delights did not amount to very much! They comprised the one real benefit which I owed to my position as a Frenchman. In order to assure the continuation of this advantage—and what, after all, did it amount to—it was agreed that I should sacrifice my one irretrievable treasure, my life.

You can see with what a decision I seemed to be faced, but oddly enough my revolt continued to be purely theoretical and abstract. Not for an instant did it seem to me possible or within my power to take the line simply of ignoring the fact that my country was mobilising. I saw myself as the conscious victim of a superior fatality; I knew that I should take the 6:50 train next day, that I should be at the Chanzy barracks before ten o'clock on Tuesday!

But that did not prevent me from cursing at fate. Tired of grumbling at myself, I consigned to perdition the instigators of the war. Spite blinded me; I kept on revolving most bitter, and I must admit, most unjust reflections. Yes, as Cipollina had said; what an accumulation of mistakes! For a long while back. It was all very well to say that Germany wanted war; was preparing for it! During the last few years perhaps. But had there not been a time when she had made advances to us? We had always refused to make friends, and had kept our eyes fixed stolidly on the Frankfort Treaty in which we pretended to see the one and only source of all our ills.

Our policy, of late, had become more captious. There had been a series of clumsy manifestos, an awakening, which one could not shut one's eyes to, of the old swashbuckling, nationalistic, and chauvinistic spirit. What countless occurrences, speeches, and articles had gone towards the making of a dangerous state of exaltation. Anything rather than a humiliating peace! Anything? That meant war. Oh well, they'd got it. They'd soon see!

What exasperated me more than anything was to think of all those who had done or allowed everything to be done, the ministers, ambassadors, and delegates who in history would bear a part, however insignificant, in the terrible responsibility. They were all, or nearly all, over the age limit; they need have no fear for their skins; it was the others, me and men of my generation, the youth between twenty and thirty years of age, whom, with high-flown words and light hearts, they would send to the slaughter!

But it was necessary to pack. I fulfilled this task with such mechanical precision that it calmed me. When I had finished I went out on to the balcony again in my shirt sleeves.

A crescent moon had just risen. A green mountain-side opposite me, at the other side of the cutting which terminated, I imagined, in the ravaged gorges of the Orbe, was bathed in her light. Vaguely phosphorescent fields lay soaked in a milky whiteness. Spreading brown forests quivered softly. Half-way up fires were shining, the factory and station at Brassus. I admired the bold sweep and the contour of the Dent de Vaulion on the right. Farther on in the distance a series of mountain ridges, forming a circle, were indicated, bluish and pale beneath the halo.

My brow was cooling again. In the contemplation of this veiled and unreal scene my thoughts insensibly freed themselves of sinister obsessions.

What made me call to mind a very insignificant incident in this day fertile in shocks, that moment on the road when I had passed in review the joys for which I lived? The obscure feeling of distress which had made me stop talking recaptured me. I again experienced the sensation that everything was dismal, but at the same time was there not something which might be called an unexpected hope rising within me? What hope? I caught it, and questioned it. Was it not of new days when I should perhaps shake myself free of the torpor where I languished?

Halloa! I jeered. Was I too lending a hand in the resurrection of the warlike instinct legitimate in the son of the soldier who was in the charge at Rezônville, in the grandson of the man who had commanded a regiment at Magenta? No, no: I acquitted myself of that; such wild intoxication was quite alien to me. The most I might admit was that my eyes were fixed on the future with a greater interest, that curiosity made my resignation easier.

I let my imagination run away with me. Turning successively towards the two horizons, I imagined I saw, beyond the mountains, the vastness of the two hostile territories where since to-night so many forces were being lavished in the elaboration of the battles where they would devour each other to-morrow; a gigantic sheaf of hatred and lust, but also of devotion and heroism which had just burst into flame!

Midnight struck. My exaltation dwindled; at all events, I was not sorry, I thought, to have been equal to the emergency if only for a moment.

I went down to give the hall-porter orders to wake me at five o'clock, he was to have my bill ready, and I should expect a cab to be there for my luggage. In crossing the lounge I came upon the three Englishmen who were leaving the card-room. We had never exchanged a word, or a nod; I thought them ignorant of our language. I was going straight past them, when the one who was walking in front, a big, fair man, who looked an athlete in his smoking-jacket, stopped right in front of me.

"Good luck to your country, sir," he said.

"Thank you."

I mechanically held out my hand, which he shook hard.

His two companions did likewise.

I went upstairs again, feeling rather touched. Up there my scepticism got the upper hand again. I thought.

Will they stick to us, I wonder.

An amusing idea occurred to me, of sending a post-card to the little Landry girl to tell her of the incident. I took up a pen, but while doing so it struck me that the girl would not see anything very funny about it. Sentimentalise … no thanks! I scrawled a few lines for her without mentioning the occurrence.

BOOK II

August 2nd-3rd

CHAPTER VI

I GO BACK BY TRAIN

It is easy to imagine the influx of Frenchmen, hurrying in from ten miles round, at Vallorbes station that morning, the second of August; the procession of omnibuses, the piles of trunks, the pack of distracted families overrunning the waiting-rooms, crowding round the ticket offices, demanding directions and details which no one could possibly have given them.

The express, which turned up at the usual time, was taken by storm. When would it get to Paris? They would guarantee nothing as to that.

I had the luck to find myself a place as eighth in a second-class carriage. Opposite me two old maids never stopped talking, in a whisper, probably about everything on earth but the news of the day. A bourgeois couple with a crew of sulky children argued for hours about opening the windows.

There was a minute inspection of the baggage at the Pontarlier custom-house. Nothing occurred. We got back into the train. The speed was fast until Dôle; there we slowed down noticeably.

There was a long stop at Dijon. The station already seemed to be under military occupation. Very few civilians on the platforms, but behind the gates, the murmur of a crowd come for news, kept back by sentries with fixed bayonets.

The news-seller, despoiled of her wares, was hawking round nothing but some illustrated comic and sporting papers; I bought two or three from her, but did not read them.

We left Dijon towards eleven o'clock. From there onwards, mad rushes, sudden stoppages, and breathless progress, alternated.

Laroche at last.

There, the Paris papers had just arrived. We threw ourselves upon them. I managed to get one. I was surrounded at once. People squashed up against me to get at least a glimpse of the stop-press and headlines. I was not very accommodating about exhibiting my paper, and I soon succeeded in shaking them off, and getting back to my carriage.

The train started off again.

Standing up in the corridor, I admit that I read and re-read the leading article without skipping a single line.

I expected a good leader and was not disappointed. I relished the indispensable paragraph on the past and future of France, on the sacred union in face of the enemy.

My neighbour nudged me with his elbow.

"Oh! Isn't it just what everyone is thinking?"

"Yes, yes."

Exact information was what I really thirsted for. I remember two headlines: "To-morrow?" and "A Day at the Quai d'Orsay." In a prominent position the President's Proclamation. The article was a success: the obvious thing to say. "Mobilisation is not war." But there was no mistaking it; the spark had caught, the fire was already crackling.

I learnt the news of the preceding days, including the assassination of Jaurès, merely from allusions—to me they were so many claps of thunder!

One main point stood out: Germany's declaration of war on Russia. Like a shot France was dragged in, automatically. A well-laid scheme on the part of the Wilhelmstrasse. The odious article from the Cologne Gazette which was reproduced everywhere had been a final eye-opener.

One amusing detail: Hervé asking to be allowed to go! Another rather shocked me: Telegrams from various places on "the Enthusiasm in the Provinces. … " I had just come from the provinces!

I had finished reading. It was evident that my neighbour was dying to talk. Feeling charitably disposed I gave him an opening. In five minutes I had learnt all there was to know about his antecedents, his family, and his profession. He had passed his legal examinations, taking the degree of licentiate, and was the son of a lawyer. He was coming back from Autun, the home of his maternal grandfather. What times we were living through, sir! The day before when the official telegram had arrived, ah, what enthusiasm there had been; I ought to have seen the factory hands rushing out shouting: "To the front!"

"You saw them then?"

"Oh no, I didn't!"

He had read this description in the Mémorial d'Autun.

He asked me childish questions about our chances, and the schemes at headquarters.

I sententiously put forward the idea of an offensive in Alsace. He jumped at it.

"To take the offensive. Yes, yes. That was the only thing to be done."

He had not many brains. It did not take him three minutes to regain the Lost Provinces.

He confided in me that he too was a non-commissioned officer in the reserves, attached to the 74th Rouens. He was to rejoin the next day. He asked my name, and gave me his address. He offered me his friendship as a brother-in-arms. I was tempted to be touched by the thought that here was one of the young men of my own age, who would fight, and perhaps fall, at my side on the plains of Lorraine. But my scepticism and coldness offered too strong a resistance, and when I heard him exclaim: "If we've got to be killed, we've got to be, and that's all about it!" my indignation was aroused. Sincere! He was sincere enough; a puppet who came near to being a hero! There were such beings, incapable of reasoning for themselves, always ready to set out to fight for never mind which side. Yesterday for the Church. To-day for the State. To-morrow for some social chimera. If it had only been themselves they disposed of! … But they were in the majority, it was they who oppressed us.

Much irritated, I wickedly said to myself: "Let him sell his life cheaply! It certainly isn't worth much!"

I escaped from him and gained a distant door, whither he did not follow me.

Our journey was drawing to an end. The train had put on speed. With shrieks of pride and whirling smoke and sparks, our powerful engine dragged us towards the City, the huge magnet which, at this time was rallying so many friendly forces. The intoxication of this attraction made itself felt twenty kilometres away. The six-fold rails gleamed in the sun on the sand embankments. We thundered along, without slackening our speed, through the suburb stations, whose names were slurred by our haste. Crowds of people huddled together on the platforms, gazed at us in respectful silence. Maisons-Alfort, Charenton. We went ahead of ten trains which were crawling along the side lines, and speeding up their connecting-rods in vain. Smoke darkened the air. We passed by high houses, grimy with soot, whose windows, where the washing was put out to dry overhung our cutting. Then came the metallic crash of the double bridge flung across the rivers where they join—the moat outside the walls—Paris! We were in Paris!

I was thrilled with excitement. Capital of the civilised world, head of a great nation at war! From here had leaped out the old call to arms! Leaning out, I tried to distinguish beyond the line of railway-carriages, sidings and signal-boxes, in the streets skirting the line, in the avenues we crossed on heavy iron bridges, the residents, and passers-by, all those who had just lived through such rousing hours here.

I was impatient to mingle with them.

CHAPTER VII

PARIS, AT FIRST SIGHT

Rue d'Assas. My concierge came out when she heard the taxi draw up.

"We were expecting you, Mr. Dreher; I was sayin' as much to my 'usband, only a minute ago."

The man himself appeared. In his capacity as handyman he hoisted my heavy trunk on to his shoulder, as if it were a plaything.

"And when may you be going, Mr. Dreher?"

"The day after to-morrow, and what about you?"

"A week on Wednesday."

"So there we are!" I said.

"There we are! as you say, sir. It was bound to finish like this."

My char-woman had had the happy inspiration of coming to do some cleaning that morning, so I found my flat in order and well aired. Having made a hasty toilet, I thought of various important errands.

I had kept my taxi, luckily for me as the motor-omnibuses were no longer running.

It was five o'clock. I went to the Rue des Beaux-Arts first. My father was not at home, so I left word with the old parlour-maid that I would be there for dinner that evening.

Many wants led me to a big shop. Nothing safer I thought than to buy one's outfit oneself. I was lucky enough to find what I wanted quickly, even in the boot line, where a crowd of people were being fitted.

Having finished my shopping, I called to my chauffeur:

"Rue du Helder!"

At the head office of the "Abyssinian Railway Company" my director welcomed me with open arms:

"My dear fellow! You're going? Oh, I thought as much! Rather rough on us! Duroty is going too. The best men, of course! I wonder whether we shan't have to shut up shop."

"And out there? How's the work getting on there?"

"Oh, well … it's just got to go on. The workmen are natives. The engineers are the trouble. … Of course I ought to have had more sense and taken Englishmen!"

I went straight from there to the bank. It was shut. They were not seeing any one. Luckily Forgues, my stockbroker, hooked me as I was parleying in the waiting-room, and made me come in.

He seemed to have collapsed completely; there must be bad news, I could drag nothing out of him, as he sat there in his moleskin arm-chair, but vague allusions, and an estimate, which was by the way entirely incorrect, of the financial resources of the two parties concerned. Germany had no reserve of gold. If we could hold out for two or three months!

"Are you going to fight?" I asked.

"Oh, no, no! Since the Agadir business, you know, … my wife's one idea has been to get me put on half-pay. I thought it awful rot, but as my heart is a bit weak … my doctor has given me a certificate; I've been to see a surgeon-major; no difficulties were made about it. … And by Jove it's lucky for me now! … And what about you? You're not going, I suppose."

"I beg your pardon!"

He seemed surprised. He had just seen several of his clients—Well, I was the first. …

Feeling irritated, I cut him short with: "Can you let me have a certain sum on account?"

"Oh, but there's the moratorium. … "

Somewhat embarrassed, he entered into explanations which I listened to with raised eyebrows:

"To an old client like myself!"

After renewed hesitation, he made up his mind: "Well, let's see, would you need a large sum?"

"No, let's say forty pounds."

"Not more than that?"

"A little gold, if possible."

I had had time, in two hours, to notice how scarce the yellow metal was.

Forgues raised his hands: That was impossible, quite impossible! I wouldn't get it anywhere! Nobody would part with it!

I persisted. He was a good sort at the bottom! Was it my (unique!!!) position as a man about to be mobilised, which melted him? He ended by handing over fifteen louis to me.

I thanked him warmly and we shook hands.

"And mind you don't get killed!"

He spoke of it lightly. My gratitude ceased promptly.

I suddenly bore him a desperate grudge for having coolly evaded the great blood tax.

I put in an hour, dawdling about. I bought an evening paper. There was nothing startling in it unless it was M. de Schoen's last visit to the Quai d'Orsay, but not even the most inveterate optimists could any longer suggest that there was the faintest glimmer of hope. One article signed "A Military Attaché" interested me. It was a study on the probable forced attack, dear to the German heart, through Belgium, towards the source of the Oise. It explained how the enemy, if successful in getting so far, would be only ten days' march from Paris.

I walked on absent-mindedly, crumpling the paper in my hand. Ten days' march. It looked rather as if they were preparing the public for what was to come! We had so little protection, it was true, against the danger which threatened to swoop down upon us from the North. Was the City destined, a few weeks hence, to undergo the horrors and humiliation of a new siege? How quickly my mind was overwhelmed by baleful visions born of the Fatal Year.

I pulled myself up. Steady on! We were only just beginning.

Never mind! The resemblance between yesterday and to-day obtruded itself upon my mind. A comparison which ought to have been all in favour of the present. There had been no lack of speeches and articles extolling the revival of our energies for some years past. Was it real or imaginary? What an opportunity it was to audit that? Not in connection with myself. I deliberately set myself aside. But in the great bulk of people; it was on them that our fate hung.

Well, I was only partially reassured on this point.

I think I should have preferred to see a tide of humanity sweeping along the avenues as in July of the year '70; to a rasping accompaniment of "Berlin!! To Berlin!"

Cheek, of course, but heroic cheek, and proof of the warmness of their hearts.

While to-day! People were wandering about, plenty of them, it's true, standing in front of the posters, theatres, and picture palaces, thronging the open-air cafés, but you might have thought they had come out on this summer evening solely for the sake of enjoying a breath of the mild air. They talked quietly among themselves as they walked up and down, or read the papers with an air of distrustful wisdom, perfectly well aware that they were not being told everything. One might have imagined oneself back in the days of the floods of 1910, when the Parisian public would learn with apparent indifference that such and such a quarter of their city was threatened with extinction.

An irritating attitude in a crowd, at a time when—now or never—it should have been moved, uplifted, carried away by great inspirations. Who would believe that I asked myself in all seriousness if France must be despaired of, if our country had not come to such a pass that there was nothing to be done but to strike her off the map of Europe, the victim as Hellas was of yore, of her excess of philosophy … ? This idea was distasteful to me. … But still! If there was nothing to be done but to resign ourselves! We should go and start life again elsewhere, in some free country like America. … Those who got out alive! I still hoped to be among them.

The thought also crossed my mind that we were taking part in a renewal of the hardy and unassuming, the gay and tranquil qualities, which were the attributes of our race. … We had not always been the most highly-strung people of the world; during the forty years of peace we had recaptured our gifts; peace-lovers by nature and only entering the lists under provocation, and in our own defence, perhaps we were to astonish the universe anew by our valiance.

Why not? The hypothesis appealed to my sense of vanity. Oh well, we should see, we should see!

Should I have retained any misgivings if my walk had led me to the outskirts of the Gare de L'Est, where the people of Paris were beginning to set such a sublime example of steadfastness, and dignity?

CHAPTER VIII

MY FATHER

Seven o'clock struck. I did not forget that I was dining in the Rue des Beaux-Arts, and hurried towards the left bank of the river. On the way I wondered what had dictated this visit? Was it filial affection? Not at all. I was simply acting in accordance with a banal convention.

My father had never taken any interest in me, even when quite tiny. As my health, which was poor at that time, had prevented his thinking me fit to be made into a soldier, I had been practically non-existent in his eyes. Victor, my elder by two years, was everything to him. He had him educated at La Flêche, though it cost him a lot, in order to steep him, from his childhood, in military ideal and discipline.

It is the dream of all fathers to be continued in their sons. Colonel Dreher only wished to live over again in the hope of Revenge. I have already said that he fought like a demon in the year '70. When a young subaltern in the Guards, he had been in the charge at St. Privat, had had his horse killed under him, and had got a bullet through his arm. Captured at Metz, and taken on into Westphalia, he had found a way of escaping, of reaching Holland, and of rallying Faidherbe's army in time to get a splinter of shell in his thigh at Bapaume. The news of the armistice had found him in hospital, that of the treaty had disgusted him. He who burned to go on fighting, who felt no fatigue! The renunciation of the two Provinces had been a bitter blow, and the counter-blows more bitter still.

As a Lorrain of Lunéville, he had quite a number of near relations in the neighbourhood of Sarrebourg, many of whom had not the courage to ruin themselves by throwing their lot in with their true fatherland. These people were dead for him, needless to say. But these repeated misfortunes had done not a little to contribute to the growing gloom of his character. He had rejoined his regiment and had been quartered successively at Joigny, Moulins, and Rouen where he had married, and lastly at Tours, where most of my childhood was spent. Decorated for distinguished service in the field, a superb leader of men, he would have been made a general but for his obstinate, though discreet opposition to a government timorous enough to put up with such peace terms.

My mother, the one person I might really have loved, had died just as I attained my fourteenth birthday. I had finished growing up under the paternal tutelage. For a long time I succeeded in persuading myself that the Colonel felt heaven knows what secret fondness for me. Then with the audacity of youth, intoxicated by the first lucid glance I had cast on life, I admitted to myself that I had been duped. I was of very little account in this old man's eyes. Let him content himself with my deference, as I did with his correction!

There was no intimacy between us. As I grew up, our relations came to be stamped with rather a cold courtesy, like that between strangers thrown together by chance, for the space of a voyage. My father never asked me about my ambitions, once only about my immediate prospects; it was after I had taken my second degree. He neither approved nor found fault with my intentions.

Having been placed on the retired list just at this point he came to live in Paris. I never knew if it was to facilitate my studies.

Three years went by, then my year of military service. On leaving the regiment I felt the need of a separate establishment. No objections were raised. My share of my mother's fortune already enabled me to support myself, and my post in the Abyssinian Railway Company soon brought me affluence. I dined with my father every Sunday, as I said before. We exchanged opinions on the events of the week, without in any way committing ourselves. He gave me news of Victor's household.

On leaving St. Cyr, my brother, having chosen to go into the Colonial infantry, had been sent to Rochefort to await his commission; and then he went and fell in love with a girl he met at the "Cercle Militaire" ball. At the request of her family, he had obtained leave to exchange into the home forces. He had got married. My father had not blamed him in the least for giving up a life of warlike adventure.

Full of his one idea, the old soldier preferred to see his son on the frontier ready for the day, which he always hoped was close at hand, when war would break out.

My brother! To think that when we were brought up together, before he left for La Flêche, we were fond of each other! … Little by little had come detachment and loss of affection. … To-day we were strangers to each other. Our intercourse was confined to the exchange of a few post cards at New Year and Easter. My sister-in-law, Geneviève, a pleasant, insignificant little creature, had been friendly to me at the beginning; I had spent three days with them at St. Mihiel not long ago, at her request. I was bored to tears. In future it would be quite enough for me to see them during the short stays they made in the Rue des Beaux-Arts, twice a year. I went when invited. My father seemed to have grown young again. He cheered up and chatted, and played with his grandchildren whom he was mad about. He adored his daughter-in-law too, and paid her endless little attentions. It caused me no embarrassment or jealousy to be present during these effusions.

My father got up from his chair and came to meet me. He was drawn up to his full height. His face beamed as I had expected.

"You're pleased?" I said.

"Yes. Oh, yes. I had given up all hope of seeing this!"

The soup was brought in. I urged him to talk. He did not wait to be asked twice. He had a good word for several of our politicians—an astounding thing for him!—for the abettors of the "loi de 3 ans," for the President of the Republic, for the President of the Council. This mobilisation order was a good answer to the German measures! Tit for tat! The rogues, we had our eye on them! Hour by hour we knew all they were plotting and planning! … My father declared that he had gone over completely to the Government. At such a time all differences must be sunk. It struck me that he had gleaned these doctrines from his newspaper. I admired the eternal authority of commonplaces. I suddenly saw him searching his pockets. He had received a letter from St. Mihiel this morning, as on every morning since the outbreak of the crisis. He handed it to me.

"It's from Geneviève."

"Has Victor gone?"

"He went four days ago."

Mobilisation had not been expected over there. It was on Thursday, the 30th, in the middle of the night that Geneviève, standing at her window, her head framed by those of her two little children, had seen her husband march away proudly, with raised sword, at the head of his company. This vision intoxicated my father. It did not leave me indifferent. And, like him, I approved of the steadfast, confident tone of the young wife's letter. As to leaving St. Mihiel, she wrote, such a thought had never entered their heads!

"She's quite right," said my father; "the Prussians will never get there; they'll soon be sent back again. You know we've already got seven hundred thousand men on the frontier."

He added:

"And Victor in the first line."

His first-born, the re-incarnation of his imperious youth! The old man's bellicose imagination rode along at his side. He explained to me how, since the other day, he followed him hour by hour; he saw him, having taken up his position on a spur of Mont-Secq, watching the Woevre where the cavalry would soon be engaged. Though not very familiar with the topography of this region, I understood the rôle assigned to the covering forces, to hold on at all costs, in front of the Côtes de Meuse even if attacked by forces ten times superior in number, while the concentration went on behind the hills.

"A dangerous task, that!"

"Yes," said my father. "Most of them will stay there."

I examined him, furtively; his massive Lorrain's head, the ruddy face beneath the white hair, the square jaw, the nose with a heavy, decided bridge. Sturdy and tall like an old oak, his only complaint at the age of sixty-seven was an occasional attack of rheumatism. I might have been gazing at the portrait of some ancestor. Was he not indeed an anachronism in our century. Taciturn and reserved, but upright, frank, and sound all through, the hero of an exclusive faith, of a single hate and a single love, he treated with scorn all human contingencies in the exaltation of his passion. It is true that he loved my brother as much as if he had been his only son. And yet if he were to go and get killed in one of the first engagements, I could foresee that the old man would weep, gnawing at his grey moustache, but in this sorrow he would taste the joy of sacrifice. If France were victorious he would consider success cheap at the price. Oh! how complete was the contrast between us, I thought. I supple, and of medium height, owing the triumph over my constitutional delicacy only to the tardy pursuit of sports. I, smiling and polite as a matter of form, but a cynic and dissembler; I who believed in nothing, loved and hated nothing!

Led away by a natural inclination, he conjured up his recollections of the other war: deeds of courage and cruelty, stories breathing blood and powder, all ending in violence and murder. It woke him up and enraptured him to breathe the fumes of the slaughters of yesterday and to-day.

My demeanour and head tossings seemed to encourage him. Oh! if only he could have read my thoughts. If he had guessed my detestation of all fighting. My horror of physical suffering, the only true suffering in my eyes, my longing for repose even without honour, my indifference respecting my threatened country, the wish which I caught myself forming—I had got as far as that!—to see our mobilisation hindered, or even prevented altogether, the red flag hoisted, and our defeat proclaimed before I had run any risk!

My father, happily, had neither the taste nor the gift for probing people's minds. His beliefs dazzled him with such shining proof that he could not understand any one challenging them. He could not have attributed thoughts like mine to any one but the scum of the nation, degenerates, debased by sloth, vice, and alcohol. Strange that I should be of his blood.

The pudding was served. Mélanie handed round a chestnut cream. My father led the conversation back to Victor. I discerned the great longing in the old man's heart to see his son—the apple of his eye—again, and to do him honour.

"He won't be long now before he gets his company."

I had never taken umbrage at the paternal solicitude. Why should I suddenly to-day consider as strange an affection so much out of proportion … ? You might have thought my brother was the only one who was going to risk his life. … And what about me? I ventured to draw attention to the fact.

"You'll be only in the second line."

"I beg your pardon! Our division is attached to the 4th Corps on the active list."

"When do you rejoin?"

"The day after to-morrow."

Then he deigned to ask me certain questions, this one among others:

"How about your foot-gear?"

I explained that the regulation boots hurt me.

"That's a pity! A man with sensitive feet never makes a good soldier."

He went on:

"You'll remember you're a Lorrain!"

But at that I came near to shaking my head. A Lorrain? Never. More likely of the other race, my mother's. Or more likely still, of none at all. There were too many strains in me; none of them succeeded in getting the upper hand. I was the nameless product of concluding epochs.

Time was getting on. I excused myself from staying late, and no efforts were made to keep me.

"You'll be busy to-morrow?"

"All day long, unfortunately."

"But still I'll try to look in to say good-bye" I added, "but I daren't make any promises."

I had quite made up my mind to do nothing of the sort.

"Come and dine if you can."

I had got as far as the hall. Mélanie turned on the light for us.

I thought, as I buttoned my gloves, how well adapted the situation would have been for the stage. The son leaving for the Front. The great Farewell scene. Even a second-rate actor could have drawn tears from the public in it. … I, as actor and spectator combined, experienced not the faintest trace of emotion. Nor, to a certainty, did my father. So much the better! In that case we were sure to escape being ridiculous. Why did it again occur to me that if it had been Victor … ?

"Well, good-bye, Father." I said.

"Good-bye, Michel."

He held out his broad wrinkled hand to me. To my surprise, it was shaking.

I had opened the door part way, and was on the point of going out, when he drew me back. I suddenly saw his face, with its white beard, bending over me. He kissed me. It was, I think, the first time for ten years.

"Fight well!"

"I promise you I will."

I went quickly down the steps feeling quite staggered. Hardly had I reached the bottom, when I recovered myself. I asked myself, mockingly, whether I had not been affected by the traditional emotion?

A little, I admitted.

But I had the decency not to scoff at it openly.

CHAPTER IX

MY FRIEND

My char-woman woke me by bringing me the papers, which I read in bed.

To think that it had not come yet! It was true that all intercourse had been broken off between Berlin and St. Petersburg, and even on our frontier there had already been some deaths, the Samain brothers and the Curé de Moineville. Provocations and outrages were multiplying and increasing in severity. Our forces nevertheless were still kept back two miles from the frontier. M. de Schoën was still about. They were talking!

The papers did not cover more than a page now, and were quickly read. They all contained the same incoherent communiqués and the rare telegrams which were allowed by the censor (already!) to trickle through.

Details in plenty on the manifestations in Paris and in the provinces. The same old story! In one of them there was a technical article headed "The Defence of Nancy." This title interested me. I, like most other people, felt so certain that this town was doomed; at the mercy of the first masterly move.

What baffled me was the placid, docile attitude of my friends the socialists. How little one heard of them! It was true that the censor … but never mind! Jaurès, as he was dying, had left them the order to go on, and they were going on. Closed ranks and obedience and confidence were the orders of the day. Arguments were left for another time! and on my honour, it was very fine!

My purchases of the preceding day were delivered. I asked the boy who brought them, if he was going to fight.

"Of course!"

He was a cheery soul. He liked the idea of knocking the Bosches on the head; he had no great opinion of them chaps. And then besides that, it was worth takin' a bit o' trouble to get a breath of fresh air, for him whose week had been spent in running errands, and his Sundays as assistant in a picture palace, for how long … ? Blowed if it wasn't five blooming years—yes, ever since he was a nipper of seventeen—he'd never set eyes on the country. …

Were there many like that, I wondered.

When I tried on my boots they seemed to me to squeeze me. Was there a pad in the heel? I put in my hand but brought nothing out. I should have to squash the counter to make it more pliable.

No business called me out-of-doors. My list of errands had been exhausted the day before. What friend should I go to see? They would all be running about the town in the excitement and emotion of departures and farewells. I would go and dine with Laquarrière this evening, that would be enough for me. I had made up my mind that the streets would look just as commonplace as they had yesterday, and I should get all the information I wanted from the newspapers.

I stayed quietly at home, looking through my papers and reading over some old letters. The idea of making my will occurred to me. … But, when once I was gone, what would it matter to me?

My friends in the regiment would have laughed if they had known to what I had been tempted to consecrate my day, ever since I woke up. I went and fished up a book in a grey cover from the bottom of my book-case; my old Handbook for Non-Commissioned Officers.

I had not opened the book since the beginning of my military service, not even when I had been put in command of a section. It was quite possible, to-day, in view of the deficiency of officers, that I should be given a commission.

So I lunched at home. I got through almost the whole of the book; for instance the "Section in Action," and "Field Operations," "Alimentation," and "Hygiene," such chapters as I agreed with in letter and in spirit. But with what disdain did I skip everything concerning peace time or even garrison duty.

Towards evening, somebody rang the bell: Laquarrière.

I greeted him with, "A good idea, old fellow! I was coming round to say good-bye."

"Oh yes, of course. You're off!" he said.

He had escaped his military service, thanks to being slightly short-sighted, and to the fact that he could demand a good deal of interest.

He was my only intimate. We had never been parted during our school days at the lycèe at Tours. We had come up to Paris in the same year to begin our legal studies. The Bar had attracted him; he seemed to be going to succeed there; he had been accepted when still quite young as secretary to the "Conférence." We met almost every evening; we dined and then idled together; our tastes agreed. Together we had forged a philosophy, drawn from various sources, which fulfilled all our requirements. How completely our ideas harmonised in our wholesale scorn for people and things, and for ourselves, our hatred of appearances and of Sentiment! We were candid, almost to the point of brutality, in our dealings with each other. Courtesy and consideration were well enough for fools. I took a delight in the thought that our surly bearing towards each other hid a firm friendship.

"You stay here, I suppose! Your usual luck!"

He found nothing to say to me but:

"Bah! Some will come back, after all!"

"To think," I continued, "that in a fortnight I may be under fire!"

"Yes. I can see you at it!"

"How do you think I shall get on?"

"Not brilliantly!"

"What do you know about it?"

"I know you."

I protested;

"That's idiotic! I'm sure there's a special grace given to uphold you!"

He conceded:

"That's true enough. One must be utterly dazed and allow oneself to be driven, without knowing what one is doing or where one is going."

This opinion shocked me.

"You exaggerate! I admit that may be so for the soldiers, wretched beasts of burden, … but when once you are an N.C.O., and have responsibility of some kind. … "

"One more chance of losing your head."

I denied it. I, for instance, absorbed by the anxiety of leading my men, was sure partially to forget the danger. …

"Bah! Once there, morale is the only thing that counts."

"Well?"

"You won't get me to believe. … "

I hesitated, then I said:

"After all. If I am going to fight, it only depended on me … I was in Switzerland. … "

He sneered:

"No humbugging! You came back for reasons which had nothing at all to do with patriotism! Simply because if you had not done so, your position, your cash, and your little mode of living, would all have gone overboard at one fell blow."

His words reminded me of the vague hopes which had suggested themselves to me two days before.

"Listen! I certainly won't hide from you the fact that I envy you. I should be delighted to stay under shelter like you. And yet … shall I own up to a certain kind of curiosity? War? This War. The greatest of all! It seems to me that it's worth experiencing. What an amazing opportunity for accumulating memories, and also of refreshing oneself, of drawing near to nature!"

He exploded. Good Heavens! Did I think it would have the faintest interest for me! Was not the peculiarity of modern campaign a terrible tedium? You never see the enemy. You spend days in shovelling ground about. The operations are on such a vast scale that the majors and colonels themselves often do not follow them in the least.

"And you're counting on it for distraction and refreshment. Poor old chap! It would have been well worth making yourself scarce. Well, you're in for it now. What do you want? Regeneration by war! Back to the land! I'm quite content! If you consider that your life was becoming too monotonous, go and amuse yourself by getting a piece of shrapnel into you, over yonder towards Epinal! That will wake you up a bit!"

He had beaten me. I contented myself with assuming a jeering expression, in order to let him think I had been pulling his leg.

CHAPTER X

EVENING, ON THE BOULEVARDS

It was time to go and dine. I bought a paper directly we got out. Laquarrière exclaimed:

"What thirst for news!"

"I admit it."

"And you expect to find it in the papers!"

It was a fact that I searched in vain for any definite news concerning the serious military and diplomatic situations. Always the same system of brief, touched-up telegrams. One would so much have liked to be certain of England's attitude. However, the theory of Italian neutrality seemed to be confirmed; one good point!

"What will the flying machines do?" I asked suddenly.

The subject interested me. I had visions of raids and fantastic combats à la Wells.

"Nothing at all!" Laquarrière broke in. "They haven't a ghost of a chance against Zeppelins."

He embarked on the praises of these Dreadnoughts of the air, one of which had gone two thousand kilometres without a stop, a few months before.

"I shouldn't be surprised to see them over Paris to-night!"

I tossed my head. He continued:

"Besides, as regards aeroplanes, you mustn't imagine that we're in any way superior to them in that line. They've beaten all our records lately, distance and height."

It was only one detail among many. He did not hide from me the fact that he had an extremely poor opinion of our state of preparation. Cipollina's tone and mistrust were repeated in him. I ventured to remark:

"Our troops in the East are tip-top."

He shrugged his shoulders.

"Perhaps, but you are hardly up to the same form."

What could one say without losing one's temper, a thing I was not in the least anxious to do.

After leaving the restaurant, we took a turn on the boulevards, where the increasing crowd was gathering. Lost in the streams of people, alternately bumped into or elbowed, it was impossible to keep up a connected conversation. So much the better. I was quite willing to forget the presence of my companion.

I was haunted by the thought that it was my last evening of liberty … ; after to-morrow my uniform would impose upon me the strictest restraint. I was making use of the final respite. I inhaled without displeasure the dusty air laden with the smells of acetylene gas and human emanations.

A lot of the shop windows had their shutters up and looked dismal, and looking up one could make out insolent German inscriptions. Angry bourgeois muttered as they passed, clenching their fists. People were talking of nothing but the hasty dismissals of the day before. The other shops flaunted their dazzling electric lights. The luminous sky-signs, intermittent and hallucinating, unrolled flamboyant zigzags and blazing coils. An unreal scene, well suited to the agitation of the hour! Soon it would be quenched and blotted out and dismal. … Paris was lavishing her final brilliance. What gaps were to be made by to-morrow's call in this multitude promenading their quivering city with such pride! I tried to read his secret on the face of each man of an eligible age for military service. Was he going to rejoin? and I felt inclined to shout to him:

"I'm going, you know; I'm one of you!"

My glance rested approvingly on the sturdy-looking fellows whose martial air under their képis I could well imagine. With their heads held high and their hands behind their backs, most of them looked about them with a superlatively good-natured expression, quite innocent of swagger.

Laquarrière shouted down my ear:

"You all look as if you were starting out for a day's shooting!"

Oh! so I looked like the rest? Well, I was not sorry for it!

My companion persuaded me to finish up the evening in a music hall.

The place was full. Lots of people were treating themselves to an evening's amusement before the coming horrors. There was a sketch, followed by several acrobatic turns. The audience was enthusiastic. But I was struck, nevertheless, by the coldness with which "the eccentric" Fergusson, usually the idol of the public, was received.

Laquarrière enlightened me by remarking:

"That will teach England to buck up a bit!"

We laughed together over the childishness of crowds, for this "eccentric" said to be a Londoner, had perhaps been born at Javel. The three Alkenkirch brothers, the Dresden tight-rope walkers, had also disappeared from the programme.

Laquarrière whispered:

"They would have been torn to pieces! Just look at the brutes."

I had to echo him, but I thought to myself that if ever there had been a time when Chauvinism was excusable. …

The show came to an end. There was not the usual rush for the doors when the curtain fell on the final scene of the little revue.

"The best part is still to come!" whispered my companion.

A murmur ran through the crowd, and swelled into "La Marseillaise! La Marseillaise!"

Laquarrière nudged me with his elbow.

"Now we're off!"

He assured me that the orchestra had had orders to delay striking up in order to give the audience time to work itself up.

True enough the uproar was increasing. The audience were on their feet, waving their sticks, and violently demanding:

"La Marseillaise!"

Laquarrière called my attention to the courtesans in the promenade, who, delighting in an evening which promised to be fruitful, stood on tiptoe leaning on the arms of their chance-met companions, and stamping and shouting: "La Marseillaise!"

The conductor's bâton gave three short taps. On the sudden abatement of the tumult, rose the superb rhythm of the opening notes—a virile introduction.

All the men had bared their heads simultaneously.

No; not all.

"Hats off!" shouted someone behind us.

For whom was the order meant? For Laquarrière, I could see. He shrugged his shoulders to show that it pleased him to thwart such a fool. But the moment was ill-chosen. Other voices, already grown threatening, repeated:

"Hats off! Hats off!"

He gave way, smiling scornfully.

The orchestra excelled themselves. At the opening of the refrain the general attention was caught and held by the imperative call of the repeated high note, and the feelings of the audience carried away by the well-marked rhythm of the melody. A warlike jollity was abroad. I swear I had a momentary vision of risen troops hurling themselves in serried ranks against the hostile masses. I shivered. I was entering into communion with the multitude. …

Laquarrière leant towards me and made some remark which I did not catch, but which I had to acknowledge with a smile. … My trance was over, I listened untroubled to the crash of the brasses, as it grew in intensity and rose headlong to the heights, to die away in wild flourishes. Then from two thousand throats there rose a clamour which rolled like thunder round the roof. A new thrill ran through me; I was just going to shout … when Laquarrière seized me by the arm.

"Let's be off!"

"Nice patriots!" he mocked; "all these fine fellows who came to gaze at a pretty pair of legs."

That restored things to their proper proportions.

"But what about you? It shook you up a bit, eh?"

I denied it obstinately.

He walked back with me. We talked of nothing but the most ordinary things on the way. I was preoccupied, almost melted. Why? … good heavens! because in a few minutes I was going to part from the only friend of my childhood, from the only fellow being who really knew me. …

Should we ever see each other again?

In spite of my instinctive horror of any display of feeling, I could not help imagining that some heartfelt word would pass between us, some brotherly embrace draw us closer to each other … and the prospect moved me.

Laquarrière soon settled the matter.

When we got to my door, he stopped suddenly and held out his hand saying:

"Well, so long, old chap! Hope your pack will weigh lightly on you!"

It just hit the nail on the head.

"So long, old chap!" I repeated.

He went off, swinging his stick.

Oh well, it was quite natural! We were nothing to each other. Nobody was anything to any one. … What idle fancies I had woven!

BOOK III

August 4th-9th

CHAPTER XI

THE FIRST STAGE

Montparnasse station—cold and grey on this dull August morning. Groups of people, each setting out with its escort, might be seen streaming in from all the neighbouring turnings towards the square which the last tooting trams were crossing. They formed but one swarm, scattered and renewed without ceasing. There was nothing like these huge quivering masses, the preoccupation of all Paris, magnificent in their emotion and courage, who succeeded each other at the Gare de L'Est. Poor women, young and old looking almost equally faded, were carrying old handkerchiefs containing the possessions of their husbands and sons—working-men in broad belts. Beside them, fathers wearing decorations and beautifully dressed mothers and sisters surrounded young bourgeois dragging heavy kit-bags. All these people were holding back their tears and smiling, saying that they would see each other again!

As for me, I was alone. I was leaving nothing behind me. So much the better; I was glad of it. I was starting on the great adventure, with an entirely open mind, in the rôle of an on-looker.

The two staircases were barricaded. Only one entrance was open, reserved for soldiers carrying their railway warrants in their hands. I followed the stream. We climbed the slope. From the road below passers-by made us signs of encouragement. I noted the quick sprightly steps of most of my companions. Mine were rather slower but firm and decided nevertheless. I unconsciously adopted the gait of a man who means to see the thing through.

I should, I thought, see nearly all my contemporaries in the regiment turning up at this meeting-place. I rejoiced at the thought of spying out, on each one's forehead, the reflection of his private feelings.

The comrades of my twenty-first year! There is no age at which a life lived in common is responsible for forming more attachments than this one, but I was among those who had made the fewest friends during those ten months. I had had a room to myself in town, while many of them agreed to share with two or three others. I was considered a bore; a report which I had started, a state of affairs which I exploited, in order to escape endless fatigues. Beyond that I was neither liked nor disliked. They mistrusted my coldly mystifying disposition, they envied me the calm insolence with which I defied my non-commissioned officers. When the time came for separation, and the exchange of addresses, I did as the others did; without any illusions; nobody would bother to look me up, I felt sure. I was mistaken. Someone did come: Guillaumin.

He was a grotesquely ugly chap, with a great thick red nose, short-sighted eyes, and a hoarse voice. A chatter-box, energetic and obliging, loved and chaffed by everyone. What should he do but get the idea into his head of keeping in touch with all those he had considered good fellows down there! And he had almost succeeded in doing so. He was the living index which one need only consult for information on the fate of all the old lot in our platoon. He dropped in to see me from time to time, on his way from the office where he vegetated as a clerk. We dined together on those evenings, and for him, I deserted Laquarrière, who, having caught sight of him one day, did not spare me his sarcasms on my grotesque "regimental friend."

I arrived in the station. It was swarming with reservists leaving to rejoin their regiment. Not many faces that I recognised. One already felt lost, and groups were formed instinctively.

The first one I shook hands with was Laraque, the handsome Laraque, whose rosy shaven face and marked features, prepossessing and imperious at the same time, gave him simultaneously the air of a Roman Emperor or of a ballad prince.

"Well, there we are!" he said. "Killing, what?"

"Killing, oh rather. Got your ticket?"

"What do you imagine! I think they might give us a free trip!"

His tone showed me where I was. I could see that it was going to be the proper thing to take everything as a joke. Not to show one's feelings in any way. … Good! We should see how long that would last! I should have my revenge as an on-looker.

Faron joined us, the son of the professor at the Sorbonne. He himself was a barrister, thin, energetic, and impenetrable. He buried himself in his newspapers. Then Holveck small and witty. He had just started a bank, with a branch in New York. Ladmiraut, an old Normalien with a puffy face and thick, hanging lips, an erudite pedant and a simple soul who used to be the picked target for all the practical jokes. Big Denais, the finished type of the don't-care-a-blow-for-any-one shover. Fortin, who had taken a degree in history, a lecturer and public speaker, not long returned from Germany, and already in search of a public.

It was a very lively scene. All meeting and recognising and calling to one another.

"Helloa Miquel, is that you?"

"What a nice surprise!"