Читать книгу Red Fleece - Will Levington Comfort - Страница 8

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Fallows met them in his small bleak room, turned the lamp low, and opened the door of the diminutive wood-stove to let the firelight in the room. The three sat around it.... Peter Mowbray felt strange and young beside them. The woman seemed to belong to this world, and it was a world at war with every existing power. All Peter's training resisted stubbornly. Still, right or wrong, there was a nobility about their stand. He did not need to be sure their vision was absolutely true, yet the suspicion developed that they saw more clearly than he, and acted more purely. Mowbray did not lack anything of valor, but he lacked the fire somehow. He loved Berthe Solwicz, could have made every sacrifice for her, but that was a concrete thing.

Fallow's bony knees were close to the fire. He seemed both light and deep, often turning to Peter with secret intentness, and openly regarding the young woman with amazement and delight. Nearing fifty, Fallows was tall, thin and tanned. The deep lines of his face were those which make a man look homely to himself, but often interesting to others. His soft, low-collared shirt was somewhat of a spectacle in consideration of the angular and weathered neck. No rest could exist in the room that contained such loneliness as burned from his eyes. It was said that he had been rich, though everything about him was poor now. One would suspect the articles in his pockets to be meager and of poor quality—the things you might find in a peasant's coat. That which he called home was a peasant's house in the Bosk hills—the house of the plowman of Liaoyang, whose children he fathered. Annually, however, he went abroad, telling the story of the underdog, usually making the big circuit from the East to the West, and stopping at a certain little cabin within hearing distance of the whistles of Manhattan, where his first disciple worked in solitude mainly, and against the stream. Just now Fallows was planning a different winter's work.... They talked of the first fighting.

“The startling thing to realize is that for the present we are allied with England,” said Fallows. “I mean Russia. You see, I am Russian, now, not the Russia of the Bear, but of the Man—”

Mowbray and the woman exchanged glances, each thinking of the tea-cup in the afternoon.... The exile showed traces of his ten years' training among simple men. Rhetoric and dithyramb were gone from his speech and habit of mind. The whole study and vision of the man was to make his words plain. Thus he said slowly:

“The peasants are children—children in mind and soul. We who have come a little farther are responsible for them, as a father is responsible for his children. So far we have wronged them, taught them to grasp instead of to give, to look down instead of up. We have even stolen from them the fruits of their looking down. The time is near at hand when we shall have to pay for all this.... A true father would die for his children. I know men who have done that, and there are men about us here, even in Warsaw tonight, who are ready for that—”

Fallows' voice was tender. He watched the face of the woman as he spoke. She was looking hard into the fire.

Fallows added: “There are fifty million men here in Russia—roughly speaking. Very strong, very simple, possibly very brutal men, but brutal as a fine dog is brutal, a simplicity about that. I do not idealize them. I have lived among them. I know this: They might be led to virtue, instead of to wickedness. My heart bleeds for them being led to slaughter again. The hard thing is to make them see, but the reason for that is simple, too. If they could see—they would not be children. They must be led. Never in modern history have they been purely led. Words cannot make them see; wars so far have not made them see. It may be that the sufferings and heroisms of this war shall be great enough to make them see....”

“What would you have the peasants see first?” Peter asked.

“Their real fathers—that men of wisdom and genius are the true fathers of the Fatherland, not the groups of predatory men. True fathers would die for their children. To me it has been blasphemy, when the nations of the past have called themselves Fatherlands. I would have the peasants fathered by men who realize that the peasants are the strength and salt of the earth; men who realize that the plan of life is good—that the plan of life is for concord and service each to the other—that the hate of man for man is the deadly sin, the hell of the world—that the fields and all the treasures of the mother earth are for those who serve and aspire, and not for those who hold fast, look down and covet more.”

Mowbray was interested in the fact that Fallows had passed the stage of eloquence and scorn and burning hatred against evil in persons and institutions. There was no hue and cry about his convictions. He seemed to live in continual amazement at the slowness with which the world moves—the slowness to a man who is ahead and trying to pull his people along. Moreover there was that final wisdom which Fallows revealed from time to time—momentary loss of the conviction that he himself was immortally right. Fallows saw, indeed, that a man may be atrociously out of plumb, even to the point of becoming a private and public nuisance, when allowed to feed too long alone on the strong diet of his own convictions.... An hour sped by. Fallows replenished the fire and turned to Berthe Solwicz.

“All evening you've had something in your mind to tell me and I've been giving forth. You must forgive a man for so many words—when he has been living with little children so long. What is it?”

“Just a reading of a tea-cup to-day—but everything you said has its meaning concerned in it.”

“I'm almost as interested in tea-cups as in the stars,” said Fallows.

“You know a toy-bear, such as the Germans make?”

“Yes—”

“Well, it would have been like that—if one were thinking of toys. We thought of the Russian Bear. It was perfect—in the bottom of the cup—standing up, walking like a man—huge paunch, thick paws held out pathetically, legs stretched out, just as he would be, rocking, you know—”

Fallows bowed seriously. Mowbray turned his smile to the shadows.

“Near him,” Berthe added, “was a Russian soldier—perfect—fur cap, high boots, tightly belted, very natty—more perfect than we see in the streets, as if drawn from ideal. He was stabbing the bear with a long pole, leisurely—”

“It was a rifle and bayonet,” said Peter. “We both saw it, but didn't speak until now. He was churning the bayonet around in the great paunch as if feeling for the vitals. The bear looked large and helpless.”

Fallows' bronzed head had sunk upon his chest. His eyes, red with firelight, seemed lost to all expression. “I was thinking it would happen in Germany first,” he said.

A moment afterward he added: “There's a time when a man wants to die for what he believes, and another time when he's afraid he will die before he gets a chance to make his life count.”

Again he paused, and then looked up to Mowbray. “It's a good omen. That's the real war.... And was it your cup?”

“Yes.”

“You say that you are going out for the Galician service?”

“Yes, possibly with Kohlvihr's column.”

“You will see much service,” said Fallows. “That used to be our dream—to see service. It will be easier seen with the Russians. They are not so modern in method as the French or Germans, or even the Japanese. Of course, war is the same. The nation at the end will win on the fields, not in the skies. The sky fulfillment is reserved for a better utility than war. But war belongs under the sea.... You will not be suppressed so rigidly with the Russians. You will see the side of the war which will have the most bearing on the future. I do not believe France and Germany are in the future as Russia is—”

“And England?” Peter asked quickly.

“The key to that is the wealth of the Indies—as of yore.”

“You mean if India remains loyal?”

“If India remains under the yoke.”

“But, if Britain should preserve her tenure in India with the Japanese troops—” Peter suggested.

Fallows shuddered. “As yet I can see no philosophy under heaven to cover that.”

“And you think Britain and Russia are enemies in spite of this alliance?”

“Enemies, temperamental and structural—enemies, past and future.”

Peter recurred to this point: “You think that India would not remain loyal if she had arms?”

“I was in a little village of the Punjab two years ago,” Fallows replied, “and there was a lad of sixteen there, wonderful in promise—a mind, a spirit. They could not raise in the village enough money to send him across the seas steerage for his education. A single rifle costs nearly three pounds. It is hard for us to realize how poor India is.”

Peter stood fast against this in his mind; his intellect would not accept.... “Are you going to take the field again, Mr. Fallows?”

“Not in a newspaper way. I shall nurse wounded soldiers. At least they have accepted me.... These are fearful and amazing days. We have all been in a kind of long feeding dream, like the insects, accumulating energy and terrible power for these days. Such death as we shall see!”

There was silence.

“I wonder how they are taking it in America?” Fallows mused.

“Doubtless as an opportunity for world-trade,” said Peter.

“Oh, I hope not!” the exile said passionately. “There must be another America.”

Fallows placed his hands on Berthe's shoulders, looking down: “You make me think of a young woman I once knew,” he said. “Not that you look like her—but that you have the same zeal for something.... You are a very true daughter of your father—”

“You knew him?” she said huskily.

“We all knew him—we who dare to think we look ahead. When he died, his courage came to all of us. We were changed. If it had not been a pure and durable thing—his courage would have died with him. It is wonderful for me to be here with you. And this man loves you.”

It was not a question, just a fragmentary utterance of a fine moment. Fallows said it as a man who has passed on, and yet loves to study the lives and loves of younger men. Even to Mowbray the feeling came for an instant that he was part of the solution to which they gave themselves.

“I have not told him of my father. He does not know my name,” Berthe said. “But I am going to tell him—before he goes.”

“He is safe,” said Fallows. “I felt free with him—almost immediately—and that picture in the tea-cup!... Peter Mowbray, Peter Mowbray. It is a good name. And you are going out on the big story of the war for The States. You will see great things—best of all with the Russian columns. There will be an Austerlitz every day—a Liaoyang every day. I was in Manchuria with a man who made that his battle. I wonder if he will come out this time—to find how his dream of brotherhood is faring? God, how he took to that dream! He will be a Voice—”

They were standing. Fallows suddenly reached for his cap. “I'll go out with you—just to get out. The room is too small for me to-night.”

Yet, when they reached the street, he left them abruptly, as if he had already said too much.

“He seems to be burning up,” said Peter.

Berthe did not answer.

“He was like Zarathustra coming down from the mountain—so shockingly full of power,” Peter added. “And yet he said so little of his own part.”

“He couldn't, Peter. He's like you—when moments are biggest.... Oh, Peter, where do you keep your passion?”

“You mean this great burning that Fallows knows?”

“Yes.”

“I haven't it. I haven't that passion. I think I am just a reporter. But you have it.... My father loved his family. I think your father must have loved the world—”

“But you love the world—”

“No, I love you.”

“Peter, Peter—come to-morrow! Don't come in with me to-night!”

Peter went to his rooms at once. He was struck hard, but merely showed a bit weary. He found himself objecting to characteristics of Fallows' mind, the same which he had admired and delighted in from Berthe. She had always talked easily of death, and he had been without criticism; now he disliked the casual mention of death in Fallows' talk.

Peter saw that he was sore, and hated himself for it. Fallows personally was ready for death; therefore he had the right to counsel martyrdoms for others if he wished. Death to Peter, however, was not strictly a conversational subject. If a man were ready to die for another, it was not good taste to say so. Still he forced himself to be just, by thinking of Fallows' life.

Fallows somehow had turned a corner that he, Peter Mowbray, had not come to so far. Self-hypnotized, or not, the exile had given up everything in life to make the world better as he saw it. He had written and traveled and talked and plotted, even vowed himself to poverty, all for the good of the under-dog.

“It isn't fanaticism, when you come to look at it,” Peter mused. “He sees it clearly, and makes one see it for the moment of listening. He isn't afraid. He would die every day for it, if he could.... And I take things as I find them, and grin. I wouldn't even have thought otherwise, except for Berthe. I have a suspicion that I'm half-baked.”

Peter's mind was engaging itself thus feverishly, to avoid the main issue that the woman had flung him from her, and run to cover, stuffing her ears, so to speak, and asking him not to follow. He braced himself now and faced it. “If it happened to another pair, I should say it was the finish,” he thought. “I should say that no man and woman could pass a rock like that.... I can't get to her point of view by thinking myself there. I'm cold—that's the word. And she's superb. I'd rather be her friend than lord of any other woman. That won't change. And she has spoiled everything I thought I knew. Altogether—it's a game, bright little story—and deep.”

Lonegan came in and flung himself down wearily.

“I've been busy. Boylan is leaving in thirty-six hours. You're going with him?”

“I'm ready,” said Peter.

“Did you have a big time?”

“Yes.”

“What do you think of Fallows now?”

“I'm strong for him.”

“Peter—you look bushed.”

“It drains a man to spend an evening in that company. A fellow has to have a heavy lid—not to waste fire.”

Lonegan was worried. “You don't mean to say you're getting fevers and emotions.”

“I'm threatened.”

“Mowbray—you're lying. I don't believe you'd let anybody see your fires—not even how well you bank 'em. It isn't in you.”

“I wish it were,” said Peter.