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Bordeaux

My last night on the soil of France. To-morrow I leave for America, and for a brief, incredible two months go back into the life that was once mine, but which to-night is incomprehensible, strange and unreal. I am writing in a little bedroom of the Hotel de l’Europe, fitfully awake, and stirred at the thought of the change as I never had believed possible. I don’t quite know this sudden self that is come so imperiously into my mood. I am older by a dozen years than this morning,—and by a mental decision that I feel deep down in my heart has been made. To-night I believe has brought a crisis in my life. I am not quite sure of my motives; I do not know that I wish to examine them too closely. But to-night the old rebellion against the obvious in life has somehow left me. I am conscious of a new point of view. Acceptance of life, a middle-age philosophy, a yielding to safe currents? Yes, all of these and, perhaps, most of all, just an overpowering homesickness,—the cry in my heart to be back among my own kind. For all of which I have Mr. Brinsmade to thank and the strangest of strange confidences.

* * * * *

It began quite naturally and I had not the slightest suspicion of any serious purpose. We were dining in a papier-maché grotto of the celebrated Chapon Fin when, in the midst of the meal, he looked over at me and said abruptly:

“David, ever thought of getting out of the service?”

The question took me by surprise, coming so close to thoughts that had haunted me for weeks.

“At times, when I get the cafard,” I admitted. “Every one does.”

“How long have you been in the Legion?”

“Over two years, now. There isn’t much of the glamor left, sir. It gets to be a long drag without much light ahead.” A little regretful of my frankness, I sought to justify myself. “You see, I went into it from the spirit of adventure; it was a man’s job. I don’t say it wasn’t also from love of the French. You couldn’t have seen that mobilization and not have felt a thrill. Then—you do hate a bully. At bottom, though, it was the adventure,—the biggest thing that had ever happened in the world. You couldn’t be there and keep out of it.”

“But now—?”

“Now the thrill is gone,” I admitted. “It’s grim plugging, not much fireworks or new business. When you’ve seen Verdun—”

“Yes?”

“When you’ve gone through that,” I said, frowning at the starting memories of that inferno, “it takes it out of you.”

“It ages you—” he interrupted, looking at me.

“It’s hideous—horrible. I wake up at night even now and then and feel myself back in it. You can’t imagine it. I can’t describe it. You go in because you’re a soldier and a man,—that’s all. You expect to die—you know you’re going to die; all there is to it is a blind rage for killing and a prayer to die quickly when it comes.”

My hand was trembling and my eyes must have taken on that strange far-off glaze which we bring back out of battle, for he stopped me with a sudden grip on my arm.

“Here! That’s doing you no good. We’ll talk of other things.”

I looked at my hand, which was shaking, and feeling an attack of nerves impending, I rose hurriedly and left the room.

“It takes you like that,” I said, when I had fought it out and returned. “I’m sorry. I’m much better now. I don’t get it often.”

He looked at me gravely.

“Good heavens, man! Are you going back in that condition?”

“It won’t take a month to get me in shape.”

“It still attracts you?”

“I hate it.”

“Why, then?”

“Because,” I said, shrugging my shoulders, “because I hate this other thing more,—this sitting out of it, when real men are doing!”

He hesitated, and then leaned forward.

“David, if you ever make up your mind—if you feel you need a longer time to pull yourself together—or if you want to get out—let me know. That’s all.”

This hurt more than he could understand, and my answer must have been brusque, for though he spoke out of affection for me, he deserved it.

“Look here, Mr. Brinsmade, I don’t want things done that way.”

“I only meant—”

“Thank you, but there’s too much of that, already. Question of pride; that’s all.”

He was tactful enough not to insist and turned the conversation. Towards the end of the dinner, and a magnificent bottle of Château Margot 1896, he said to me:

“David, you are a hard man to talk to.”

“Oh, no—if you talk directly.”

“All right: suppose I do. Let’s talk about Anne.”

“About Anne!” I exclaimed, taken off my guard.

“Suppose I should tell you, point-blank, I want you for my son-in-law? Well, what astonishes you? My frankness?”

“Why sir, it’s very kind of you,” I began lamely, “but, Anne—?”

“Exactly. As to Anne,—I’m convinced she cares, always has cared,” he said, leaning forward. “I know something happened. I don’t know whether you want to talk about it. Really, I should appreciate—”

The interview had taken such an extraordinary turn that I found myself, without surprise, answering:

“Mr. Brinsmade, quite frankly, I am not in love with Anne.”

“I know that now, but—”

“Once, for a time,—yes, I thought so. But neither of us had the right to be thinking of such things, then. It was a boy and girl affair.”

“Quite sure that was all?”

“Quite. The trouble was I showed her what I felt, or thought I felt, and from that came the inevitable complication and misunderstanding. We were both very stubborn. Mr. Brinsmade, there’s another thing, since we’re speaking plainly,” I added, suddenly impelled to frankness. “Do you realize that in these years many things have come into my life? I wonder if you would feel as you do—”

“David, you have been tried; that shows in your face,” he said, looking at me keenly. “I have been a young man myself, and I don’t pretend to misunderstand you. Perhaps this is unfair to you—”

“Mr. Brinsmade, there was a woman—I almost went on the rocks two years ago,” I said abruptly, and immediately regretted it.

“Are you your own master to-day?”

“Yes—thank God.”

“Absolutely certain?”

“Absolutely.”

“That’s all I want to know,” he said, as though satisfied by the estimate of his own eyes. “I appreciate your confidence, and like you for it. I’m not partisan for the wild oats theory but, sometimes, when you’ve been through the mill, it does leave you with a sense of values.” Our eyes met, and each nodded in silent comprehension.

“Now, let’s go on. Was there ever a question of pride in it—on your side?”

“Frankly and naturally, yes. I have no intention of going through life on my wife’s pocketbook.”

“Good. Now the decks are cleared. As I thought. You’ve been frank. So’ll I. Take up this question of money. What is money? Opportunity. If men like yourself, who have ideas, energy, and ambition, refuse to take the opportunity money offers you,—who profits? Some well-groomed little parasite who will loaf through life genteelly until the day when the real people rise and take it away from him. And quite right, I say. And that is what I don’t intend to have for my daughter.” He cited names of men, men in public life of our acquaintance, whose start in life had been facilitated by the fortunes of their wives. “Look at it from my point of view. I’ve made what I’ve made, and I want it to count in this world. David, what do you intend to do in life?”

I shrugged my shoulders.

“Fight through the war.”

“But, after?”

“After!” I said incredulously. “I may take up the study of architecture again, unless—unless I am able to do what I really want,—which is to write.”

“So I supposed. Don’t decide quickly. The current is all the other way. We are a country of action, and you’ve got that in you. I don’t make mistakes in men. The real Americans are not those who sit and meditate; they are those who are laying the foundations. Write? What is the future? Deceptions. You know I’m not a low-brow, as they say. Every night, before I go to sleep, I read an hour in Balzac. Books are half my life, so what I say to you I say without narrowness. But what are our writers to-day? The servants of a great public that wants to be amused, diverted in moments of relaxation; a great mass that is striving, combating, contending,—a public of children. Is that all you want to do? Amuse them? Write for yourself: you’ll be over their heads—misunderstood—if not ridiculed! The current is against you. We move rapidly, and we read rapidly; a moment to laugh or dream, as we read on the train. Hard for you,—yes, but what do individuals count, to-day?” He laid his hand on my arm. “Commerce, science, public affairs. You like a man’s job. That’s where it lies, and it’s our kind that must lead. Jump into the fight. Wealth and education are not only opportunities but responsibilities: that’s what we must understand. I said I want you as my son-in-law, Davy. It’s more than that: I want to invest what I’ve made in a man that counts. I want you with me. I want to feel when it comes time for me to step out that I’m passing on the power to count for big things to some leadership I’ve inspired.”

He talked some while in this strain and, despite myself, I felt myself yielding to his persuasion. Brinsmade is not a selfish man. Among his own friends he was looked at rather askance for his progressive tendencies. I found myself thinking, with pride, “Here is a man, thoroughly American, who has a sentiment of nationality; who does not look at life from a detached point of view but has a sense of being one in a multitude with a higher loyalty than his own interests—loyalty to the name he bears—and a pride in the America that will come!”

I think he saw the effect he had produced on me and, shrewd lawyer that he was, he did not insist. I left him, exceedingly flattered and already inclined to the pleasant ways he opened to me.

* * * * *

Just why I should feel any compunction is the thing that surprises me, now. Yet I do feel,—well, if not compunction, a little uneasiness. After all, up to now, whatever I have done has been done impulsively, without a second thought as to the advantages or disadvantages to me. This is another thing. For the first time, I am looking on life with a middle-aged estimating of values,—and to-night is like a valedictory to a youth that has fled.

In one way I almost resent the very frankness of his discussion with me. For now I am somehow uneasily conscious that there must be a certain grim deliberation about my future conduct. And I ask myself again, “Is this a new phase of life into which I have entered,—a new milestone left behind?”

* * * * *

There are other things which haunt me. I know that with Brinsmade’s influence with the French Government it would be an easy thing for him to procure my discharge and, under the circumstances, with my past record and my present condition, who could criticize me? I have the feeling that this is in the back of his mind, and looking ahead and wondering what may happen when I meet Anne again, I cannot help wondering if to-night I am not stepping out from the bonds which have forged my destiny here to a foreign land, to those whose every thought and action is strange to my traditions. The thing is so obvious I cannot avoid facing it. If only it had come unperceived and by hidden ways: would it have been easier for my pride and my self-respect?

* * * * *

The trouble is that during my convalescence I have been aware that the terrific strain on my physical energy has left a moral inclination towards the easy way through the future. This physical and moral vitality in us is of course inseparable. I have noticed that as men’s bodies grow old a tolerance of social laxities comes with it. Women in moments of physical exhaustion are most vulnerable. The effect of shell-shock on the moral fabric, even in officers of the highest character, is well known. And then, there is something else. Comrades of mine, who have fought with me with unimaginable bravery, return from death with the feeling that they have spent all their vital energy and looking to society to assure their future, as a right acquired.

To-night I feel old, with the sense of duty accomplished. I have done quite enough, I tell myself, in my passage through the inferno of war. If now, when opportunity offers, it pleases me to dispense with the bruising struggle for existence, who has the right to judge of my actions? Certainly not those who have not dared what I have dared.

* * * * *

All this is really rather morbid: both my will and my body have given beyond their strength and are still convalescent, or I should not be troubled with such sickly doubts. Well—who knows? Is this a mood, or a decision? To-night, frankly, I feel I have done enough to have earned my right to rest. Let others do their part. Milestone Number 4.